“A musical? Really?” was my first reaction on hearing that The Pianist – the film or, more accurately, Władysław Szpilman’s bestselling memoir – was being staged with music at the Park. But my favourite thing about theatre is its ability to utterly confound expectations.
Szpilman, “the Polish Gershwin”, endured the unendurable. A famous concert pianist and composer, he was living in Warsaw in 1939 when the Nazis invaded. Being Jewish, he and his family experienced the ghetto and the utter barbarism of the regime, along with surprising flecks of kindness. Roman Polanski, who had himself escaped the Kraków ghetto as a child, made the 2002 film starring Adrien Brody, which won the Palme d’Or among other accolades. Now Thom Southerland has adapted and directed this contemplative London premiere.
So why does it work? Normally I am the first to call out unnecessary and tactless music, especially around one of humanity’s darkest periods. For a start, the production uses Szpilman’s own compositions. Simon Lee’s arrangements weave swinging yet mournful songs of love and longing, far removed, on the whole, from the glistening or merely descriptive numbers so often trotted out in musical theatre. Mazurkas and idealistic songs are used with heaps of dramatic irony and heartbreaking pathos, all sung by voices that tremble and sometimes crack with emotion.
Two performers
The sheer musicality of the production is in keeping with Szpilman’s life in the whirl of Warsaw’s radio, films and theatres. Everyone acts with a violin, cello or guitar in hand – again, appropriate given the family’s musical talents. It limits their movement, yes, but given the Park’s size and the uniformity throughout, you quickly adapt.
Cleverly dancing around the problem of finding a lead who is also a concert pianist, the production casts Daniel Krikler for the acting (and what a sublime job he does) and Malcolm Forbes-Peckham as our pianist and musical director. Two performers, one unique man. Amazingly, it works, and it allows the memorable Chopin Nocturne in C-sharp minor, along with Beethoven and many others, to thunder onto the stage.
Across the board, everyone is aware of the gravity of the story and what is at stake, singing, playing and acting their hearts out: Rosalind Ford as the harassed matriarch trying to keep the clan together; Elżbieta Kalicka as sister Regina and Melania Maggiore as Halina, providing vocal welly along with string support; and Mischa Jardine, who stands out musically as Janina, an almost-love interest.
Some accents do slide around, from generic English with a Polish inflection to smothered American. And the last song, “Out of the Darkness”, is the most classically musical-theatre, let’s-bring-it-home number of the night. Minor notes, however.
Centre stage
Jonathan Lipman’s costume design is spot on, down to the family’s increasingly frayed clothes, and Andrzej Goulding’s set uses slats of wood to great effect. Mainly, though, it is Southerland’s direction that makes everything feel perfectly suited to the space. The grand piano wheels around, is pushed back and forth, and rightly takes centre stage. Everyone else whizzes past with Karen Bruce’s simple choreography and the many instruments, thoughtfully evoking the shrinking world and opportunities of the Szpilmans and all of Warsaw’s Jews.
Dare I say this should be the Park’s next West End transfer? It handles, so carefully yet so passionately, a story that by rights should have music at its core. Tears tumble unashamedly as the resilience and hope of the man, and the people around him, wash over us in the final salvo of sound. I couldn’t recommend it more highly, and I am so glad to have been proved so spectacularly wrong.
The Pianist runs until 28 November at Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace,
Finsbury Park, N4 3JP.
For more information, including how to book tickets, visit parktheatre.co.uk.
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