The Empress Theater’s “Around the World in 80 Days” is Quite the Trip!

 

By Jennifer Mustoe and Chelsea Benjamin

If you’ve never been to the Empress Theater in Magna, when you go you will find out a few things. One, it’s pretty far. From where I live in Spanish Fork, it’s really far. Two, it is a fabulous space. A three-sided stadium seating theater, it is refurbished, comfortable and cozy but not cramped. Three, Magna has some avid theater fans who love to laugh and enjoy the productions from their hometown.

The Empress’ newest production, Around the World in 80 Days, by Chris Blackwood (book and lyrics) and Piers Chater Robinson (music) is based on the Jules Verne novel. Let me say right now, I’ve never read anything by Jules Verne, so I can’t say if this musical is at all true to the story. But after the big hullabaloo over Saving Mr. Banks and Disney’s desecration of Mary Poppins, I jolly well hope this show is more true to the original book. But I digress…

Around the World in 80 Days is about Phileas Fogg who makes a bet that he can get around the world in, yes, 80 days. There is a lot of money riding on this as well as his reputation. This story takes place pre-airline, so getting all the way around the world took some doing and 80 days seemed ridiculous to Fogg’s detratctors. Thinking Fogg has recently robbed a bank, Inspector Fix follows Fogg on his 80-day quest and along the way, Fogg rescues Mrs. Aouda and she joins the group.

 

There was much Chelsea and I liked about 80 Days. First, the three male leads were very entertaining, though apparently Geoffrey Gregory, who plays the lead, Phileas Fogg, was ill. I honestly couldn’t tell until the end of the show when he was slick with fever and his vioce broke. But you really couldn’t tell the whole show and he soldiered on and proved his acting chops and then some. I was also pleased with his costuming–but I’ll get to that later.

Jeff Erickson’s Passepartout (pronounced pass-a-por-too) is a fun, silly sidekick to the fiercely competitive Fogg. I’m not sure if it was director Jake Anderson’s character choice or Erickson’s, but Passepartout had this little hitch-hop in his walk every few steps. At first, it seemed rather odd, but it sort of grew on me and I was impressed that Erickson kept it up the whole show. Erickson has excellent comedic timing and his physical comedy (watch him in the song where he gets drunk–he’s a riot) is awesome. His son is also in the show. More about the kids later, but I do know from personal experience that being in a show with your child makes the experience so much fun!

Inspector Fix, played by Josh Astle, was my favorite. He had a pretty good voice, but his movement was by far the best in the show. He was very at home with all kinds of silly dance moves and took over every scene he was in. His banter with Erickson was especially funny.

Because there are a lot of people in the ensemble, and the space is small, and the show is long (one of its less than appealing aspects), there is minimal set design–a piling of different-sized steamer trunks that are used throughout the show. They were easily moved and this kept the intervals between the scenes at a minimum.

There were a few sound glitches but for the most part, the sound, by sound operator Melissa Buxton was good. It was way too loud at the beginning and drowned out anyone who wasn’t wearing a microphone, but that was remedied.

Vocal director Rachael Rasmussen got all her players singing, but there were only a few really great voices in the bunch. The ensemble numbers were great, lots of energy and fun. Choreographer Corina Johnson played it safe and the dance numbers were very well-executed because they were simple. I prefer this. I have seen shows where the dance steps were way out of the range of its performers and it was a mess. 80 Days had no messes. And that is good.

There was a troupe of little kids that were darling. Every time they came out, the crowd sighed and laughed. They were adorable. Another stand out in the cast is Geordan Briggs, who played a number of characters and might have been the best actor in the ensemble. I’d like to see him in a bigger role.

I had two issues with the show that I am going to mention. First, the show was really long. It would be nice if it started at 7 PM instead of 7:30, as I’m sure many in the audience had a long way to drive home. It isn’t the fault of anyone in the show and the director had things clipping along. But it’s a long show. (80 days is a long time to show onstage!) For this, I would be cautious about recommending this show for anyone under the age of 8 or 9. It’s too long to sit.

The second issue I had with the show is probably one that nobody else had. I had heard through the grapevine that this show was going to be in Steampunk style. If you don’t know what Steampunk is, think the most recent Sherlock Holmes movies or see a photo of me in a Steampunk photo shoot at the bottom of the review. (Or Google Steampunk or look at it on Pinterest.) Steampunk is all about Victorian and gears and chains and pocket watches. It’s cool. Now I realize that finding cool-looking corsets for all the women and giving everyone a pocket watch and everyone wearing a cool top hat or bowler is impossible. This is community theater and on a strict (meaning small) budget. But there is one that that could have upped 80 Days‘ cool factor dramatically at very little cost and made the cast all look far more cohesive. And that is make-up. (And I notice there was no make up person for this show, so that explains a lot.) Fogg was made up properly and had a pretty good Steampunk costume and an AWESOME top hat with gears and chains and all kinds of cool Steampunk trinkets. But he was the only one with cool make-up and it stood out. Yeah, he looked cool (dark blush on his cheeks, dark eyeliner, silvery lavender lipstick) but I was disappointed that the whole cast didn’t just jump into Steampunk in a very inexpensive but creative and effective way. EVERY woman should have had lots of dark, exotic eyeshadow, fake eyelashes, black eyeliner, dark blush and big red lips. EVERY man should have had a similar look to Fogg. This would have given the cast the right look for the cost of about ten bucks worth of make-up. Nobody except Fogg had enough make up on at all, Steampunk or not, and especially the little kids looked washed out, like little ghosts.

I would recommend this show for people who want to see a show that has never been performed in North America before and want to see something new and different. It is a family show, though there are a few bad words, mostly said by children, strangely, but nothing too horrifying.

Around the World in 80 Days

The Empress Theater

All tickets are just $10 and reserved seating
Special pricing for groups of 10 or more (contact the box office for reservations or email to historicempress@gmail.com)

Performs Jan. 3, 4, 6, 10, 11*, 11, 13, 17, 18, 20, 24 and 25 with one matinee on Jan. 18 at 2 PM. All other shows at 7:30 PM.

www.empresstheatre.com