Monte Cristo

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After the musicals based on the French 19^th century tales The Three Musketeers, Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Scarlet Pimpernel, could Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo be far behind? The problem with the Dumas novel is its huge number of characters and its many changes of locale from the island of Elba, to Marseille, the prison of the Chateau d’If, the island of Monte Cristo, Rome, and eventually to Paris.

However, in the sweeping new musical epic retitled Monte Cristo, canny and adept librettist Peter Kellogg (Desperate Measures, Penelope) has streamlined the story, reduced the number of characters and created a much less melodramatic ending that is more satisfying than the original while still covering 20 years in the lives of its characters. The score by Stephen Weiner, who collaborated with Kellogg on Penelope, an entertaining musical version of Homer’s The Odyssey, has written a lush, romantic score which in every way complements the grand storytelling of love, injustice and revenge. Directed by Peter Flynn as part of The York Theatre Company’s Fall 2024 NEW2NY Series, the production belies the fact that this is a concert version book in hand and that the cast had only four days of rehearsal. It is one of the most accomplished musical productions to be seen currently in NYC.

Set at the end of the Napoleonic Period from 1815 – 1839, the era of the Bourbon Restoration through the reign of Louis-Phillippe, and based on both the Dumas novel and the play by Charles Fechter, Monte Cristo tells the adventurous and gripping tale of sailor Edmund Dantes who returns home to Marseille from a sea voyage in order to marry his sweetheart Mercedes. However, little does he know that the letter he was asked to pick up on the isle of Elba (from the imprisoned Napoleon) was a treasonable act. Making use of this knowledge, Mercedes’ treacherous cousin Fernand Mondego who is in love with her, Danglars, Edmund’s jealous junior officer, and Villefort, the Prosecutor for the King, implicated because the letter was intended for his brother, all conspire to have him imprisoned indefinitely at the Chateau d’If, an island off the coast of France.

There Edmund meets the Abbé Faria, an ardent supporter of the Italian Risorgimento, who not only teaches him all he knows in the 18 years they share a cell, but on his death bed tells him the whereabouts of a magnificent treasure. In the interim, Fernand has married Mercedes and become a count, the devious Danglars has become a Parisian banker and a baron, and repentant Villefort had maintained his career as a government official. When the Abbé dies, Edmund substitutes himself for his corpse and escapes from the island prison. Finding the treasure on the island of Monte Cristo, he is set to advance his revenge on the three men who dishonestly had him imprisoned and destroyed his chance of happiness with Mercedes. This is where Kellogg has invented a swashbuckling new story by only adding three of Dumas’ characters from the next generation.

The varied score includes lyrics by Kellogg with intriguingly perfect rhymes and suitably romantic music by Weiner in the 19^th century style. While several songs are reminiscent of earlier show tunes, they never sound derivative. The wittiest songs are the patter songs for Abbé Faria’s complaint to God that his cellmate is so uneducated (“You Sent Me This”); Eugenie and Albert when she suggests they had better not marry (“What If There’s More Than This”?); and the Innkeeper’s refusal to help the Count of Monte Cristo until he hears the salary (“You Have the Wrong Man”). Among the beautiful love songs are “You Guide Me Home” and “Back When the World Was Ours,” duets for Edmund and Mercedes. Mercedes’ full-out love song “This Stupid Heart of Mine” becomes a comic ballad in the hands of the innkeeper’s wife Carconte as “That Stupid Man of Mine.” The treacherous plotters have two impassioned ballads, “One Small Thing” and “Once and For All,” both of which call for the muscular and fast singing they offer.

All the members of the entire cast have powerful voices, fully able to sing the complex score. As the central character Edmund Dantes, Trent Saunders is spirited and heroic, seemingly growing in stature when he returns from imprisonment in the second act as the self-proclaimed Count of Monte Cristo. Alas, we do not get to see him swashbuckle as there are no dueling scenes in this version. As his love interest, soprano Lauren Worsham as Mercedes is both passionate and steadfast. Her lovely singing voice graces her solos and duets.

As her cousin Fernand Montego later the Count Morcerf, Daniel Yearwood is cunning and subtle, hiding his villainous side until he “repents” at the very end. Danny Rutigliano steals every scene he is in as both the innkeeper Caderousse and the Abbé Faria, comic as one and witty as the other. He is reminiscent of Don Quixote’s sidekick Sancho Panza, but with new business and retorts. Anne L. Nathan as his wife Carconte is amusing but without quite as much to do.

Among the smaller roles, Philip Hernandez as the royal prosecutor Villefort is suitably conflicted by his one mistake, while James Judy as the Baron Danglars is sly and low-key in his duplicitousness. The younger generation is ably represented by Pablo Torres as Mercedes’ inexperienced and gullible son Albert, and Grace Marie Rusnica as Eugenie, the grasping and voracious daughter of Baron Danglers who devours the stage when she is on it. Alex Humphreys makes a strong impression in her one major scene as the former Princess Haydee.

Scenery is a major item in a story that travels to so many locales. This is solved by Peter Brucker’s wonderfully evocative black and white, color and sepia projection designs which uses huge slides the size of the stage to set each new scene. They are complemented by Aidan McLeod’s subtle lighting design. David Hancock Turner gives yeoman service playing the entire score at the solo piano. In this form the show is not yet perfect, needing more comic relief and ironic dialogue. Of course, this is a story which cries out for full sets and costumes to bring to full life the 1815 – 1839 time period.

Monte Cristo (September 21 – 29, 2024)

The York Theatre Company

NEW2NY: Fall 2024 Season

Theatre at St. Jean’s, 150 E. 76^th Street, in Manhattan

For tickets, call 212-935-5820 or visit http://www.YorkTheatre.org

Running time: two hours and 30 minutes including one intermission