BWW Reviews: Gettysburg Community Theatre Presents Wildhorn's THE CIVIL WAR For Battle's 150th Anniversary

It's the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the most important moments of the entire Civil War. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a tourist attraction at any time, is undergoing monumental festivities for the occasion, along with the Gettysburg Festival and the Fringe Festival. What's Gettysburg Community Theatre to do but to join in for the occasion with Civil War programming? And wait - a musical about the Civil War! It's even called THE CIVIL WAR (FOR THE GLORY), and it's by Frank Wildhorn... well, the book is by Wildhorn and Gregory Boyd, the lyrics are by Jack Murphy, and the music is by Wildhorn. If you can't put it on stage in Gettysburg for the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, when can you stage it?

The answer should, alas, be "never" (except for its studio album, which uniquely featured Linda Eder, poet Maya Angelou, and Hootie and the Blowfish along with Betty Buckley and Travis Tritt in a musical coalescence of historical psychedelia), at least not in its actual form. Wildhorn is relatively prolific, which has only generated him a larger number of flops than most composers have entire bodies of work, and this is one of the many of them. Although it was nominated for a Tony for Best Musical, which it didn't win (it and two other non-notables were up against FOSSE in what was not a stellar year for Broadway musicals), the New York Times was not the only source to find it "without plot and essentially without character."

Despite noble (and possibly Herculean) efforts by director Chad-Alan Carr and a cast of fine performers, it's still flat - that is one of its primary and inherent characteristics. It's essentially a musical revue, in a number of musical styles, about various subjects of the Civil War, from slavery to death in combat, by a series of characters who almost never interact with each other or with the audience to a degree to cause anyone to care about who they are or why they are suffering (and make no mistake, almost no American did not suffer in some way during the Civil War).

Wildhorn is also no historian - to hear his characters speak, we are to understand that the single cause of the War Between The States was the existence of slavery. By 1999, no competent historian preached that; we now understand the powder keg of economic and political issues that led to the war, covering everything from states' rights to the difficulties of integrating the portions of a country that was half-agrarian, half-industrial, and economically imbalanced. For one of Wildhorn's characters to insist that the whole war is based "in Negro rights" is to quote Frederick Douglass, yes, but otherwise to be inaccurate as to its roots and as to the planned outcomes of the War. (Does no one remember that Lincoln was originally not planning to abolish slavery, that appalling economic institution of Southern agri-business?)

Despite the shortcomings of Wildhorn, however, and they are many, this production is notable for its cast of singers - and despite the conceit that it is a play, it is a themed revue of songs, loosely linked by more or less staged vignettes, not a show with a discernable plot. Worth noting are Hector Isidro and Brittni Blank as slaves Clayton and Bessie, leading the singing of "If Prayin' Were Horses" and several of the other anti-slavery songs. They are in many ways the heart and soul of the show, able to draw an emotional response from the audience that it is difficult to find at other moments. Raquel Rivera, playing another slave, also takes the role of Sojourner Truth in a recitation of "Ain't I A Woman?" Although the original speech was made in 1851, and Francis Gage's somewhat altered "definitive" text appeared in print in 1863, it is one of the most remarkably effective historical orations on record, and its insertion in the show is one of Wildhorn's best moves. Rivera's performance of it is stirring.

Matthew Barninger and Greg Trax play the Union and Confederate captains, respectively, and to fine effect. In particular, Trax's performance of the country-rock ballad "This Old Gray Coat" is spectacular. Other singers worthy of note are Brandon Dillon, who sings "Virginia" movingly, and April Howard as the war-hospital nurse in "I Never Knew His Name" (originally written for a trio of nurses, here successfully condensed to one), who succeeds in drawing tears from the audience as well as herself. Jen McGurn provides a stunning solo in "Candle In The Window".

Director Carr has made several cuts in the production and, at some points, apparent combining of characters, which may provide a positive effect on the duration of the show and certainly does not make the difficulty of tying threads together between vignettes any harder than it already is. In some respects the production feels a bit more like a workshop of the show than a full-scale production, but the traditional final product feels lacking in itself, so there seems no loss. Additional rehearsal time might have made the production slightly tighter - that can be expected to be remedied through the duration of the production as the cast continues in their parts - though it would make no difference to the material itself.

Unlike CHILDREN OF GETTYSBURG, also running currently on the Gettysburg Community Theatre stage, the music is in no degree historical music (whereas the other show relies on period music to set the stage). Wildhorn would have done better to stage the work as a concert or, better yet, a cabaret, of mixed varieties of modern song about the Civil War, rather than attempting to craft vignettes and develop characters that do not hang together. The cast (including director Carr) would be better and more truly served by the ability to display their multitude of talents in that kind of environment.

At Gettysburg Community Theatre through July 5. Call 717-334-2692 or visit www.gettysburgcommunitytheatre.org for tickets.

(Author's Note: A production of THE CIVIL WAR was staged at the Majestic Theatre in Gettysburg in 2006, for which Wildhorn personally made revisions and added songs - this is not the first Gettysburg production of the show.)

Photo credit: Gettysburg Community Theatre

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