Celebration: A Review

In the late 1960s, the American musical faced an identity crisis.

The decade’s big hits – Hello Dolly, Fiddler on the Roof, Man of La Mancha, Cabaret – seemed like swan songs of a dying era.

Rock and roll replaced show tunes on the radio.

Broadway seemed uncertain how to respond to the great social and cultural upheavals sweeping the country.

The unexpected success of Hair in 1968 signaled new possibilities.

It was looser, less plot-driven, hipper.

For a short time – a very short time – it looked like the future and inspired imitators, most of which failed miserably.

The most successful was Celebration, which managed a very modest three-month Broadway run in 1969.

Celebration is like a medieval fable whose characters have designations rather than names.

It’s a confrontation between innocence and cynicism, youth and decrepit age.

It takes place at a New Year’s Eve party hosted by Mr. Rich, the play’s histrionic villain.

Surrounded by a masked chorus of Revelers, Rich spends the evening in an elaborate effort to seduce Celebration’s naive heroine, Angel, and win her from her natural love, an idealistic young man named Orphan.

All this is narrated, with running commentary, by a fourth character, a rascal called ‘Potemkin’, meaning fake.

At this distance, Celebration’s attempt to symbolize the generational conflict of the late 60s looks as awkwardly innocent as the hippie movement itself.

So it was a smart move by NH Theatre Project Director Genevieve Aichele to make no effort to locate the story in its own era.

Instead, she presents it as a timeless fairy tale.

Her use of the West End Studio Theatre’s tiny space is equally intelligent, substituting masks, mobile constructions, and colorful fabrics for a fixed set.

She also gets excellent music direction from Gail Adams, whose work with the three-piece band and with the chorus of Revelers is particularly good.

Celebration’s four principals are a bit of a mixed bag.

Jamie Bradley plays Potemkin with the sly smirk of a con man who delights in his own duplicity,

But he doesn’t have the stage-devouring charisma the role demands.

He sings with enthusiasm, but struggles with pitch.

As the young lovers Angel and Orphan, Becky Rudolf and Ari Wilford sing and move competently, but do little to capture the stylistic exaggeration of the play.

Celebration deals with types, not individuals, and their efforts to make real people out of deliberate clichés just makes them look dull.

Fortunately, Blair Hundertmark is on hand to show them how it’s done.

He gives a bravura performance as Mr. Rich, taking over and driving this production from the instant he steps on stage.

His gleeful badness is so infectious he practically makes himself the hero, and though this severely unbalances the play it justifies the price of admission.

It’s a wonderful piece of work.

Celebration will continue at Portsmouth’s West End Studio Theatre through January 25.

As a rarely-produced artifact of music-theatre history, it’s worth seeing.

And if that doesn’t grab you, Blair Hundertmark will.

For NHPR news, I’m Kevin Gardner.