Andrew Lloyd Webber's personal favourite - one of his lesser known musicals - is a delight. Aspects of Love is on at the Joburg Theatre Complex.
Aspects of Love revolves around love, relationships and good living
TWO Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals are being staged in Joburg in the coming year. Aspects of Love opened on the weekend at the Joburg Theatre Complex and is not to be missed.
Although not well known, it appears to be one of Lloyd Webber's favourite musicals. "Aspects of Love is very special to me. It is in many ways my most sophisticated musical," he has said.
Lloyd Webber has written some of the world's most famous musicals: Phantom of the Opera, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, and Cats.
Directed by Briton Nikolai Foster with an all-South African cast, the musical is about compatible relationships, love and good living - things to which we all aspire. It is set in Montpellier in France in 1947, and the five main characters take us through 17 years of their lives by means of a clever plot and good acting.
The title song, Love Changes Everything, is possibly the only well-known element of the show. The musical is engaging from this first song, with some of the country's best actors taking the audience through their various love tangles: Englishman Alex Dillingham (Robert Finlayson), actress Rose Vibert (Angela Kilian), painter George Dillingham (Keith Smith), sculptress Guilietta Trapani (Samantha Peo), and teenager Jenny Dillingham (Sharon Spiegel).
I feared the musical would consist of characters breaking into unnatural song, as in old-time Hollywood musicals. But, although there is no talking, the songs flow smoothly, pulling in the audience immediately.
David Garnett's book
The musical is based on a book by David Garnett, who took as his premise EM Foster's wisdom that literature teaches us "how many different ways there are to live". The "aspects" of the title refer to the many ways the actors love - mostly foolishly, it seems, failing to learn from their follies.
Garnett was something of a rebel. He was a conscientious objector in WW1 and again bucked convention in 1942 when, at the age of 48, he married the 22-year-old Angelica Bell, niece of the writer, Virginia Woolf. These unconventional ideas form the basis of the musical.
"The novel explores the way in which romance, like youth itself, only becomes truly romantic when it is threatened with an ending, or when it seems tragically unattainable," according to the programme.
Together with Tim Rice, Lloyd Webber wrote the songs for the musical in 1988. The first West End production was in 1989, where it ran for over 1 300 performances. The Broadway production opened in 1990 and ran for almost 400 performances. It will run for 44 performances at the Joburg Theatre.
"I find it extraordinary how many people still feel that it is their favourite despite the fact that obviously it has never even approached the popular appeal of my better-known shows," added Lloyd Webber. "For me, Aspects of Love will always remain something extremely dear to me."
Second show
The other Lloyd Webber musical coming our way is The Boys in the Photograph, timed to coincide with the 2010 FIFA World Cup™.
It will open on 18 May, and run until 11 July, and performances have been carefully timed so as not to clash with the screening of major soccer matches.
The award-winning musical appeared first in the West End in London in 2000. It is a coming-of-age story about a group of young men and women in Belfast, in Northern Ireland, in the late 1960s, growing up in an atmosphere of religious intolerance and hatred.
The plot centres on a football team, made up of Catholic and Protestant youngsters, with a Catholic coach.
Aspects of Love runs at the Joburg Theatre Complex, in Braamfontein, until 28 June.
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