Portland Center Stage

Bob Hicks | Oregon Arts Watch [Review 07 Jun 2013]

Seemingly out of nowhere, he shows up. She turns, shocked, a little hopeful, a little afraid.

“Is it you?” she asks tremulously.

Why, yes. Impossibly, it is.

For a guy who’s just traveled 68 years into the past to meet the girl of his dreams, the signal could hardly be more welcoming. She’s been expecting him. Not even a crazy mixed-up thing like time can keep a love like theirs apart.

The 1980 movie “Somewhere in Time” starred Christopher Reeve as a badly blocked contemporary playwright and Jane Seymour as a beautiful actress from the year 1912, soulmates who transcend the tyrannies of the calendar and a Svengali determined to keep them apart. The film overcame light initial box office and so-so reviews to build a cult following of history buffs, travelogue enthusiasts (lots and lots of Architectural Digest-style eye candy), speculative-fiction fans and unabashed romantics. In countless bedrooms and living rooms across the land it remains a favorite date movie, not just for its gauzy love story but also for its tantalizing suggestions of the flimsiness of the barriers of time.

Now – thanks in large part to writer and producer Ken Davenport, who’s spent a dozen years pulling the complex parts of the thing together – it’s made the leap to the musical-theater stage, in a world-premiere production that opened Wednesday night at Portland Center Stage. Cast mostly in New York and mostly with Broadway veterans, it has a firm eye on transferring to Broadway. Center Stage is playing the role of the old-fashioned tryout town, a contemporary New Haven or Boston or Baltimore, and it’s an excellent addition to the theater company’s bag of tricks.

Wednesday’s opening revealed a show with some appealing songs (music by Doug Katsaros, lyrics by Amanda Yesnowitz) and a generous dose of charm to go with some solid, well-polished performances. The play gives up some of the visual spectacle that makes the movie so ravishing – notably the lushly filmed scenes of the Grand Hotel on Michigan’s Mackinac Island, a virtual costar of the movie – and offers in its place the immediacy and intimacy of the stage. The show seems to me genuinely promising and still in need of some script and musical work, which it will probably get between now and any Broadway opening.

Marty Hughley | The Oregonian [Review 07 Jun 2013]

Your mind can play tricks on you if you let it. Or, perhaps, if you will it to.

Willing suspension of disbelief has a long history as one of the conceptual bulwarks of fiction. But “Somewhere in Time,” a lavish, world-premiere musical at Portland Center Stage, gives the notion a starring role, not just making it a key plot device but, frankly, putting it to an elaborate test.

Based on a story by sci-fi writer Richard Matheson that previously was made into a cult-favorite film, “Somewhere in Time” is a romantic fantasy about fated love made possible through time travel. Richard Collier, a promising young playwright in the mid-1960s, is approach by a mysterious old woman who pleads to him, “Come back to me.” Several years later, with the promises of both love and work unfulfilled, the writer thinks he’s found his muse in the portrait of an early-20th-century actress. Soon, coincidence and compulsion put him on an improbable trail back to 1912 to find her. Complications ensue (of course).

So beloved is this tale that a few fans showed up at the Gerding Theater for Wednesday’s official opening night dressed in fin de siècle finery. Nostalgia for bygone elegance and the sentimental lure of love at first sight are obvious parts of the appeal, but the story also strikes poignant notes about the predations of aging and illness, the differences between success and happiness, and the slippery nature of opportunity.

Above all, it’s about being transported, in more ways than one. And director Scott Schwartz marshals plenty of theatrical craft to carry you into the palpitating heart of this adaptation by writer/producer Ken Davenport, composer Doug Katsaros and lyricist Amanda Yesnowitz.

From the large and polished ensemble, to the full and precise sound of a 13-piece orchestra conducted by Rick Lewis, to the multiple moving parts of Alexander Dodge’s gorgeous scenic design (finest visual/symbolic touch: the way the backdrop to the contemporary view of the Grand Hotel setting resembles the sky in a Maxfield Parrish painting, yet with striated layers that suggest time’s evidence in a crossview of geological deposits), this is the most elaborate production yet in the Gerding.

Megan Thompson [PCS Blog Comment]

I took my daughter, who is a vocal major in college, to the show last night and we both thoroughly enjoyed it!  The story line keeps you interested the entire time.  We especially loved the scenery and how it flowed and changed seamlessly throughout the show.  Very clever.  The music is wonderful and the singing was excellent.  I would highly recommend this show.  You will leave feeling very happy that you had a great night at the theater!

Dennise M. Kowalczyk [PCS Blog Comment]

I saw the movie, way back when, and it is one of my top five films.  Seeing this musical brought back all the magic for me and I am STILL thinking about it this morning after seeing last night’s performance.

The stage design and performances were stellar.  The added bonus of mystery in regards to where the heck was the orchestra was a real treat as well. 

I highly recommend this show—see it before you need to travel east because it is on Broadway. 

—Dennise M. Kowalczyk
Host/Producer of ArtclecticPDX

Teri Joly [PCS Blog Comment]

Last night took me by surprise.  I have never left a play, let alone a musical, in tears.  That production was so well done. I am amazed that the book and movie could be made into a musical.

Where do I begin?  The sets and set change was so classy and wonderfully done.  I loved the way they transitioned into the next scene.  The costumes were beautiful.  The music was wonderful and not too loud. 

I can’t say enough about the actors and their singing.  Such great talent for this production is such a joy for us to see.  And Arthur stole the show when he was on stage.  We all loved him.

It is always such a pleasure to see the productions at Portland Center Stage.  What a great year this was!  Somewhere in Time will be with me for a long time.  I am telling everyone to see it before it leaves Portland.

Kinsley Suer [PCS Blog Comment]

We received this comment from a PCS patron on our Facebook page and had to share:

What an evening! Count me among the many people who think “Somewhere In Time” has a future on Broadway. It has the ingredients for long-running success: a source familiar to audiences, a dramatic and romantic story line, a villain we love to hate, and of course, true love. But in Ken Davenport’s adaptation as a musical, it does things you can only do in musicals, beginning literally with the first number which establishes characters and motivation, identifies the protagonist and his struggles, and compresses decades into a single, beautifully staged piece of music.

The voices of all the principals are spot-on. Hannah Elless as Elise McKenna has the look of a woman who could draw a man across seventy years, but her singing ability—particularly in the trio with Mark Kudisch and Andy Samonsky—lends power and depth to the role. Samonsky, as Richard Collier, has the same little-boy vulnerability that was Reeve’s strongest suit in the film, but with an innocence and genuine-ness (plus a bit more talent—sorry, Superman) that makes us sympathize with him from the start. As for Kudisch, as the impresario who has made McKenna (the only thing he calls her to her face) the star she is, his power and menace are brilliant without being overdone, and as with the other principals, the clarity of his voice carries through music that is at times operatic in its overlays and harmonies. (Their trio in the second act is the song you’ll hear again and again.)

And staging! From the introduction to the Grand Hotel in 1912 (which is also one of the more memorable numbers, a big old-time all-singing all-dancing showstopper) to the parting of the lovers near the end, the dynamic set really serves as an object lesson in what I still think of as “the magic of the theater.” What the Reeve/Seymour film did with special effects, PCS does with brilliant visualisation and a tight, on-top-of-it ensemble who move props, set and actors to create the illusion the old fashioned way—with talent.

As always, Jeff Cone’s costumes not only capture the characters and the period, they also do so with an almost magic quick-change aspect—the cast members who are doubling roles sometimes seem as if they walk behind a column and come out the other side in a different outfit. (His work on “The Amazing Cymbeline” is still the tops in that regard.) Julie and I differ on Elise’s best dress—she thinks the lavender and velvet number from the first act is something “every girl dreams of having in her wardrobe,” while I found the white off-the-shoulder gown when she appears “on stage” to be as breathtaking as her character’s reputation requires.

The biggest disappointment of the evening? “That was all new music,” Julie said as we were riding the elevator down to the parking garage. “We can’t sing the songs on the way home—we’ve never heard them before.” By the time this show reaches Broadway, that won’t be a problem.