Thurs 3 Dec, Wales Millennium Centre
Cardiff
Following on from Barnum earlier in the year, Mack & Mabel is the latest Chichester Festival Theatre production to make a tour stop at Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre. Mack and Mabel of the title are Mack Sennett – purveyor of silent-cinema slapstick; and Mabel Normand, the female star of many Keystone two-reel films and Chaplin comedies. This is the musical story of their love affair.
Michael Ball has now been doing this for thirty years, and since his cuddly-image-opposing turn as Sweeney Todd it’s fair to say he can play anything – from a loveable housewife in Hairspray to a vengeful and blood-drenched serial killer. Ball’s Mack Sennett is right in the middle of his range: at worst he’s a bully who wants to get everything, (and make films) his own way, but at best he’s an enthusiastic big kid who wants to make an audience laugh and the man who created the Keystone Cops. Ball brings both light and shade to the role, and as the audience isn’t sure whether or not to like Sennett, Ball sings and we love him in those moments – like when he opens the show with the song Movies Were Movies.
Art imitates life with the role of Mabel Normand. Rebecca LaChance’s only other major theatre credit was as Betty/understudy and played Carole in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, and here the unknown actress is the leading lady, a character that goes from deli waitress to movie star! LaChance look and sounds the part – in 1920s Art Deco costume, dancing backed up by a pair of waiters; or standing alone onstage, singing the ’11 o’clock number’, Time Heals Everything.
Mack & Mabel is not a spectacle of show, the only sign of glitz comes near the end, and a lot of it reminds you of other shows – Singing in the Rain in particular –but that’s not always a bad thing, for a musical set in the age of silent cinema the choreography is suitably and charmingly old fashioned, featuring bathing beauties and a tap number, but nevertheless excellently done. The set is simple but features some charming effects, like giving the impression that a whole length of train carriages is on stage, and projections of the ‘silent films’ adds to the charm. Mack & Mabel is a bit of mature theatre, an alternative to the over-familiar revivals, jukebox musicals and film adaptations.
words CHRIS WILLIAMS
photo MANUEL HARLAN