Stage Review : Sketchy Book, Thin Score Mar Musical ‘Manet’

It is debatable who will get more out of “Manet,” the historically minded or the pictorially inclined. But the ordinary playgoer is bound to get less than either from Mark Turnbull’s song-filled tribute to the 19th-Century French painter at the Moulton Theatre in Laguna Beach.

Although the ambitious Laguna Playhouse production is mounted lovingly, staged with mastery and played by its star with the sort of panache most professional theaters would kill for (let alone a community theater), it is ultimately a work-in-progress that lacks dramatic focus and fails to deliver a musical payoff.

The author has merely hinted at a full-bodied score, the complement of 40 songs notwithstanding. His bloodless libretto is no more than a catalogue of people and events from Edouard Manet’s life that is as uninvolving as a museum brochure. And the title role is so underwritten, even for a musical, that it attains at most a single dimension, and usually less.

Still, “Manet” is not an embarrassment. For sheer theatricality, it would be hard to beat the “living pictures” illustrating a handful of Manet’s masterworks. They lend a charm to the show, particularly when the figures come alive, that can only be described as otherworldly. The polish cannot be overestimated, nor the devotion to stagecraft. Delivering a show with 40 players in full 19th-Century regalia is no small achievement.

Moreover, in John Huntington the show has a star who embodies the role of Edouard Manet as much as the material will allow; indeed, he finesses its shortcomings. With his sensitive face, intense eyes and long, curly beard, Huntington looks exactly right as the elegantly tailored, aristocratic artist whose avant-garde paintings belied his need for official acceptance. He also sounds totally commanding, able to project a rich baritone with ease. And he moves lightly, suggesting grace and delicacy of character.

Yet as a piece of musical theater meant to entertain and possibly to enlighten us about an artistic genius, “Manet” simply heads off in the wrong direction without ever managing to find its true bearings. The songs--none of them memorable--push the narrative along like tugboats nosing an ocean liner out of its berth. Instead of making the open sea, they keep chugging in circles around the harbor.

One obvious problem is the lack of distinctive music. The melodies typically consist of undeveloped motifs that tend to peter out after a few measures. Only two songs--”The Light on the Land” and “The Reluctant Heart”--stood out from the rest as heartfelt moments that drew a deep response from Thursday’s opening-night audience.

The lyrics are generally limp. Manet has “eyes the size of France / This my poor heart grants,” according to one of his wife’s couplets. The painter sums up the rejection of his work: “All my life they laughed / At crudities of craft.” It’s accurate but uninspired. In a sing-song phrase that becomes one of his musical refrains, he laments: “Everybody wants to say / ‘I get it.’ ”

Turnbull’s lyrics work better when they serve as comic relief. Louis Napoleon III’s ditty, “I Love My Uniform,” is a hoot: “This is my Eugenia / Eugenia is my Queenia.” But some attempts at humor are puzzling. At one point, the music quotes the opening theme of “Some Enchanted Evening” while Manet sings: “I would like to paint you / I will give you money.” The joke isn’t worth the laugh.

The other major problem is the low-impact libretto. Turnbull has described “Manet” as “a musical in an epic style” partly to express his preference for the grand sweep of history and partly to discourage the inevitable comparison with “Sunday in the Park With George,” the 1984 Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical about French painter Georges Seurat.

But instead of an epic, we get an encyclopedia. While successfully avoiding Sondheim’s cerebral introspection about the creative process, Turnbull gives us a discursive lecture on art that skims the life and times of Manet the painter, yet scarcely broaches the subject of Manet the man.

It is telling that Manet reaches an emotional peak of agitation in the first act over a question of pictorial perspective, not exactly something to bring you to the edge of your seat. In the second act, his great declaration is: “I am not an Impressionist.” Is it possible, given Manet’s historic significance, that his chief anguish in life was his lack of acceptance by the academicians? If so, a musical can stand only so much hand-wringing.

What of the relationships in his life? Why was his wife Suzanne Leenhof’s son passed off as her younger brother and his godson? Was he in love with the Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot, a student of Corot who became Manet’s model and eventually married Manet’s brother Eugene? And what of Manet’s feelings toward Victorine Meurent, who posed for “Olympia,” the nude portrait that created such a furor?

Turnbull chooses not to probe any of this. He drops a bombshell in passing about the paternity of Suzanne’s son and, inexplicably, leaves it totally unexplored. He also hints darkly at Manet’s romantic feelings for Morisot without elaborating. And he ignores how these women felt about each other.

Forgoing such intriguing aspects of Manet’s private life in favor of an art lecture-cum-slide show seems a missed opportunity. If the facts are unclear, so much the better to speculate. Dramatic invention might have spawned a more interesting score. For “Manet” to go anywhere beyond this production, it will need an overhaul.

A symptom of the show’s misguided trajectory is that Manet never delivers a show-stopper or even the most distinctive song, though he is on stage without a break from beginning to end. His many offerings are throwaways. The most affecting musical moment in the first act is “The Light on the Land,” a duet sung by Morisot and Claude Monet (played by Carolyn Miller and John Bisom.) Ironically, the song has overtones of Sondheim.

Manet’s solo in the second act, “Modern Times,” is more to the narrative point than his first-act solo, “Rio,” though it, too, is forgettable music. The most affecting song in the second act--this time with a Webber-ish lilt--is “The Reluctant Heart.” But at least Manet is not completely excluded. In this duet with Berthe, he sings the accompaniment.

Standout performances in a teeming cast included Karen Angela as Victorine Meurent, Dana Van Diver as Suzanne Leenhof, Greg Howit doubling as the Spanish Singer and Degas, John Weston as Baudelaire, Doug Williamson as Zola and Steven Sloan as Louis Napoleon III.

‘MANET’

A Laguna Playhouse production. Book, music and lyrics by Mark Turnbull. Directed by Douglas Rowe. Orchestration and arrangements by Terence Alaric. Choreography by Steven Josephson. Set design by Doug and Don Williamson. Lights and sound by Stephen Shaffer. Costumes by Karen Weller. Makeup by Gary Christianson.

For the living pictures: Design by Don and Doug Williamson. Backgrounds and costumes painted by Leslee Turnbull. Costumes by Karen Weller. Lighting by Steven Shaffer. Makeup by Gary Christianson. Head pieces by Clarisse Bessey. Frames by Lyle Brooks.

“Manet” runs through June 12 at the Moulton Theatre, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Curtain is Tuesday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinees Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets: $14 to $16. Information: (714) 494-8021.