Impressive, but Left the Reviewer Wanting More
Catalyst Theatre’s Hunchback delivers what it promises: “A familiar tale that you have never seen quite like this,” along with all the distinctive aesthetic and strong vocals that I have come to expect from a Catalyst Theatre production.
The show started strong. Beginnings are so tricky, the audience is distracted and you have create your world in seconds. I think Jeremy Baumung as Pierre Gringoire really nailed it, as his MC-type character moved us through the story I was reminded how much I enjoy this type of story telling. More than anything, this an ensemble piece and that is its biggest strength.
Act 1 really had me for the most part. When Gringoire launched into a rap styled number I thought “That's genius! Their visual style is rigid so they're going to vary the musical genres to keep our attention, so clever!” and I was on the edge of my seat to see where they would go from there... but it didn’t carry through. A little more variation in just one area could have provided the texture that I was itching for by the end of the act. Act 2 delivered much of the same. Consistent, solid, well executed and predictable.
And this is the thing, having such a distinctive style does have its drawbacks. It’s beautiful! But where do you go with it? You have to keep building. In a full length production the energy can plateau quite quickly and you can’t rely on plot twists to keep us interested, we all know the story. Not that there weren’t ebbs and flows in the action, there were, but they were more on the physical side than the emotional or psychological side and it all blurred together for me by the end. I got a distinct feeling of compromise, that “we're being accessible” kind of feeling. It felt like the story was tamed, suppressing the urge to go too far into “scary” or too far into “camp” and hobbled as a result.
A few more bold choices and a little more variation could have rocketed this production in my estimation from “good” to “blew my mind”. The puppets were amazing, but they felt a little cuddly. And the gargoyles! They just sat on the stage at the edges like an afterthought. When you have such a bare set, you need to make use of what you have. Perhaps they are too flimsy to get really physical with, but at least interact with them. Aside from that one “made of stone” line, the only attention they got was when a wing was brushed accidentally during a hasty exit.
Another less easily remedied drawback of Catalyst’s aesthetic, when coupled with the “big space performance feel” (I didn’t feel this way about their production of Nevermore in 2010, but I think I saw that in a smaller space, and that was a more intimate story too.) is that it doesn't allow for much depth of character. The actors did a great job of keeping the characters relate-able and the songs helped smooth out inner dialogue, but the strokes still felt too broad. The evil priest, the innocent girl, the misunderstood monster... cliches because of the original novel perhaps, but cliches all the same. It’s true it takes a lot to make me care about star crossed lovers. There's always that little voice in my head saying “Oh just get over yourself!” so perhaps my lack of identification with the characters is a personal failing and nothing to do with the performance.
WIth that in mind, I wonder if this story is just too large for the stage. Perhaps the process of adaptating a brick thick novel into a two hour performance leaves no room for complexity making the characters appear more two dimensional than they truly are. Perhaps it was just too ambitious. I admire ambition, especially in realizing creative projects and I must applaud what this production was aiming for.
Unfortunately there were a lot of little things that brought me out of the experience. A lack of crescendo in the yelps of pain in the whipping scene, an over the top, impractical white robe for Esmerelda that kept getting in the way when she moved, bells that didn’t budge when they were rung... Just little things that wouldn’t have bothered me if I was engrossed, but they kept bringing me out, snapping me back into reality.
I can understand the rationalization behind the different types of speech that Quasimodo used and what they indicate (eloquence during inner monologues, less of a lisp when he’s comfortable, more when he’s scared etc) and I can understand the practicalities of it too. You want your audience to understand what a central character is saying. But I think it could have been handled better. I couldn't get invested in his character, he kept changing on me.
That said, there were other elements of the production that were beautifully consistent. The physical style succeeded in making the less practical fight scenes beautiful and believable. And there were a lot of little things that I loved:
I loved the way the offstage voices added to Claude Frollo’s “guilt” song, I could taste the paranoia and the madness.
The set was gorgeous and evocative. The illusion of depth and space and how much that could be manipulated with lighting was lovely. Dramatic lighting can be distracting when an actor can't find their light, but that only happened once or twice, the majority of the action was tightly choreographed.
And I really appreciated how the microphones were used. Yes, there were a few technical snafus, there always are, but in this production the mics were like another layer of experience, not just an add-on to compensate for lack of volume. We had a whole sound-scape to accompany the action when performers weren't speaking or singing. Breath, movements, sound effects, the lot.
I don’t know why I didn’t enjoy this production as much as I had thought I would. Even after wrestling with this review for 2 days I feel even less sure about my experience. Overall it was beautiful and ambitious. I found the aesthetic limiting, but the production value is high. The actors are talented and obviously have a strong commitment to their work, the music was stirring... something just wasn’t what I had hoped for. But I will definitely see the next show they bring to town.