Limelight: The Story of Charlie Chaplin
Rob McClure is giving an outstanding performance at the La Jolla Playhouse. He plays Charlie Chaplin and has the stiff-backed waddle, the sad eyes, and gift for spontaneous pratfalls down pat. Plus, he has an opera-sized voice. Now if the musical only had a book worthy of his - and Chaplin's - talents. Limelight suffers from the Sammy Syndrome. As in the Old Globe's recent tribute to Sammy Davis Jr., the book speed-reads an icon of the arts. It moves chronologically, skimming highlights, and wraps them in a win-love, lose-love, win-love-again formula. But neither it nor Christopher Curtis's mostly generic songs develop anything (as if afraid we wouldn't like him if we knew the whole story, the musical whitewashes an artist who contained multitudes). The production's quite polished. Alexander Dodge's scenic designs reconfigure in seconds, and the pace is nonstop. But many performers suffer from the abridgment: Ashley Brown (as Chaplin's forlorn mother and later as his fourth wife, Oona O'Neill), Jenn Colella (as Hedda Hopper, a safe villain), and Matthew Scott (as Chaplin's brother, Sydney) have much more to give than they've been given. That said, however, McClure's performance by itself is well worth seeing.
Worth a try.
When
Ongoing until Sunday, October 17, 2010
Hours
| Sundays, 2pm & 7pm |
| Tuesdays, 7:30pm |
| Wednesdays, 7:30pm |
| Thursdays, 8pm |
| Fridays, 8pm |
| Saturdays, 2pm & 8pm |