THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL REVIEW
This show is set during the French Revolution where guillotines flourished upon the streets of Paris. When the curtain rises, we find ourselves listening to the beautiful Marguerite St. Just performing Storybook at the Comédie Française. As the song ends, Marguerite announces her engagement to Sir Percival Blakeney. Then Citizen Chauvelin announces that the theatre must be closed immediately. Angered, Marguerite goes off with financé Percy and we follow Chauvelin to the streets of Paris where he and his guillotine exectutes Marquis St. Cyr in Madame Guillotine. Then we go to England to the wedding of Percy and Marguerite. During their wedding, Percy learns that Marguerite supplied information that lead to the execution of Marquis St. Cyr and Percy turns away from her on their wedding night.
During his confusion, Percy convinces some of his friends to join him in a crusade to stop the madness of the French Revolution led by Percy himself. To disguise his identity, he calls himself the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Over the course of the musical, the Scarlet Pimpernel and his band of men triumphantly disrupt the executions by guillotines and save many people in a flatout hilarious conduct. They cause Chauvelin and the king to wonder who this "damned elusive Pimpernel" is. Chauvelin finds out soon enough and he battles with Percy in a surprising and funny climax.
Frank Wildhorn's Tony-nominated Scarlet Pimpernel is absolutely wonderful! With memorable tunes and a hilarious script, I give The Scarlet Pimpernel 6 out of 6 fish because:
1. The acting is great: all of the cast members show great talents because of their abilities to act on so many differect levels. Douglass Sills has a knockout performance!
The Scarlet Pimpernel Review ©2000 Taylor Young
This review of The Scarlet Pimpernel is based on the performance at St. Paul, Minnesota's Ordway Center for the Performance Arts at 2:00 PM on Sunday, March 12, 2000. The cast of this performance was as follows (in order of appearance):
Marguerite: Amy Bodnar
Frank Wildhorn's musical adaption of Baroness Emmuska Orczy's novel The Scarlet Pimpernel is a delightful combination of drama and side-splitting humor!
2. Frank Wilhorn's music is fantastic and reflects the levels of the actors as mentioned above. It is catchy, memorable, and mirrors the story perfectly.
3. The book is wonderful! It is filled with a delightful array of humor, plot twists, and ideas!
4. I almost took a half of a fish away on character development because I didn't think that the supporting characters progressed at all, but the main characters were very deep. Percy had great emotions, as did Marguerite; Chauvelin was truly evil...he makes you want to get up on the stage, pick up a sword and battle!
5. The artistic development is wonderful; the blue lights and gorgeous costumes and sets of Storybook and the ship rising from center stage in Into the Fire are great. The costumes are all gorgeous.
6. The story kept me very much away and excited! There was never a dull moment!
~Rafiki
Notes On This Review
Chauvelin: William Paul Michals
Percy: Douglas Sills
Marie: Elizabeth Ward Land
Armand: Billy Sharpe
Tussaud: John Paul Almon
Coupeau: Stephonne Smith
Mercier: Ressull Joel Brown
Ozzy: Harvey Evans
Elton: Peter Flynn
Dewhurst: Ken Land
Jessup: Stephen Hope
Ben: Aaron Paul
Farleigh: Matthew Shepard
Hal: D.B. Bonds
Robespierre: David Cromwell
Prince of Wales: David Cromwell
Click HERE to find reviews for The Scarlet Pimpernel
Click HERE for a synopsis of The Scarlet Pimpernel
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