The Mystery of Edwin Drood

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THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD

Photo: Joan Marcus

Cititour.com Review
If you didn’t know any better, you might think The Mystery of Edwin Drood had been written for the interactive age. This sprightly, bountiful musical based on Charles Dickens’s unfinished novel lets the audience vote on the outcome of several plot points. Yet Rupert Holmes’s Tony-winning show predates American Idol by more than 15 years.

Drood is a product of the unfashionable ’80s, when the annual Broadway musical harvest reaped a very small crop of worthy new shows. Despite winning five Tony Awards, including Best Musical, it isn’t destined to become a classic, but it’s still jolly good fun, especially with a cast and director (Scott Ellis) as seriously committed to the spirit of silliness as this one.

Drood embraces the audience and the play-within-a-play format right from the start. It’s set in a London music hall in 1895, and we meet the actors inhabiting Dickens’s characters as well as the characters themselves. The understatedly daffy Jim Norton is the “Chairman” who oversees the musical proceedings. Young Edwin Drood becomes a “trouser role” for an actress (Stephanie J. Block), and we soon meet the characters who may or may not play a role in his disappearance, including his choirmaster uncle John Jasper (Will Chase); Edwin’s betrothed, Rosa Bud (Betsy Wolfe), whom Jasper lusts after; the local opium den proprietor, known as Princess Puffer (Chita Rivera); and a mysterious twin brother and sister from Ceylon (Andy Karl and Jessie Mueller).

But the whodunit isn’t really the point. Drood celebrates life, and the part we choose to play in it. And that’s something to sing about, no matter how it all comes out in the end.

By Diane Snyder


Visit the Site
http://www.roundabouttheatre.org/Shows-Events/The-Mystery-of-Edwin-Drood.aspx

Cast
Stephanie J. Block, Will Chase, Gregg Edelman, Jim Norton, Chita Rivera, Andy Karl, Jessie Mueller, Betsy Wolfe

Open/Close Dates
Opening 10/19/2012
Closing 3/10/2013

Box Office
212-719-1300

Theatre Info
Studio 54
254 West 54th Street
New York, NY 10019
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