Skylight’s ‘Candide’ Is a Marvel

Skylight Music Theatre’s “Candide.” Photo by Mark Frohna.

The Skylight Music Theatre through Oct. 29 is confounding audiences and critics alike with some of its best musical work in the Cabot Theatre, along with constantly parading and circling segments that can feel as interminable as life itself.

Those mixed reactions may actually signal a mighty mind meld of the cynical philosopher Voltaire of the 18th century and the mercurial Leonard Bernstein of the 1950s — early enamored of both Broadway and classical music — and the modern staging sensibilities of master puppeteer, designer and director James Ortiz commissioned for this production of Candide.

Among the virtues are the general vocal mix including some world class voices, the way a hidden nine-piece instrumental ensemble under music director Jeffrey Saver can master a Bernstein score that has defeated full symphonies and moments of the staging that are so inventive and colorful in screen projections, props, puppets large and small that parts of the production match the top expectations of the planet Earth.

Yet other parts are not as mesmerizing, even tiresome in repetition of ideas and reminding us why the Bernstein version is often shortened and camped up to highlight his best work and to heck with the original intentions. Credit Ortiz with defying senseless gimmicks (his gimmicks have a purpose) in pursuit of the higher purpose, treating Candide as among the pinnacles of theatrical achievement. I don’t think it is, but he is making a great case.

With different voices stepping forward to narrate, he uses 11 actors to play dozens of parts and roam the world. Like many quest stories of a young man confronting the worst of the globe, society and philosophers, Voltaire fashioned the journey of his satirical novella so that the young Candide discovers he is a bastard and is forced to leave privileged comforts.

Rather than the Optimist philosophy he embraces, he discovers a planet of war, betrayal, religious torture, avarice and suffering. The audience may groan “what else is new” (particularly as today’s news underscores man’s inhumanity to man). The cast, the music and the staging devices want us to feel every pang. Theater often thrives by showing us these pangs in comedy, then in pointed narrative and then in the changes not always for the better in people.

Bernstein wanted to turn the Lillian Hellman adaptation into a comic operetta. So, he summoned all his compositional talents and lured an incredible array of contributors (Hellman, Hugh Wheeler, Richard Wilbur, Stephen Sondheim, Dorothy Parker among them) for what turned out to be a commercial flop. But in decades of resurrection, it has proved not only a Bernstein kitchen sink of ideas and themes but some of his best work.

There is Candide and Cunegonde, his life-long love in a duet of re-discovery (“You Were Dead, You Know”). There are tossed away numbers including South American music themes popular in the 1950s. There are snappy ideas for ensembles like “Dear Boy,” “El Dorado,” “Words, Words, Words” and “What’s the Use?”

Topping them all off and brilliantly delivered here by Susie Robinson as Cunegonde is “Glitter and Be Gay,” a musical debauchery of weepy sorrow and giddy love of jewelry. It was originally so daunting a combination of coloratura trills, staccato punches, high notes, and comic delivery that few attempted it after the originator, Barbara Cook. Now after 67 years, every coloratura considers it a test while most still shouldn’t even dare. Yet Robinson masters it in character, emotion and notes, genuinely stopping the show. You’ll never hear it done better.

There are many standouts in the cast – indeed, the cast and how they are used become more the attraction than Bernstein’s name and even Ortiz’s New York reputation. Some of the voices are strong Skylight regulars at the top of their form – Shawn Holmes, Ben George, Nathan Marinan and Samantha Sostarich, singers more involved in characters this outing than showing off.

One outstanding baritone, Andrew Varela, is also a Skylight regular but is particularly memorable as Pangloss the philosopher (among others). Another occasional Skylight performer, Doug Clemons, not only sneaks in a Paul Lynde parody but adds some stellar ensemble work. Virtually everyone takes turns as a puppeteer or an ensemble vocalizing.

Chicago actress Sara Stern gets to showcase her comic delivery more than her powerhouse soprano. Most notable in the central tenor role of ever-innocent, ever-striving Candide (a hard role to keep likeable in his constant stumbles) is New York import Sam Simahk – personable, muscular and warm.

Director Ortiz impressed me in the use of screen projections, tangling ropes, marching patterns and sudden emergence from the wings of cast members, though the production indulges in some overlong tableaus when repetitive dancers wear military walls on their backs to cover some less interesting music. But then along comes a puppet parade of European kings who have escaped from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. The constant possibility of such eye-stopping moments keeps us alert.

There are sometimes too many walls of words and musical themes to stay hypnotized by everything. I concede there is too much intellectual meandering rather than a visceral grab. But I for one was never unhappy to be there.

Dominique Paul Noth served for decades as film and drama critic, later senior editor for features at the Milwaukee Journal. You’ll find his blogs here and here.