“The Sound of Music” is one of those things that you grow up with without being fully conscious of its presence, like the way your childhood house smelled; you never fully notice or remember it, unless the scent drifts to your attention through a lucky accident. Our parents may reminisce more about the musical. But for us, we are not flooded with memories of it always being there while growing up until we come across it. And then, we’re taken back to songs we remarkably know the words to, even though we had forgotten where they come from.
Such is the magic “The Sound of Music” is spinning at the Overture this entire week. Revived by the three-time Tony Award-winning director Jack O’Brien, the latest production of the musical launched in the fall of last year in Los Angeles, Calif. Since the inception of the original production in 1959, it has been graced with only one revival in 1998, until now. Although the original production won five Tony awards—and that doesn’t even cover the awarded Oscars and Grammys for the film and music—it was soon followed by the gritty era of rock and roll. The wholesomeness that borderlined into corny and overbearingly sweet became too sugarcoated for the time.
Though decades later, the show now has become a symbol of simpler times and music that every adult remembers their mother humming. So while the storyline and dialogue of the show may still be difficult to swallow without some eye rolling, its appeal lies in the strangely disney-esque innocence it possesses. Actress Kerstin Anderson does a good job depicting the cheer and laughter of protagonist Maria Rainer that was so iconic in the character originally played by Julie Andrews. And while children do not need too much talent in the theater to win the audiences’ hearts in a family musical such as this one, the troupe of seven in the current production certainly knew how to own a stage.
Like Andrews, Anderson seems to have realized early that the saving grace of the show isn’t the simpering sweetness, but the music and the songs. After many decades, that music will still be the pulling factor for many people to experience “The Sound of Music”. The music is what keeps the audience focused on a storyline that seems oddly regressive rather than simply quaint. Opening the revival’s curtain on an abbey instead of the original mountains, we are brought to a scene that perhaps was not the best hook. But, I imagine O’Brien believed that having us witness the concern of Mother Abbess and the other sisters in the abbey, set the stage for Maria’s apparent restlessness with a life she has convinced herself she wants, despite yearning for more.
When Maria is sent to the Von Trapp family as the governess to a widowed father of seven, we are introduced to a plot whose fate seems obvious from the first act. The almost-nun acting as governess brings music and laughter back into the life of children being ruled militantly by a clueless grieving father, whom she inadvertently teaches to love again. In-between the setting of such unoriginality is the undying charm of “Do-Re-Mi,” “My Favorite Things,” “The Lonely Goatherd” and “Sixteen Going on Seventeen.” Anderson, despite the forced innocence of a woman-child, does immeasurable justice to these classic songs, which I imagine is what saves the family’s fate from the Nazis as well.
On the surface, this show seems to lack depth even though it possesses an old-fashioned charm that will have appeal for as long as we have fondness for times long passed. But for those determined to find meaning even in the most ill-fated of places, such as the storyline of this production, I imagine they could connect with the messages of how art heals and can show us how to love again. Now, is that cheesy and a tad ridiculous? Undeniably so, but it is also true. Swing by the Overture this week to reminisce and find comfort in the wholesomeness of simpler times.
