Catching Up with Souvenir

Today my reviews of 12 Angry Men at Ferndale Rep (ongoing) and North Coast Prep's The Crucible (last weekend) appear in the print edition of the NC Journal, tomorrow on their online site, and expanded versions here Friday (or so.)

I still have a few local shows and some other news to write about here, so I'll begin catching up with the Humboldt Light Opera's brief run of Souvenir, a two-hander about Florence Foster Jenkins, a self-financed singer notable for being terrible--though her concert and recording career lasted 32 years.

As staged by Jean Bazemore, the play hit some fascinating notes, about the relationship of inner and outer beauty, and the vulnerability of artists with something to express but dependent on others to define them as good, and allow them to express it. This is done partly through the counterpoint of her pianist, Cosme McMoon, who starts out with her while he works at writing songs, but eventually stays with her when nobody wants the songs he's written. And then he faces the irony of finally hearing one of his songs sung at Carnegie Hall--by Florence Foster Jenkins, who of course sings it very badly.

With shades of black and tan, and a glow around silhouetted skyscrapers outside the window, Gerald Beck’s set easily evoked 1940s New York. The lighting was also impressive, particularly in key scenes. Kevin Richards was charming and convincing as the accompanist Cosme McMoon, and Carol Ryder was luminously “bad” as Mrs. Foster Jenkins, who did in fact sing at Carnegie Hall, and died a month later. “Toscanini sent flowers,” McMoon tells us, and though the play goes on for another five minutes, that said it all for me.

I spoke with Carol Ryder at halftime of The Crucible opening night, and asked her about the challenge for a trained and experienced singer of singing badly . She said the difficulty was technical at first--she was straining her voice. But then she studied recordings of Mrs. Jenkins more closely, because after all, she said, Mrs. Jenkins sang long concert programs for all those years, without losing her voice. And by figuring out how she did it, Carol Ryder found her own "bad" voice.

She also mentioned something really poignant about Foster Jenkins that I don't remember being in the play. In the play, FFJ claims she has perfect pitch--when it's evident that she can't keep a tune, and her pitch is way off. Carol Ryder said that in fact she may have actually had perfect pitch as a child, but as a result of an illness she received a series of mercury treatments that damaged her hearing, so she may have lost the ability to hear the pitch she was singing accurately. What a fascinating story.