Theater Review—

‘Souvenir’ Celebrates Joie De Vivre

By Julie Stern

WESTPORT — To summon up an image of Florence Foster Jenkins, it would help to think of Madame Castafiore (if you are a devotee of the Belgian comic book hero Tin Tin) or, closer to home, imagine one of the old great Bugs Bunny cartoons depicting a bosomy coloratura inflicting opera on a reluctant rabbit. But the real Florence was every bit as startling as these caricatures.

In the years from 1912 to 1944, Florence gained enormous fame for a unique combination of qualities: she had an absolutely awful singing voice, an unshakeable conviction that she was a wonderful singer, and enough money inherited from her wealthy father to finance her concert career, buoyed by the happy misapprehension that the crowds who flocked to hear her did so out of genuine appreciation of her abilities.

Souvenir, the play by Stephen Temperley, offers a portrait of Florence Foster Jenkins as shaped by the memories of Cosme McMoon, a struggling pianist-composer who took on the job in order to pay the rent, and ended up spending 12 years as her accompanist and confidante.

Judith Kaye and Donald Corren, who created the roles on Broadway, continue to give inspired performances at Westport Country Playhouse, using wonderfully nuanced facial and body language to capture the interplay between these two unlikely collaborators. Ms Kaye combines the benevolent condescension of a grand dame, with the capacity to emit ear-splitting shrieks and painfully sour notes. Mr Corren conveys the rueful embarrassment of a man who does not want his friends to see him doing this in public, but whose grudging affection for his employer, and pity for her delusion, keep him by her side.

The play, especially the first act, is hilariously funny, in some ways kind of what it would have been like to attend one of Florence’s actual concerts. But unlike Loony Toons or Tin Tin, both of which presume their audiences to hate opera automatically and to view it as akin to cats screeching,  Souvenir  is a play about music for people who know and appreciate it.

While it conveys graphically how badly Florence managed to butcher the arias she sang, it also captures her genuine love of music, and particularly her passion for opera. The melodies in her head which inspired her to want to sing were truly beautiful. She just couldn’t hear what she sounded like, and was fixed in her belief that she was a great talent.

Thus the play becomes not a vehicle for ridiculing a pathetically misguided fool, but rather and exploration of how all of us delude ourselves to some extent, as well as a celebration of the joy of doing what you love.

(Performances conclude this weekend. Call 203-227-4177 or visit WestportPlayhouse.org for ticket and performance details.)