A review of ‘The Sound of Music’

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Although we tend to think of Broadway musicals as grand spectacles with big casts, extravagant sets and huge production numbers, the past decade has seen a counter-trend: the minimal musical — for example, a Sweeney Todd in which cast members double as the orchestra.

Festival 56’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music” is not so tiny, but Director Dexter Brigham and the Festival 56 technical crew have honed the show into a gem-like setting in the intimate Grace Theatre.

Adam Spencer’s unit set, a series of gothic arches and tracery cutouts, triples as Nonnburg Abbey, the Von Trapp villa, and the snow-capped Alps themselves. The gray stonework of the arches, along with similarly black and white opening costumes, also suggests the strictures the heroine Maria encounters both in the abbey and in the Von Trapp household, a monochromatic scheme that remains unbroken until the appearance of the Von Trapp children in their play clothes cut from old curtains. Brigham has added a frame to the story, with an aged Captain returning to the scenes of his first meeting with the young postulant Maria, an interesting idea but somewhat under-realized and perhaps too evocative of a similar device in “The Diary of Anne Frank.”

One aspect of the small set and small cast is that Nonnburg Abbey, usually presented as a rather grand establishment, becomes a very small community. In fact, the Abbess herself takes her turn at the washboard during “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria” — which is also punctuated by the naysaying Sister Berthe (Nancy Evans) taking out some of her frustration with a dustbeater on an innocent area rug. The show’s opening “Preludium,” lit only by candles, is particularly effective because we are able to see the nuns as individual points of light, rather than a mass.

Kristen O’Connell plays a joyous Maria with a beautiful singing voice. A nice touch is given to “Do-Re-Mi” when Maria pauses to think of an appropriate imagery for each pitch-syllable, which also gives the children time to react, first with some suspicion, and then with growing enjoyment. Four of the Von Trapp girls are double-cast. The Friday night cast — Tara Kunkel, Jenna Grimmer, Emma Roden and Abigail Kamke, along with Doran Cotter, Carl Schneider, and Melissa Joiner — began as tough-cookie kids that one can easily imagine driving off 11 previous governesses.

Joiner, as Liesl, performs “I Am Sixteen” with Scott Lilly as Rolf as a beautiful duet of teens egging each other on, with Liesl doing as much leading as Rolf. The pair dance beautifully together, though I wish Lilly had utilized more of his richer chest voice throughout the song, rather than slipping into his more nasal “character” voice.

The show uses the musical line-up of the movie version of the musical, including the Captain and Maria’s “Something Good” duet. “The Lonely Goatherd” is hinted at several times before finally revealing itself in the family’s farewell appearance/escape as a charming and humorous showcase for the Von Trapp kids.

Matt Scott gives a fine performance as the strict Captain, pairing well with O’Connell, but less well with Gabriel Murphy’s Max and Laura Brigham’s Baroness, who seem to have infiltrated from a slightly campier universe. Which is not to say that Murphy’s theatrical self-absorption (which we see crumble in the second act) and Brigham’s amazing exit reactions are not appropriate and appreciated comic relief.

Alexander Pawlowski, as Herr Zeller, and Matt Folsom, as the turncoat butler Franz, are a two-man Anschluss, chillingly conveying the face of the Third Reich without the need for stormtroopers or jack-boots. Donovan Kidd, the third representative of the New Order, as Admiral Von Schreiber, might have been more effective had he been provided with a uniform, beyond a black eye patch.

“The Sound of Music” runs through Sunday at the Grace Theatre. There are also two more late-night cabaret performances left — at 10:30 p.m. Friday and at 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Having attended two cabaret performances, I can say that these are a great way of seeing another side of the Festival 56 cast and crew — in a slightly more grown-up venue.