Malibu Stage Company debuts ‘Victor Victoria,’ the bawdy, signature musical based on the 1982 screen comedy by the late filmmaker and local.
By Michael Aushenker / Special to The Malibu Times
The spirit of longtime Malibu resident Blake Edwards, Hollywood’s late master of the idiosyncratic comedy, lives as Malibu Stage Company debuts the musical “Victor Victoria” Friday night.
It’s only fitting that MSC stages this ribald broad comedy, adapted from Edwards’ 1982 feature film. For many years, Edwards and wife Julie Andrews (who originated the title dual role onscreen) lived in Malibu.
“We’re doing a Blake Edwards tribute to open the show,” MSC Artistic Director Richard Johnson, who is directing the musical, said.
Johnson said that when choosing material to stage at the playhouse, “one of my goals has been to select material that came from Malibuites.”
Edwards, of course, made his name as a writer and director on such classics as “Operation Petticoat,” “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “The Great Race,” “The Pink Panther” series and “10.”
Yet of all Edwards’ numerous memorable achievements, “Victor Victoria” became the movie that headed for the Great White Way in 1995, when Andrews reprised her role for the stage and garnered a Tony Award nomination. At the time, Andrews caused something of a stir when she refused to accept the Tony honor because she felt the play had been roundly overlooked in other categories. Subsequently, Liza Minnelli and Raquel Welch filled her role onstage in future performances.
This week, “Victor Victoria,” which has been mounted in Madrid (2005) and Vienna (2010), comes home to Malibu.
“It’s fun and challenging playing an English woman doing her impression of a man,” the MSC version’s star Julia Holland told The Malibu Times.
This musical is one twisty, gender-bending affair.
Set in a 1930s Paris nightclub, “Victor Victoria” showcases Holland as the struggling soprano pretending to be a male named “Victor,” who entertains as female impersonator “Victoria.” Complications ensue when a Chicago gangster falls for her.
Butch Anderson, a native of Austin, Texas, portrays the gangster, King Marchand. Jake Broder plays Toddy, Victoria’s aging queen partner-in-crime who assists her with her transformation, memorably played onscreen by Robert Preston. Broder won an Ovation Award from L.A. Stage Alliance for his portrayal of Louis Prima in 2009’s “Louis & Keely” at the Geffen Playhouse.
“We have a lot of award-winning people in the show,” Johnson said. “The drummer, Danny Yamamoto, is from the band Hiroshima. The musical direction is headed by Scott Nagatani, musical director for East/West Players.”
Accomplished actress Kristen Towers Rowles, who plays Norma, is the granddaughter of Kathryn Grayson, an MGM contract player of Hollywood’s Golden Age of musicals.
The ensemble also includes choreographer Albertossy Espinoza, from Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles show “Love,” and actor Anibal Sylyeyra, who played in an Argentine production of “Kiss of the Spider-Woman” directed by Hal Prince.
“We’ve never had a dance show here,” Johnson said. “When I watch this, I ask myself, ‘Did I really get this cast?’”
The audition process for this play turned out to be extensive.
“As the theater has grown, now we get hundreds and hundreds of actors submitting for our show,” Johnson said.
“Richard Johnson definitely chooses very ambitious plays,” Holland said. “Not many theaters of our scope would dare take it on.”
Indeed, in recent years, Johnson has led MSC into adapting challenging material on MSC’s stage, including Pulitzer Prize-winning plays “Rabbit Hole” and “A Soldier’s Play,” the freewheeling “The Wild Party” (which Holland directed), and, most recently, Arthur Miller’s bitter examination of relationships, “The Ride Down Mt. Morgan.”
“Victor Victoria” benefits from songs by Edwards’ musical collaborator, the late Henry Mancini. This production even borrows numbers from its big screen predecessor.
“There were songs in the original movie that were not in the musical,” Johnson said. “We actually took one of the songs from the movie [“The Shady Dame from Seville”] and installed it in the musical.”
“If I Were a Man,” “Crazy World,” “Paris by Night,” and “Le Jazz Hot!,” all original tunes from the Broadway version, remain a part of this version’s program.
There are many moving parts that will come together on MSC’s stage. The Fusion Performing Dance Center in downtown Los Angeles donated its facility for dance rehearsals. The dancers and the band had to practice separately, Holland said.
Johnson explained that, due to theatre guild rules, the choreography for this production of “Victor Victoria” had to be developed from scratch, independently from what was established in prior productions.
Eric Roth, the screenwriter of “Forrest Gump” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” and actress Trish Van Devere, widow of “Patton” actor George C. Scott, are among the sponsors of this ambitious production. At double the average MSC budget, with a cast of 26, “this is by far and away the biggest show ever in this theater,” Johnson said. “You can take this show and put it on Broadway tomorrow.”
Luckily for this community, it will be staged in the heart of Malibu instead.
“Victor Victoria” performs through Dec. 4. More information can be obtained online at malibustagecompany.org.