By Paul R. Nickels
Tuacahn Amphiteater’s Count of Monte Cristo in Ivins, Utah, is an epic blockbuster musical. Based on Alexandre Dumas’ 1844 adventure novel, the production has gone through many iterations since its first staging in Europe. The English language U.S. premiere took place in 2015. The version you see here is the premier of a much-revised show specially adapted for Tuacahn’s unique staging abilities. Jack Murphy’s book and lyrics are teamed with Frank Wildhorn’s powerful score, in the wake of previous successes The Scarlet Pimpernel, Jekyll and Hyde, and Bonnie and Clyde. Director Scott S. Anderson has done a phenomenal job with this powerful and touching musical.
The story: Edmond Dantes (David Toole), an illiterate but good-hearted seaman, receives a mysterious letter during the Napoleonic Wars in France. The letter is stolen for its treasonous content and Dantes is framed by a trio of villains, each with a motive to get the naive young sailor out of the way. He is seized on his wedding night and locked away in the infamous Chateau d’If, an island prison from which no man ever escapes. For twenty long years, he suffers in the dungeons while his accusers prosper, and the son born to his bride, Mercedes (Caitlyn Caughell), grows up to be engaged to the daughter of Villefort, the corrupt official who sentenced him. His salvation comes in the person of a fellow prisoner, Abbe (priest) Faria, whose escape tunnel blunders into Dantes’ cell by mistake. Eventually, their companionship provides Dantes with the means of escape and of reaching a vast fortune hidden on the tiny island of Monte Cristo. Thus, Edmond Dantes returns to his home to wreak vengeance on his betrayers as the powerful Count of Monte Cristo.
Act One opens with the Prologue, an unlikely Kyrie sung in Latin by an invisible choir, pointing to the underlying plot of redemption through mercy and forgiveness. The plot for betrayal is set in the opening scene during a dazzling production number depicting the wedding between Edmond and Mercedes, in which the “best man” Mondego (Nathaniel Hackmann) offers the prophetic message of the story to be told: that love endures and never gives up. Dantes’ supposed best friend is the one who schemes to gain Mercedes for himself. To the audience’s delight, the main characters in this production possess unusually powerful voices. The three conspirators, the false friend Mondego, the shipmate Danglars (Randal Keith), and the politician Villefort (Michael Scott Harris), commit to their plot (in “A Story Told”) with a vocal ferocity worthy of their evil. Edmond and Mercedes pledge their love in “Heart Like a River,” and again even when they are separated with, “I Will Be There.” These are not sentimental ballads, but declarations full of power and passion. Among these five vocalists, we may be hearing some of the longest held final notes in the history of final notes.
Even so, I think the honors for best songs go to the women. In her Act One closer, Caughhell soars with remarkable beauty in “When the World Was Mine,” comparing her miserable life with Mondego to the moments of surety she once shared with Edmond. To me, the biggest surprise of the night was a remarkable showpiece performed by Valentine, Villefort’s daughter (played by Elee Anderson). In “Pretty Lies”, she reveals the corruption and treachery of the facade-shielded world she has grown up in and now rejects.
As powerful as all these characters are, the appearance of Bryan Dobson as Abbe Faria steals the heart of the audience. From the heart, wit, and wisdom of this comical priest, Edmond Dantes gains the tools he needs to reclaim his life. It is satisfying that Dobson also plays Edmond’s own father in the opening scenes.
But there is also Louis Vampa (Gail Bennett), the irrepressible pirate queen who plucks Edmond from the sea. Bennett makes plausible a comic, seafaring dominatrix who becomes Edmond’s friend, but her chorus line of dancing pirates are certainly not as ruthless as they let on. After all, they join Edmond’s cause to right the wrongs against him, taking him to his treasure without so much as a plunder among them. The caricature is so much like Pirates of Penzance that it seems almost out of synch with the somber drama taking place around it. As intense as it is enjoyable, though. Choreography by Denise Holland Betke and Peggy Hickey is top notch and keeps the audience enthralled and entertained.
The other hero is Jacopo (Jonathon Arana), the converted pirate who becomes Edmond’s devoted servant. He hesitates to bring Edmond the news that his beloved Mercedes has married Mondego and that she has a grown son, Albert (Jadon Webster). Webster’s Albert is so innocent and full of love for Valentine that Edmond almost remembers that he was also once so. They share the song “Ah, Women,” but no love can replace what he once felt for Mercedes, and even when she reveals that she recognizes him, he rejects her—“I Know Those Eyes/This Man is Dead.” He proceeds with his plan to ruin Mondego, Danglars, and Villefort, who again reveal their avarice in “Too Much Is Not Enough.” The appearance of Abbe’s spirit in the reprise of “When We Are Kings” returns Edmond to the exercise of love and mercy in reclaiming his own soul.
The music, as I have said, is dramatic and moving, but you won’t be humming it as you walk out the door. It’s not that kind of musical; and it’s not until you see Music Director Christopher Babbage step out of Tuacahn’s state-of-the-art pit for a bow that you remember you are hearing a live orchestra. Craig Beyrooti, Sound Design and Nathan W. Scheuer, Lighting & Projection bring on the gorgeous with sound and light and the effect is dazzling. Visually, this production is honed to satisfy the connoisseur of costume and set design (Brad Shelton). The costumes (Leon Wiebers) are elaborate and showy. Edmond duels in blue leather gloves. Louisa Vampa, the pirate queen, is a fashion show of the Avant Garde.
The setting deserves rave comments. The theater is in an open canyon of soaring red cliffs. Central to the stage is a huge rotating staircase that serves as balcony, bedroom, ballroom, and ship’s fo’c’sle; fore and aft parts of a ship appear on stage and masted sails move across the background. A rocky outcrop behind the stage is suddenly lighted to be the Chateau d’If, and we see the body bag of the supposed Abbe dumped into the sea that must be just out of sight.
You will see live goats, a white Arabian saddle horse, and a carriage the equivalent of a stretch limo behind a team of fringe-footed Clydesdales. Gas streetlamps are lit and tended, and for Dantes’ hell-fire vow of vengeance at the end of Act One, we again hear the invisible church choir, but now we see pillars of flame, cannon fire, and fireworks. The high wire diving scene to access the Abbe’s treasure and the Count’s entry in a hot air balloon are tricks only a theater like Tuacahn can offer. That’s why this production might be considered the apex version of this classic tale.
Tuacahn Center for the Arts Presents The Count of Monte Cristo, music by Frank Wildhorn, book and lyrics by Jack Murphy.
1100 Tuacahn Drive, Ivins, Utah 84738
The Count of Monte Cristo runs select evenings until October 21, 2021.
Tickets: $32 and up
Contact: 800-746-9882, Call the Tuacahn Boxoffice (435) 652-3300 for scheduled performances and show times.
Tuacahn Center for the Arts Facebook Page.
FUN FACTOID: There are three generations of prominent Alexandre Dumases. Our author’s father was Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, General-in-Chief of a French army, and being the son of a black Haitian slave woman, for 175 years held the highest rank in any Western army for a person of color. Our author became one of the most prolific writers of all time, with plays, articles and books totaling 100,000 published pages! His novels have been adapted into almost 200 films. The most familiar include The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask, and of course, The Count of Monte Cristo. His son, Alexandre Dumas fils (son) also became a noted author and playwright, providing the story behind Verdi’s opera La Traviata, and many films using the name Camille.
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