Thrills are alive

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This article was published 02/12/2023 (1005 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In 1959, six years before Maria and the von Trapps were preserved in celluloid, The Sound of Music began its storybook existence on a Broadway stage.

The show — about a rebellious governess and a grieving Austrian family’s musical perseverance under the black, leathered thumb of the Nazi party at the time of the Anschluss — was a Tony-winning smash, running for 1,443 performances and setting the theatre world ablaze.

But few fans of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical could tell you it was Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel, not Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, who first danced the Laendler as the jubilant Maria and the stiff Captain Georg von Trapp.

So it can be tempting to compare the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre’s current run of The Sound of Music to the beloved filmed version.

But it would also be a disservice to director Rachel Peake’s well-cast and perfectly enjoyable staging, a full-throated ode to the necessity of harmony and dissonance in a time of societal and familial disarray, brought to light on the John Hirsch Mainstage under the musical direction of Andrew St. Hilaire.

The production begins at Nonnberg Abbey, a secluded sanctuary in the Austrian alps, where a group of nuns are incanting an august prayer. With the Mother Abbess (an angelic Lara Ciekiewicz) leading the way, the opening scene makes the case that the human voice is a gift from God to be revered, not squandered.

But the novice Maria (a lovely Priya Narine in her RMTC debut) feels otherwise. She has a habit of belting out tunes simply for personal enjoyment, which rankles the establishment. “I’ve even heard her singing in the abbey!” Sister Sophia (Katie German) hypocritically sings during a gentle dis track that shoos Maria toward an auspicious job transfer as a governess for a wealthy family in a nearby town.

Waltzing in through the doors of the grand von Trapp manor, Narine’s Maria carries herself as a kite on air, stopped in her tracks by the wooden Captain (a solid, aptly surnamed Charlie Gallant), a decorated navy admiral who can sense the changing winds.

While Maria arrives toting an acoustic guitar, Georg von Trapp has his own baggage. A widower in denial, the Captain treats his seven children as hired crew instead of family. After the death of his wife, the once musical patriarch banned song from the home, relying on a series of whistles to get his adorable ducks in a row.

As they should, the von Trapp children — Micah Buenafe, Isaac Di Cresce, Davison Gee, Ida May Meacham, Anastasia Rautert, Madelyn Torres and Christina Nguyen (save for Nguyen, the cast of children alternates nightly) — arrive on command to inject a helpful dose of youthful innocence, rebellion and naivete into the storyline.

On opening night, Narine’s voice sometimes lacks enough power to carry the show’s soaring tunes alone, but when she builds connections with the children, the rest of the production falls into place.

Slowly but surely, Maria brings music back into the childrens’ lives, notably during the abbreviated musical theory class of Do-Re-Mi and the funny, funicular Lonely Goatherd, which summons the spirits of mountains the audience never sees, but can certainly sense in the exaggerated heights of the set.

There are subtle notes to Lorenzo Savoini’s vertical design that hint at the resistance to come. Atop the central cathedral window is a floral design reminiscent of the edelweiss, a symbolic plant representing the Captain’s stubborn defence of his home. Meanwhile, the railing of the manor’s grand staircase is supported by iron balusters wrought in the rough shapes of violins: music never left, it was just on mute.

The Captain still knows the steps of the Laendler, sharing a folk dance with Maria after cutting in for Kurt.

It’s this flirtatious pas de deux — choreographed by Ainsley Hillyard and Sam Hutchings — that leads the Captain to see his lowly governess in a fresh light, and soon, his high-brow, high-rent lover Frau Schraeder (Kristi Hansen) in a fading one.

Scared by the spark, Maria returns to the abbey without saying auf Wiedersehen or goodbye, but is encouraged to persevere by the Mother Abbess. With her advice to Climb Ev’ry Mountain, Ciekiewicz, a trained opera singer, makes as thrilling and compelling an argument as possible in her first RMTC engagement.

Soon, wedding bells are ringing, but something more than love is in the air.

Aside from von Trapp manor, swastikas fly in front of every house in the region. Even Liesl’s (Nguyen) seemingly harmless crush Rolph (Jesse Drwiega) is wearing a red armband and delivering telegrams in the Fuhrer’s name. This shift is swift and severe: the arrival of Admiral von Schreiber (Arne MacPherson) signals the start of a new and painful era.

But remember the music?

Urged by a friend (Kevin Klassen) with shifting loyalties who sees dollar signs in the von Trapp children’s charms, the family is put through its paces in a regional singing competition, donning lederhosen and trotted out as a novelty act, backed by the red, white and black of Nazi banners.

This penultimate scene, which highlights the Nazis’ propaganda machine as it revs its engines, is the production’s best. With the audience transplanted to an Austrian concert hall, the insidious threats of censorship and fascistic control are made startlingly clear. How quickly, and how easily, culture can be misused as distraction.

When the Captain sings the elegiac Edelweiss with his eyes squeezed shut, the banners are momentarily cast in shadows, and the audience feels the SS guards waiting in the wings. That’s the power of the sound of music, and that’s the benefit of seeing it on the stage, not just on the screen.

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com