Through August 7
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder Daemen University/MusicalFare Theatre
Even with heavy taxation and tabloid coverage, it can be really nice to be a British noble, particularly a title holder, like an earl.
There are risks.
In the old days, the big risk was war, the expectation that nobles would ride off to war and not all of them would come back.
However, there was always a long train of guys waiting to inherit the title and (often) wealth, great country houses and large palaces around London’s leafy squares.
Strange and murderous things happen in the tippy-top levels of nobility, a king in the early days of Norman England or everywhere in the nobility and royal family of Scotland.
There’s always “Macbeth,” an extreme example of the lust for power.
Of course, you can have a musical and a team led by Robert L. Freeman and Steven Lutvak put together “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder.”
If you’ve seen the old Ealing comedy “Kind Hearts and Coronets” with Alex Guinness, you can get the idea, although this musical is credited to a Roy Horniman novel.
Director and choreographer Doug Weyand has two big assets in this show, a really strong cast and a great script.
Of course it’s directed very well and has fine choreography.
While it’s a big cast, there are two essential performers, Ricky Needham’s Monty Navarro and Mark Sacco’s nearly everyone else.
There’s also a fine and effective set from Chris Cavanagh, who also contributed the lighting, projection and sound design.
Navarro’s mother was the disinherited daughter of an earl and he decides the title should be his.
There is a difficulty.
There are eight people ahead of him in the title succession and they need to die before Monty can become a member of the upper nobility and the House of Lords.
So, he decides to remove them
Needham is wonderful as he climbs the D‘Ysquith family ladder over the bodies of his relatives.
Sacco makes it all work, as each of the victims to be.
Monty catches on as an executive of the D’Ysquith family bank and inveigles himself into the family and relationship wity a female cousin.
That’s at the same time as he’s getting it on with his old girlfriend, Sibella (Solange Gosselin), even after she’s married.
Meanwhile, he’s finding new and unusual ways to thin out the famlly, many of whom are the worst example of upper crust attitudes, “I Don’t Understand the Poor.”
Finally, it’s down to the old earl and he dies.
The problem is that Monty didn’t do it.
That’s where the story ends.
And, Monty beats the rap in the murders.
In morality terms, this is an awful show, with its ends justify the means attitude.
Meanwhile, it’s a wonderful base for a show.
“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder” is a great show.
See it.
A.W.
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