There is a fascination with bad singers that the public has unabashedly embraced in recent years. Thanks to shows like American Idol, we can satiate our desire to laugh at those who fancy themselves the next Beyoncé.
When William Hung famously belted out Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs,” on the show, audiences fell in love with his earnest sweetness, so much so that he landed an actual record contract and went on tour. He was so bad that he was good, good enough to provide audiences with some form of entertainment, albeit not the kind he originally intended. But it was good enough to give him a career that extended just up to the 15 minutes of fame Andy Warhol promised we’d all have one day.
Rewind the clock several decades and it’s easy to see how Florence Foster Jenkins managed to have her unlikely career. Audiences may know the true story of the aspiring opera singer from the 2016 film Florence Foster Jenkins. Meryl Streep was nominated for her 80 billionth Oscar (really her 20th) for her performance as the deliriously clueless society lady who fancied herself an opera diva.
Those who’ve seen the film version of Jenkins’ story, the stage play Glorious!: The True Story of Florence Foster Jenkins, the Worst Singer in the World, written by Peter Quilter, won’t have that many surprises. It covers the same basic storyline of a shy and desperate young piano player drawn into the raucous world of Jenkins’ hangers-on. The Lompoc Civic Theatre is currently performing the play at Lompoc’s Civic Auditorium now through April 9.
For those who are less familiar with the story, the Civic Theatre’s production offers a neat trick to catch the audience up on the basic facts. A small screen is set up on stage and a series of historical photos of Jenkins and her familiar haunts are used to fill in the basic details. It’s a clever idea if you don’t let the intermittent setup and breakdown of the projector take you out of the moment.
The plot is fairly straightforward, with the comedy built into everyday moments and interactions between Jenkins and her inner circle. Jenkins (Anne Ramsey) hires Cosme McMoon (William Koseluk) to be her piano player. The first act, set mostly in the singer’s lavishly decorated apartment at the Hotel Seymour in New York City, follows McMoon as he (and the audience) is slowly introduced to Jenkins’ friends and family, including her boyfriend St. Clair Bayfield (Ken Norberg), best friend Dorothy (Chris Jeszeck), and housekeeper and cook Maria (Diana Diaz). Mrs. Verrinder-Gedge (Marian C. Stave) provides the sole voice of dissent, confronting Jenkins with the cold truth about her “talent.”
Ramsey is positively brilliant in this production. It must be daunting for any actress to step into a role once played by the legendary Streep, but Ramsey holds her own, completely. The real star of the show is Ramsey’s so-bad-it’s-great singing. It’s hard to put into words why watching someone sing so terribly is so intoxicating, but like watching Hung belt out “she bangs, she bangs, oh baby when she moves, she moves,” it’s instantly addictive.
I found myself wanting more and more of Ramsey’s musical performances, even as the joke dragged out a bit. It takes monumental talent to be able to sing well, but to be a good singer (as Ramsey is) and to make yourself sound believably bad? That’s a new level of skill.
But the talent and capabilities of the cast and crew cry out for better material. Quilter’s play never pushes beyond the superficiality of the Jenkins dilemma. She sings, she’s bad, people who love her pretend it’s great, and others make fun of her. But there’s a missing sprocket to what makes Jenkins and her posse tick that the play never bothers to assemble. The play relies too much on the joke (she’s bad) and doesn’t give its talented cast enough to work with. Plus, some of the jokes Glorious! relies on are outdated stereotypes (the “no one understands the Mexican maid” jokes need to be sidelined) or have punch lines that are predictable at best.
That aside, Ramsey and Jeszeck have so much comedic charisma it makes it impossible not to love this production. Jeszeck’s Dorothy is lovable and goofy; her scenes with Ramsey produce the kind of bouncy back-and-forth dialogue one expects from a comedy set in this era.
For a small community theater on a limited budget, the production quality is quite impressive. The set in the first scene is lavish and beautiful and the transition to the stage at Carnegie Hall is an impressive accomplishment. (Ramsey and Jeszeck can take credit for that, too, as set decorators.)
Arts and Lifestyle Writer Rebecca Rose thinks opera is dope. Contact her at rrose@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 30 – Apr 6, 2017.