San Jose Rep's Souvenir


Now, here's a show with a payoff!! [Spoiler Alert]

I complained a bit about the last show I saw at San Jose Rep, particularly that the twist at the end made the whole thing less interesting and less entertaining. Their current show, Souvenir, doesn't suffer from that, in fact the last 2 minutes make the entire 2 hours time well spent.

Souvenir is the story of a socialite from the 30s and 40s who had a brilliant career...as an atrocious singer. It's hard to imagine that this is the true story of a real woman, who sold out concert halls and recordings despite her horrendous vocal stylings, but apparently it is, and she did.

Last night the role of Florence Foster Jenkins was played by Broadway star Patti Cohenour. Back in the late 80s, when I lived in NYC, Coenour was the leading Broadway soprano ingenue. She originated roles in Big River and Mystery of Edwin Drood, and she was the original alternate Christine in Phantom of the Opera. (London diva Sarah Brightman only played 5 or 6 performances per week, Cohenour did the rest.) She was also someone that I really admired, and I often wondered why she didn't become quite the household name, even by Broadway standards, of some of the other stars of the time. She was lovely and her voice was pure.

And she knows how to turn that all off to caterwaul as Jenkins, which she proceeds to do through an hour and 45 minutes of the show. At intermission I said to the S.O. that it was killing me to hear her sing like that, and I was desperately hoping we got a chance to hear her real voice. He wondered how they'd make that fit into the play, but I knew. I knew we would get the chance to understand how Jenkins could continue so resolutely in a career for which she was so ill-suited. I knew we'd get to hear what she thought she sounded like.

Throughout the play our narrator, our guide, and Jenkins' accompanist, Cosme McMoon as played by Mark Anders, cannot help but admire Jenkins and her single-minded determination, and her passion for the music. By the end of their 12 years working together he is willing to defend her and support her against any detractors. And after she dies, he, too realizes that it was lovely to be Florence Foster Jenkins and hear what she heard in her head.

Sure enough, the final 2 minutes feature the real voice of Patti Cohenour demonstrating the inner voice of Florence Foster Jenkins. Singing one of my favorite classical pieces, the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria, which we have heard massacred earlier in the evening, Cohenour effortlessly pulls out that pure and lovely soprano.

As soon as that music started, as soon as I realized we would hear that tune sung beautifully, I was moved to tears. Was it simply the pull of that song sung well? Was it that McMoon's character finally loved Jenkins enough in absentia to hear her as she longed to be? Was it because I sung it myself at a friend's father's funeral? Was it because it reminded me of how nothing truly beats when you're performing, and you feel you hit all the perfect moments, and that you know you're touching the audience? Was it because seeing Cohenour nearly 20 years later, older, still at it, but never having reached the kind of fame I would have expected for her, reminded me that the world of the theatre is actually quite a cruel world?

I don't know, but it was a transcendent perfect moment of theatre. And those 2 minutes made every bit of the already-enjoyable 2 hours even more worth it.

So, this is not a traditional review, and if I were to give that I would say that I think even those of you who may not be as personally moved, for a variety of reasons, as I was, will enjoy and be touched by this little duet.

Posted: Sun - March 30, 2008 at 09:24 AM       EmailFeedback

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