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Kelly v. Kelly centres on the conflict between an affluent uptight mother and her wilder daughter. From left: Kelsey Verzotti, Margaret Thompson, Jessica Sherman, Julia McLellan.DAHLIA KATZ/Handout
- Title: Kelly v. Kelly
- Written by: Britta Johnson, Sara Farb
- Director: Tracey Flye
- Actors: Eva Foote, Jessica Sherman, Jeremy Walmsley, Mike Jackson, Joel Cumber
- Company: Musical Stage Company, in association with Canadian Stage
- Venue: Berkeley Street Theatre
- Year: Runs to June 18
Critic’s pick
The verdict is in. In the matter of the new Britta Johnson/Sara Farb musical, Kelly v. Kelly, this critic finds the show guilty of being a dramatic and musical triumph.
Inspired by a real-life 1915 legal case in which an influential, affluent Manhattan single mother charged her 19-year-old heiress daughter with incorrigibility, composer/lyricist Johnson and book writer Farb have created a swift-moving, engaging and richly detailed musical about two complex women caught up in a world on the brink of social change.
The show begins in a courtroom, as the upright, uptight Helen Kelly (Jessica Sherman), her hair twisted into a bun and her body stuffed into what seem like late Victorian-era clothes (designed by Alex Amini), is waiting with her lawyer (Joel Cumber) and the judge (Mike Jackson) for the defendant – her daughter – to arrive. In Brian Kenny’s sound design, an old-fashioned clock ticks on.
Eventually Eugenia (Eva Foote), dressed as freely as her mother is constrained, flutters down one aisle of Toronto’s Berkeley Street Theatre, surrounded by reporters obsessed with the story of a prominent family being ripped apart by the suggestion of sex and scandal.
Will this be a clever riff on Chicago, a musical also based on a notorious, early 20th-century domestic court case? Or will it be a 90-minute legal procedural – Law & Order meets Edith Wharton – with music?
Nothing so derivative. Johnson – whose musical, Life After, received lots of buzz last year at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre after premiering at the Berkeley in 2017 – is an intelligent, imaginative composer who, like her obvious model Stephen Sondheim, always tries to find the right music to suit a show’s subject.
With the help of a detective (Peter Fernandes), Helen has discovered that her seemingly dutiful daughter has been leaving their home at night to visit a club where male tango dancers accept cash to slink across the dance floor with their eager partners.
Eugenia is smitten with suave dancer Al Davis (Jeremy Walmsley), and the feeling seems to be mutual. But Helen, like the chilly antagonist of Henry James’s Washington Square – later adapted into The Heiress – before her, suspects she’s being wooed for her money. And she’s going to use every connection she can to ensure that doesn’t happen. Hence the court case and trial.
The Musical takes place in a courtroom setting, with flashbacks as witnesses step up to testify. From left: Dave Ball, Kelsey Verzotti, Margaret Thompson, Eva Foote, Peter Fernandes, and Julia McLellan.DAHLIA KATZ/Handout
Johnson finds inspiration in the sultry, sensual sounds of jazz and tango. The show’s very first notes, plucked out by bassist Erik Larson, throb with anticipation and possibility. When Al dances with Eugenia for the first time, he croons a seductive song into her ear, that same bass starting up again, this time suggesting the beating of the naive young woman’s heart.
Contrast this with the more structured, conventional songs sung by Helen and her set – the group number, The New Woman, satirizes the “shocking” changes in women’s clothing and condoned behaviour – and you’ve got a brilliant example of how music can not just tell a story, but simultaneously suggest character and class.
Farb, best known as an actor – she’s currently playing Delphi Diggory in the Canadian production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a role she also performed on Broadway – has written an equally effective book.
The entire show takes place in the courtroom, but as witnesses are called up to the stand to testify, Farb often flashes back to key moments in the two women’s stories. While this technique takes a while to adjust to, it soon becomes an economical way of adding depth to their lives.
Tracey Flye, who also provides some lively choreography, ensures we always know what period or place we’re in, making full use of the height and atmospheric lighting in Lorenzo Savoini’s set.
The creative team have also used the doubling of roles effectively. Jackson plays not just the paternalistic judge presiding over the case but also another patronizing figure: Edward, the wealthy, older and emotionally distant man who courts then marries Helen. During one flashback, when Helen believes he may be using her for her family’s political connections, it’s fitting to have Walmsley – the actor playing her daughter’s future seducer – sing these suspicions into her ear.
Flye’s use of the talented ensemble is impeccable and always clear. Sometimes they’re a chorus of gossipy onlookers; at other times, they’re Helen’s or Eugenia’s consciences.
One minor issue is what happened to Edward Kelly: When did he die, and how? Presumably that loss brought mother and daughter closer, but the lack of a scene establishing that fact takes some emotion away from Sherman’s otherwise powerful 11 o’clock number. And neither Farb nor director Flye have solved how the implications of a late-in-the-show plot point affect the future of Eugenia’s life and reputation.
But these are quibbles. The most effective scene features Foote’s radiant Eugenia and her girlfriends going back in time to savour the potential and promise of the world laid out before them. A fitting metaphor for what’s in store for this extraordinary, female-led musical.
In the interest of consistency across all critics’ reviews, The Globe has eliminated its star-rating system in film and theatre to align with coverage of music, books, visual arts and dance. Instead, works of excellence will be noted with a critic’s pick designation across all coverage. (Television reviews, typically based on an incomplete season, are exempt.)