Slow Burn Theatre, now celebrating the beginning of its 15th season, came into the world committed to producing musicals that for one reason or another were underappreciated initially. Its shows were anything but mainstream, yet the company developed an enthusiastic and loyal following.
When the risk-oriented troupe moved to the Broward Center nine years ago, however, its programming turned disappointingly – though understandably – more conventional and commercial. (Yes, we’re looking at you, Mary Poppins and Shrek.)
So it was heartening when Slow Burn chose to open this season with The Witches of Eastwick, a middling musical that premiered in England in 2000 to so-so reviews and ticket sales. It has since been revised and produced regionally in the United States, but has never come close to playing Broadway. The flawed, but fascinating show seems exactly what Slow Burn should be offering to fulfill its original mission. It obviously gets artistic director Patrick Fitzwater’s creative juices flowing, and who else in South Florida would go out on a limb with a selection like this?
The show’s source material is a substantially darker novel by John Updike and it also draws from a popular, somewhat campy 1987 star-studded movie version. At its center are three gal pals who reside in a small New England town with a notable lack of worthy eligible men. Soon after wishing aloud for a suitable mate, the libidinous Daryl Van Horne (a deliciously sleazy Philip Bryan) mysteriously arrives in town. He seduces the three women by appealing to their artistic endeavors – cellist Jane (Leah Sessa), bookish writer Sukie (Lindsey Corey) and visual artist Alexandra (Gail Bennett). Daryl, of course, is none other than the devil, who devilishly woos all three into his bed, both singly and collectively.
Like a kinkier Prof. Harold Hill, Daryl has a profound effect on the townfolk of Eastwick who are eagerly drawn to him, all except the local moralist Felicia Gabriel (blue-nosed Britte Steele). Her daughter Jennifer (Laura Swartzengruber) represents the innocence of youth, so she naturally becomes a target of Daryl’s, eager to deflower and marry her.
It would hardly be a spoiler to note that Daryl will get his comeuppance once the principal females see through his satanic ways. After all, despite the show’s dramatic edge, it remains a musical comedy at its heart. Composer Dana P. Rowe – a former South Floridian – and lyricist/book writer John Dempsey populate the show with an eclectic, often jazzy score that harkens back to the musicals of Broadway’s golden age 1950s and 1960s, where something moodier might have been preferable. Still, numbers like “Waiting For the Music to Begin,” “Dirty Laundry,” “Dance With the Devil” and the finale, which ends the show on a politically correct note of female empowerment, are standouts.
As he has for a decade and a half, Fitzwater manages the stage traffic of his large, largely inexperienced cast with efficiency and verve, aided by associate director and choreographer, Trent Soyster. Nor are they daunted by the show’s requirement to have the three witches levitate high in the air at the end of the first act. And if there is any red fabric remaining unused in South Florida, that is not for the company’s veteran costume designer Rick Pena’s lack of trying.
While there is much to like in The Witches of Eastwick, you can understand why it has been deemed not up to Broadway standards. Nevertheless, Slow Burn’s mounting of the show is a worthy showcase of the material that should satisfy its musicals savvy audience.
THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, Slow Burn Theatre at The Broward Center’s Amaturo Theater, 201 S.W. 5th Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Through Sun., Nov. 3. $77-$85. 954-462-0222.