How Glory Goes

Or, ten things about Jonathan Butterell‘s revival of Adam Guettel and Tina Landau‘s Floyd Collins at Wilton’s Music Hall:

1. If you’re going to write a show in which the title character spends nearly the entire performance trapped in a single spot, you’d better have something up your sleeve to keep people interested. Floyd Collins, which is based on real events, tells the story of the death of the title character, an American cave explorer in the 1920s whose entrapment underground sparked the first modern media circus as journalists raced to cover his rescue. The show’s secret weapon is Adam Guettel’s astonishing score, which blends a set of musical influences ranging from bluegrass to Bartok into something which turns out to be far more theatrically potent than you might guess from the slightly remote-sounding cast recording from the original off-Broadway production. The music is often dissonant, at least by the standards of contemporary musical theatre (anyone describing it as ‘atonal’ should be taken outside and beaten until they promise never to do so again), but it’s also surprisingly lush given that there are only eight pieces in the band, it’s full of soaring melodies, and the show’s big musical moments carry a tremendous emotional pull. The orchestrations, incidentally, are by Bruce Coughlin, who isn’t mentioned anywhere in the programme or on the show’s window card, and should be.
2. Tina Landau’s book is a model of efficiency, and that’s a compliment. In this show, everything is in service to the music. In most musicals, the book is the backbone; that isn’t the case here.
3. The lengthy opening sequence in which Floyd explores the caves is a musical tour-de-force, and a masterclass in how to use sound to tell a story. When Floyd finds the Great Sand Cave, he yodels a line of music, and an echo comes back (via the miracle of electronic voice capturing) – and then Guettel brilliantly transforms Floyd’s singing and the subsequent echos into a fugue.It’s a thrilling moment in the theatre, and it must be fiendishly difficult to perform, but it’s also a strikingly unusual piece of theatrical storytelling: you don’t see the cave, you simply hear it, and thanks to Guettel’s dazzling score, that’s more than enough.
4. Or at least, it was more than enough for me. This is a musical that expects you to listen, and listen carefully. You can’t let it wash over you, the ending is bleak, the music is very demanding, and not everyone is going to enjoy it. And that’s OK. There should be room for things like this as well as for the Phantoms and Wickeds.
5. Jonathan Butterell’s clearly-focused, unshowy direction puts the material centre-stage and gets out of the way. There’s little choreography, the set is mostly scaffolding, there are relatively few props, and the backdrop is the artfully-distressed bare plaster walls of the theatre itself. Nothing feels superfluous – at any given moment, it’s clear where your attention should be directed.
6. The central performances are impeccable. Ashley Robinson sings the title role superbly, and makes that difficult opening number seem effortless. He’s an engaging actor, too, and he never puts a foot wrong in a role which must require tremendous concentration (for most of the show, he’s directly facing the audience on a narrow platform above the stage). His careful, restrained delivery of the show’s final number, ‘How Glory Goes’, is very moving indeed.
7. That final number is as moving as anything written for the musical stage in the past twenty-five years. Guettel brilliantly dramatises Floyd’s death, again, using echoes: in the last sixteen bars of music, as Floyd once again sings against the echoes of his own voice, the band gradually dies away beneath him, and then the echoes slowly die away too. It’s a stunning, powerful ending, even if you know what’s coming.
8. Lovely work, too, from Sara Ingram as Floyd’s stepmother,  and Samuel Thomas as his brother. Among the ensemble, the singing is flawless; the acting, however, is occasionally a little overcooked, most significantly in a song called ‘Is That Remarkable?’, a slyly sarcastic depiction of the spiralling media circus surrounding the attempts to rescue Floyd from the cave. It’s a clever song with biting lyrics, and the actors attack Guettel’s scalding three-part harmonies with enormous verve – but they also play the subtext on the surface to a degree that threatens to cross the line into cheap mugging, and less would have been considerably more. Not everything needs to be underlined.
9. If there was any justice – and in showbusiness there often isn’t – Rebecca Trehearn would be well on the way to becoming a huge, huge star. She’s the real deal, and this is the second time this year I’ve seen her give a brilliant performance in a difficult role. As Floyd’s sister Nellie, who we’re told has recently been discharged from an asylum, Trehearn is simply mesmerising. She has tremendous presence, she finds precisely the right balance between adult strength and childlike simplicity, and she sings her (difficult) music beautifully.
10. Going to the theatre in this country, particularly in London, often leaves you feeling as if someone is trying to extract money from you via every possible orifice. It’s refreshing, then, to arrive at Wilton’s – which is a lovely space to begin with – and find that programmes, which are so often a complete rip-off, cost just £3.00, which in this instance buys you a glossy A4 publication containing several full-colour production photos, along with bios of the writers, creative team, and cast. Ticket prices are more than fair, drinks are reasonable, the staff are friendly, and the toilets are clean. Other theatres, please take note.