Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein’s Show Boat floats on a deep, wide channel into which operetta, vaudeville, jazz, minstrelsy and medicine shows flowed to create the first great, authentic work of Americana. Yet the effect it produces very much depends on which Show Boat steams into view, as perhaps more than any other American musical, the original 1927 version has been re-ordered, filmed (twice), and dramatically purged to the point that no universally standard edition exists.
Daniel Evans’s production is the first time that Rob Ruggiero’s scaled-down version, created in 2011 for Connecticut’s diminutive Goodspeed Opera House, has been mounted in this country. It’s still a big show, however, which at the slight risk of over-compressing the narrative reduces four and a half hours of material by approximately 60%.
But things come as well as go – most significantly, it finds room for the mournful chorale, Mis’ry’s Comin’ Aroun’ (majestically delivered here by Sandra Marvin), which was missing from both the original production and film but is vital in maintaining the racial balance of a show which, for good or ill, depicts an aspect of American history that appears abhorrent to modern eyes. In Sheffield, the N-word is heard only from the mouths of bigots who would undoubtedly have used such language in the deep south of the 1880s. But Evans rejects the modern neutralisations of the opening chorus, sticking firmly with “Coloured folk work on the Mississippi River”. To emphasise the point, Emmanuel Kojo’s outstanding Joe intones Ol’ Man River, while plantation workers stagger under their loads and finally collapse with exhaustion.
Though the production is commendable in its refusal to beautify an ugly subject, it is still visually and musically of the highest standard. Designer Lez Brotherston provides a balustraded steamer that elicits its own round of applause. And the performances attain a standard that we have come to expect from Evans’s superlative Christmas productions, which makes it all the more sorrowful that his recent appointment as head of Chichester Festival theatre means this is likely be his last.
Gina Beck makes Magnolia’s doomed, 40-year trajectory seem entirely credible, though as her gambler husband Gaylord, Michael Xavier probably suffers the most from missing material intended to flesh out the character. Though he as smooth as a bottle of Southern Comfort, it’s hard to understand why his forsaken partner remains so doggedly loyal to him. This slimline Show Boat means you simply have to take it on trust that she Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man.
At the Crucible, Sheffield, until 23 January. Box office: 0114 249 6000.
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