" ... very possibly the funniest play of the summer season"

August 19, 2005 performance, reviewed by Frances Benn Hall

Souvenir, a play with music by Stephen Temperley, now playing at the Berkshire Theatre Festival before moving on to Broadway, is very possibly the funniest play of the summer season. (And with Wilde and Stoppard competing for laughs, that is saying a great deal.)

This is not just a two character musical with a couple of costumes. Based on the biography of a remarkable woman, Florence Foster Jenkins, it is a play with a plot and the would-be diva heroine wears enough costumes (fantastic and wildly creative) to outfit a chorus line.

Florence, played astonishingly by the talented Judy Kaye whose every facial expression, every gesture, is on key, was a remarkable, and unstoppable woman. The idea came to her miraculously that she could hear music in her head and thus sing it. It was indeed a miraculous idea since she was tone-deaf and unable to carry a tune, let alone recognize any pitch.

But, miraculously again, she suddenly came into money and could indulge in her chosen career. She began modestly singing to groups in wealthy Newport homes, moved on to bigger venues such as the Ritz ball room filled with invited guests.

And then stumbled on Cosme McMoon, a would-be composer, who worked as an accompanist to eke out a living in his own unsuccessful career. And seeing a good thing when she saw it, Florence latched onto Cosmo for the next 12 years of her career.

That career is documented for the audience by McMoon, played brilliantly, hilariously, ruefully, and sympathetically, by the talented Donald Corren. The captive pianist whom Florence drags, he protesting all the way, through ever bigger venues which Florence, who becomes a cult figure, climbs in the musical world.

Eventually her singing, with him reluctantly accompanying her, is recorded on four records (now collector items) and he agonizing at his name on the label. But the greatest indignity occurs when together they not only play Carnegie Hall, but 2000 would-be attendees are turned away. At that performance his opera, sung by her, is murdered for ever, lost in the hysterical laughter of the audience which is so extreme that even the tone-deaf Florence almost becomes aware of it.

And yet, for all the humiliation McMoon suffers for Florence (she even praised him as "an accompanist on one’s own level"), he developed for this misguided soul, a real tenderness and when she almost understands her Carnegie fiasco for what it was, he, staggered that she was allowed to sing in a hall he felt hallowed because he has heard Heifitz play there, spares her the truth.

She died a month later, age 79, in a Broadway music store, happy and unenlightened to the end.

Watching this play, one is amazed that one can be so wildly entertained by singing that is so dreadful. Be assured, one can be. You will hear Verdi and Mozart sung as you have never heard them sung before.

Costume designer, Tracy Christensen, has created a dazzling array of costumes. (Florence felt each song demanded its own costume and often its own dance and dramatic gestures; this made for rapid changes at Carnegie Hall). Scenic and lighting designers, R. Michael Miller and Ann G. Wrightson serve the play well. As for the directing, Vivian Matalon has timed and paced the play to perfection and has guided her two stars brilliantly along the right path though the bewildering musical career of Florence Foster Jenkins, a woman, whom once you have heard her sing, you will never forget!

End note, possibly of interest to Berkshire audiences:

Kirsten Flagstad considered one of the finest sopranos of her time had little in common with Florence. Besides the fact that both sang Wagner—Flagstad brilliantly, Jenkins hilariously—the only thing they shared was their favorite accompanist, Edwin McArthur.

Though Flagstad used all her considerable pull to land McArthur, a.k.a. McMoon, the position of Wagnerian chief, he was passed over for Erich Leinsdorf, who eventually became musical director of the BSO. McArthur, who worked with Florence at the beginning of his career, died in 1987, age 79, 44 years after the divine Florence.

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