As a Rodgers and Hart musical from the late 1930s,
The Boys from Syracuse is
naturally full of songs you didn’t know you knew – Sing for Your Supper, This
Can’t Be Love, Falling in Love with Love – but it is also a story that you may
very well be familiar with. George Abbott’s book relocates the action to
Ancient Greece and refocuses it firmly onto the romantic entanglements therein
but the tale is Shakespeare’s story of identical Antipholi and Dromios let loose
in Ephesus – it’s a rom-Comedy of Errors, with tunes.
Ben De Wynter’s production plays to the typical strengths of the Union Theatre
- pulling together a sizeable ensemble full of youthful freshness, stripping
back musical arrangements to their innate simplicity and creating choreography
that pushes the intimate boundaries of this fringe venue. And it mostly
succeeds in these three as mistaken identities abound with the arrival of
Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse into the town of Ephesus, where their long-lost
twins are in residence, causing mayhem with friends and family alike.
Much of the comedy is played with a knowing wink, jazz hands aplenty and
mugging galore. Matthew Cavendish and Alan McHale as the two Dromios are best
here, their natural ebullience barely ground down by the constant
misunderstandings and their various interactions with wife, to one of them at
least, Luce, a twinkle-eyed scold given great life by Natalie Woods. Kaisa
Hammarlund’s courtesan is the vivacious highlight though, her ‘Oh, Diogenes’ sparkles
with life and feels like a direct line to old-school Hollywood glamour and
glitz.
Elsewhere though, the magic only really comes alive in the ensemble numbers.
The sweet-voiced romantic leads lack enough chemistry to make their duets and
interactions really fly and too often, we’re left craving the dazzling effect
of a cast of 18 filling the stage with song and dance. Mark Smith’s
choreography doesn’t always push as hard as it could either – the extended
ballet sequence that closes Act 1 drags where it should delight and the
delicious rendition of Sing for Your Supper comes with an interlude that could
do more to impress (or leave it to the singers and their more than capable moves). But The Boys from Syracuse is undoubtedly a frothy delight, particularly in its
second act, and crucially has both great charm and great tunes which take it a
long way.