Southwark Playhouse Borough, London
Despite the vocal bravura of the cast, this show doesn’t capture the Jazz Age power couple’s dazzle or darkness
For decades people have been seeking to rescue Zelda Fitzgerald from her reputation as F Scott’s mad, bad wife. She’s been remade as a feminist icon – a woman driven to extremes, and even incarcerated, by a society and a husband who couldn’t cope with her creativity. Some have tried, too, to capture the Fitzgeralds’ melodramatic marriage on stage (such as in the Craig Revel Horwood-directed Beautiful and Damned in the West End in 2004), with limited success. This latest attempt, with music and lyrics by actor Hannah Corneau, is directed by Michael Greif, the man behind the original Broadway productions of Rent and Dear Evan Hansen.
He has, unsurprisingly, assembled a cast that can pour plenty of vocal bravura into Corneau’s largely poppy score. We follow the well-worn trajectory of the Fitzgeralds’ ascent and decline from Jazz Age fame through the lens of their daughter Scottie as she wanders through their archive (book-lovers will ache over Shankho Chaudhuri’s set of shelves and stacks). The framing is as little explored as the rest of the show’s ideas – why is Scottie there in the first place? – but does allow for a moving performance from Lauren Ward, as she interacts with her parents at various ages.
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