Many people aren’t aware that there’s more than one musical adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s novel The Phantom of the Opera. Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit’s musical Phantom was composed and raising funds before Andrew Lloyd Webber’s, but shelved after Phantom of the Opera became a huge success. Dawn Kalani Cowle’s production at Ye Olde Rose and Crown marks the UK premiere of Phantom, and with a bigger budget behind it, could give Lloyd Webber a run for his money.

Neither version is extremely faithful to the book, although Yeston and Kopit’s adaptation is the only one to hold the rights to it. So if you’re familiar with either popular versions, Phantom still won’t be everything you expect. Christine (Kira Morsley) is essentially a busker who is recommended to the Opera House for lessons when influential patron Phillippe (Sean Paul Jenkinson) hears her sing. Unfortunately, his friend Carriere (Tom Murphy), the manager of the Opera House, has been sacked, and the new proprietors Carlotta (Pippa Winslow) and Cholet (Andrew Rivera) place Christine in the costume department where the Phantom (Kieran Brown) hears her sing and offers her lessons as a masked maestro. By the time she comes to audition for the company, they can’t deny her talent but Carlotta poisons her drink on opening night so that Christine can’t sing. The Phantom rescues her from the stage, taking her down to his lair where Carriere tries to warn her he’s dangerous, however she is determined that she sees good in him. Until she sees his face.

The plot begins strongly, playing for laughs in the beginning and tears in the ending at the expense of focus. Although I’ll admit that I shed a few tears, this was more for Christine and the Phantom’s fleeting love story, over the well-acted but arduously written scene between father and son, the Phantom and Carriere. Other than the leads, the characters remain sketchily drawn as plot devices or caricatures which are likeable but mean that the storyline lacks integrity. Furthermore, the Phantom’s ‘underlings’ are strange characters that have stepped right out of an amateur show. Excusing this, Phantom is a show that’s carried by a stupendous ensemble.

It might be unfair to compare Phantom to The Phantom of the Opera, or perhaps just plain inevitable, but it really does help to reflect upon the few problems with Yeston’s score that keep it from being quite so popular. Yeston, who has also composed musicals including Nine, Grand Hotel and Titanic, weaves magic with his choral harmonies. The music is the absolute star of this piece, with swirling and intricate melody lines; it’s a challenge to sing and couldn’t be done better. Kieran Brown as the Phantom and Kira Morsley as Christine are absolutely mindblowing talents; Brown has an emotive and commanding voice, that can turn from burdened to biting in a bipolar instant, and Morsley couldn’t sound sweeter if she were an actual songbird. Each song stands alone, but therein lies the problem: where Lloyd Webber reuses material like he’s run out of ideas, the running motifs through his version of Phantom are what make the music memorable, whereas you don’t come out humming along to Yeston’s score.

All Star Productions needs to be forgiven a little for the limitations placed upon them by the small space and presumably small budget. The staging is minimal and best when Cowle embraces simplicity rather than lugging cheap bits of set on and off. Brendan Matthew’s choreography has moments of brilliance, but has a fancy for symmetry which looks a little basic. Altogether however, this is a quick and simplistic production which is effective because the performances are so heartfelt. Everything surrounding it should make it hard to believe in the production, but the cast and music make it impossible not to invest and that matters more than anything else. Phantom is so good it actually hurts.

Phantom is playing at Ye Olde Rose and Crown until 31 May. For more information and tickets, see the All Star Productions website.

The Olivier Awards are always an exciting time for the theatre community and there was great anticipation as ITV were showing highlights of the award ceremony. Perhaps best not to discuss how ineffective these highlights were, with poor editing that cut performances and speeches. Instead I want to focus on some of the musicals that were nominated and the eventual winners, as there were a few surprises.

I must admit I didn’t know the nominations for Best New Musical beforehand so was beyond surprised to hear that Top Hat was the winner. What saddened me was that three of the four nominees can hardly be called ‘new’ as the songs are all well-known: Top Hat is based on a film from 1935! The Bodyguard is also based on a film and the songs of Whitney Houston, whilst Soul Sister revolves around the music of Tina Turner. So I think most of the theatre community had high hopes for the only original show nominated: Loserville. It may have had its short run against it, but the theatre world had a lot of respect for what it was attempting as a young show – but sadly it wasn’t to be.

At least we can expect better competition next year which will no doubt include The Book of Mormon (which missed out on being eligible this year), Once and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the list of nominees. So can we just put it down to being a bad year?

However, for all the controversy of the Best New Musical, the BBC Radio 2 Audience Award certainly warmed my heart. The nominees were Billy Elliot, Wicked, The Phantom of the Opera and Matilda. Let’s be honest, after its domination of the Olivier Awards 2012 I was convinced the prize would go to Matilda, and I would have pinned Billy Elliot as the underdog after Phantom and Wicked, so a big grin appeared on my face when it was announced as the winner. The joy of audience awards is that people are getting their say on what they class as a worthy winner, so for a show that is now eight years old to win is very encouraging. Perhaps it’s due to a resurgence of relevance after the death of Margaret Thatcher, but I don’t want to detract from the show itself as I love the score (much fun can be had singing ‘Electricity’ around the house complete with Geordie accent).

It gets hard to defend musical theatre when shows with 70-year-old songs are winning awards for new shows, but when a musical like Billy Elliot wins the audience award, or indeed Sondheim’s masterpiece Sweeney Todd which won Best Revival, Best Actor and Best Actress, it makes the defence easier. As I said before, I just look forward to the Olivier Awards 2014 as I believe we will have a tougher competition on our hands – and who knows what will win the Audience Award next year!

Image: Billy Elliot, Victoria Palace; Victoria, London

Having been wholly uninterested in anything related to the economics of theatre, I’d managed to get through three years of being a Musical Theatre undergraduate without ever hearing the phrase ‘McTheatre’. Yet, having come across it in Dan Rebellato‘s Theatre & Globalization, the idea has blown my mind.

The derogatory phrase is used to draw a parallel between mega musicals - Phantom, Les Mis, Wicked and the like – and McDonald’s restaurants, in that they all look the same regardless of their location. As Rebellato puts it, “these aren’t new productions; they are franchises”.  In 2008, Phantom of the Opera had a US$5 billion global box office gross which Rebellato states is “about the same as the combined receipts of the current four top-grossing films of all time.” I’m not sure I can even comprehend what this figure will be now in the wake of the 25^th anniversary celebrations.

Cameron Mackintosh, in the 1970s and ’80s, decided he wanted to take the London shows to people who couldn’t make it to the West End. Although this might seem like artistic altruism, it also benefits producers, as all these other locations act as a giant advertisement for the original productions. However, it also kills the uniqueness of theatre, with actors often slaves to showy sets or costumes. These are part of the brand – people go to see Miss Saigon just for the helicopter flying in – yet, as Rebellato points out, the same is not true of the performers, as “in McTheatre even the biggest star is replaceable.” A potentially positive side of McTheatre is the building of new theatres around the world to house these massive shows. Yet this, too, is problematic – these theatres seat so many and often aren’t built with acoustics in mind that they are unable to house other kinds of theatre.

Given the costs of producing these big shows, it’s hardly surprising they take every opportunity to cash in. The Lion King has a reputed production cost of US$20 million, not including the large running cost of the show. A show can easily take a year to turn a profit but there is a chance this Disney epic will never make its money back. Yet whilst the show loses money, the endless pushing of merchandise – everything from mugs to key rings, souvenir brochures to T-shirts – ensures it makes enough to keep running.

It does seem sad when parts of theatre have become so commercialised. Yet for many of us musical theatre fans, a piece of McTheatre was what we first saw and what got us into the genre. Much as we might rail against Mackintosh and these big productions, they are generating and inspiring future performers and audiences. As in cinema, we need our epic blockbusters as well as our indies for rounded creativity.

Singing has been and always will be my first passion. My joy for singing has only increased over the years, although my discovery of acting in college now comes a close second. However, there have been a few rare moments when I’ve realised how truly inseparable the two arts must become – something I feel any performer must come to realise if they are to consider themselves good, let alone extraordinary.

It is easy to spot those performers who have. They are Patti LuPone and Donna Murphy (just watch her performance of I Read in Sondheim’s Passion). They are the performers who give you chills up and down your spine, conveying emotion seamlessly through their body and voice. I had the privilege of hearing Norm Lewis belt out Being Alive in Sondheim on Sondheim featuring Vanessa Williams and Barbara Cook, and I have never been able to forget it. I bought the cast recording with the expectation of reliving the musical magic of that night, but I will never hear it the same way again. Such is the allure of live theatre.

As mentioned in my previous post, I have started taking voice lessons with a wonderful teacher who has so quickly grasped what my voice is capable of and picked out fantastic material for me to work on. In my last lesson, I realised that our focus after warm-ups was how to act the song, not how to sing it. At first this frustrated me, since I struggled with delivering the power I felt was necessary for Patterns from Baby. I later realised, however, that my problem wasn’t that I couldn’t deliver that power vocally – in fact my teacher has commended my vocal ability, and I think I have been underestimating myself in that respect. The main issue is that I am focusing on the vocals and not on the emotions behind the song necessary to deliver that power.

Following my teacher’s advice, I have been watching several videos of other people performing Patterns, and I recognise the same problem in many other vocalists. They have incredible instruments, but it is clear they have only done their job as singers and not as performers. I am not convinced of their emotional state and I only catch small glimpses of specifically what they might be talking about. They use all of their vibrato and belting power throughout the song, and they adhere too strictly to the technical aspects of the music. Obviously musical structure is necessary, but as musical theatre is a storytelling art, it should sound more like a monologue and less like a perfectly sung musical piece, such as in opera. Here lies only the beginning of the difficulty in striving towards a career in this industry.

As actors we either have, or must develop, a strong imagination. If you can imagine your circumstances to be true, so can the audience. Every day we people-watch and wonder what someone must be like based on what they are wearing, how they are walking, and the expression on their face. That is real, and we need to evoke that same kind of reality any time we are on stage. Creating theatre is creating life. What I am really talking about is the difference between technical performing and living truthfully on stage. Remember Christine in Phantom of the Opera? The Phantom wants her to sing for him, but he demands so much more of her than that. He demands her voice, her life… her soul.

There comes a time in every performer’s life when they become relatively comfortable with getting up on stage in front of a group of people. But sometimes we rely too much on that ability and only do the bare minimum by performing as rehearsed, instead of letting ourselves be completely exposed and vulnerable on stage. I somehow find myself able to convey intense emotion without using anything specific to invoke reality into my performance. I need to spend more time researching the character I am portraying and then using acting methods to bring out those emotions. Some follow Stanislavski in using personal experience, while others draw on Chekhov’s approach by using the body and specific actions.

Everyone has their own acting techniques which they use to dig into a character, and this same process is necessary for any good performance, even of one song. We must fight our tendency to just sing. It takes a lot to go through a song lyric by lyric, to research a character and imagine all the details of their situation. It’s daunting, for sure, and tedious at times. Lots of people can sing well, but as performers we must use our acting ability to take our vocal ability to the next level.

To read more from Lauren, check out her personal blog.

If you are an American reader of A Younger Theatre and would like to contribute to the AYT USA blog series, please contact blogs[at]ayoungertheatre.com.