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IN REVIEW: Actors Theatre and UMKC Theatre collaborate for “Oh, What a Lovely War!”

“Oh, What a Lovely War!” is a curious piece of theater, a combination epic musical, black farce and history lesson that does not preach but still manages to “bring home” the horrors of war—in this case World War I. The Kansas City Actors Theatre production that opened on February 17th, a collaboration with UMKC Theatre and the National World War I Museum, is played with enthusiasm and youthful energy by more than a dozen Pierrot-costumed student actors. Despite a general tendency toward the frenetic, the show benefits from the professional contributions of Phil Fiorini as the Master of Ceremonies and John Rensenhouse as the British Field Marshal Douglas Haig.Originally created by Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop for the British stage in 1963, it is performed, appropriately, in the J.C. Nichols Auditorium at the World War I Museum, an airy and comfortable space that smaller theater companies could make more use of.

The 30-odd songs utilized to tell the story of the war are from the period, drawn from popular tunes, war songs, burlesque ditties and the like. Some are aptly dark in both message and mood, like “Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire” with its somber strain and its image of corpses of soldiers shot and left to die—while their officers sit comfortably safe in the rear guard. Others stand in jarring contrast to the information being transmitted, as when “Pack Up Your Troubles” is followed by the news that 300,000 troops were lost in a single month. (The ongoing news of casualties is transmitted above the stage on a Times Square-like news scroll, with commentary:  1.3 million lives lost in the Battle of Somme, “Gain: nil.”) In fact if there is an aspect to this musical I found a bit off-pitch, it is the dearth of songs possessing a deeper emotional heft appropriate to death and suffering. Black comedy is black comedy, yes, but there’s only so far you can go with light-hearted tunes toward expressing the vast tragedy of 9 million deaths. After a while the ditziness of these song-and-dance numbers grows vaguely annoying.

But there is much to recommend in this production, directed with a sure hand by UMKC’s Barry Kyle and featuring a live band stage left and simple, effective scenic and lighting design by Erin Walley and Richard Sprecker. The barely legible commands that Phil Fiorini roars at his platoon, Full Metal Jacket-style, provided a stretch of genuine, if over-the-top, comedy. The Christmas Eve gathering between Germans and Brits—an impromptu truce revealing the unity of common soldiers—was touching, deftly played without being maudlin. “Oh, It’s a Lovely War!”—the song that generated the play’s title—was followed by lists of tens of thousands of casualties, highlighting the irony of war’s glory versus its grim statistics. Moreover, grainy archival photographs projected overhead—of soldiers, bombs, gassings, battles, corpses—provided a continual reality-check in the midst of all the soft-shoe.

John Rensenhouse as General Haig, complete with a glimmer of madness in his eyes, provided a sort of dramatic arc to Act 2, as his initial iron resolve (“Every step I take is determined by divine will”) gave way to uncertainty and despair at the mounting losses. The final “sheep to the slaughter” scene provided another sharply ironic moment, as a whole platoon is machine-gunned down to the words “twas the cushiest job we ever had!” “Oh, What a Lovely War!” is told in broad strokes, and though it’s not as funny as you think it should be, it captures much of the spirit of this remote time and place. It runs through February 27th. For tickets call 816-235-6222.

To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send email to phorsley@sbcglobal.net.

Paul Horsley, Performing Arts Editor 

Paul studied piano and musicology at WSU and Cornell University. He also earned a degree in journalism, because writing about the arts in order to inspire others to partake in them was always his first love. After earning a PhD from Cornell, he became Program Annotator for the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he learned firsthand the challenges that non profits face. He moved to KC to join the then-thriving Arts Desk at The Kansas City Star, but in 2008 he happily accepted a post at The Independent. Paul contributes to national publications, including Dance Magazine, Symphony, Musical America, and The New York Times, and has conducted scholarly research in Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic (the latter on a Fulbright Fellowship). He also taught musicology at Cornell, LSU and Park University.

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