PicksInSix Review: Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil - Goodman Theatre
“What A Lovely Place To Die.”
PicksInSix® Review | Ed Tracy
The long-awaited, world premiere of the musical version of John Berendt’s epic book “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” directed by Rob Ashford and choreographed by Tanya Birl-Torres opened Monday in Goodman’s Albert Theatre with all the opulence that befits a true crime story set in 1980s Savannah, Georgia. There in the darkness at the start the voodoo priestess Minerva (Brianna Buckley) is revealed whose reach into the past beyond the world of the living has a mystical and spiritual impact on believers searching for otherworldly assistance. At the center of the unfolding story is the stately, upper-crust of Savannah society whose sole purpose it is to know the business—ahem, the “historical legacy”—of everyone else. In between, there is a bizarre cavalcade of characters who frame the true-to-life story that compelled Berendt to move from New York to Savannah to tell it.
Berendt’s contribution to Savannah’s legacy spawned a four-year run as a New York Times bestseller, a major motion picture directed by Clint Eastwood, and now, three decades later, the musical faces head-on the challenge of condensing all of the complicated relationships, visual imagery and dramatic energy into one, robust, marketable production that will appeal to a universal audience. Or more specifically, three distinct audiences— one composed of diehard fans who have been immersed in the book and film and have even visited the city that Sherman spared in his 1864 March to the Sea and that Berendt has made famous (or to some, infamous); those who have either read the book or seen the film, but not both; and, those to whom the musical will be their first introduction to the material.
I met one of those people in that last group in the lobby at intermission. He was curious about the format of the book, had just purchased an autographed hardcover—Berendt was in the house and took a deserved bow at curtain call—and was mildly perplexed, but genuinely excited, about where things were going. As the questions kept coming, it occurred to me that each of these adaptations—book, film and musical—are so vastly different from each other that I could spend a lot of time, and more than space allowed, highlighting similarities and differences and never get around to the purpose at hand. So, I politely suggested that Part I of Berendt’s exceptional book brought us to, more or less, precisely where we were at intermission of the musical—a shooting in the Mercer House, built by the great-great grandfather of Johnny Mercer, has left the owner and sole occupant facing trial for the murder of his male lover. Based on what had happened thus far I admitted that it would be anybody’s guess how things come together in Act II.
Bernedt’s story is as much a true crime drama as it is a reflection of Southern aristocracy. And although Taylor Mac’s script refers to it as “a work of fiction inspired by a non-fiction book,” adding that “Dramatic license is used, honey,” the central figures in this drama are a combination of real people or composites of others. Jim Williams (Tom Hewitt), The Lady Chablis (J. Harrison Ghee), Danny Hansford (Austin Colby) and Emma Dawes (Sierra Boggess) and the Preservation League Ladies bring much of Berendt’s whip-smart dialogue to life, which those familiar with the book and film will find satisfying. Many who know the material will be listening for those pearls amid Mac’s reimagined timeline framed in Christopher Oram’s magnificent scenescape that vividly recreates the antebellum grandeur of the city in one moment and exposing the eerie, gothic nature of Bonaventure Cemetery in the next.
With Berendt’s richly defined characters in place, the musical challenge is to build and sustain suspense along a fairly predictable arc that leads to Williams public condemnation and multiple trials and Ashford has infused a zesty, comic wink and nod along the way. The over-arching element that stands alone in this treatment is the magnified contrast between the confident flamboyance of J. Harrison Ghee’s brilliant portrayal of Chablis, the transgender Empress of Savannah against Hewitt’s measured and less charismatic, but increasingly cold and calculating Williams whose Teflon charms serve him well at every turn.
With so much attention on the comic relief of Emma and the Preservation League Ladies storyline, some of the finer aspects of Berendt’s work—most notably the trial scenes that serve to elaborate on the facts of the case in the book—are conjoined together in one number of composer and lyrist Jason Robert Brown’s score. And while Brown’s impressive musical stylings and expert music direction by Thomas Murray include “Mercer House,” “Since My Mama Died,” “True Crime,” “What A Ride,” “Reasonable Doubt,” and “Restoration,” and prove to be essential to the story, there is a smattering of numbers that attempt to hold a weaker subplot together. These sections feel both forced and out of place to the point that the eventual message of equality that is trying to find a light of its own lacks the necessary inspirational spark.
Depending upon where in the audience categories you may fall, “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil” will leave you with a range of conflicting emotions. In its current iteration, the choice of replacing a universal narrator with characters telling their own stories places a lot of responsibility on the audience who clearly serve here as both author of the story being told and as a participating partner with Lady Chablis’s clever and enjoyable repartee. How that story transcends to a Broadway stage rests on the enormous talents of Ghee and Hewitt to keep things on track.
And, if you see a dogless dogwalker or the late night ritual of burying dimes and pouring rainwater anywhere near Times Square in the not-too-distant future, you will know that there are other spiritual forces at work.
PHOTO|Liz Lauren
GOODMAN THEATRE
presents
WORLD PREMIERE
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
Albert Theatre
through August 11, 2024
WEBSITE
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