Adam Guettel’s sophisticated and adult musical, which opened off-Broadway in 1996 and deserves to be much better known in the UK, is based on a real incident in 1925 when a young backwoods cave explorer was trapped in a Kentucky cave when a rock fell on his foot. The rescue operation turned into a media circus, a death watch carnival of reporters, profiteers, preachers, film crews and 20,000 gawking tourists. You may have seen the 1951 Billy Wilder-Kirk Douglas film, Ace in the Hole.
Floyd Collins (Glenn Carter) had entered the cave dreaming of the money he would make from the cave by turning it into a tourist attraction and rescuing his family from poverty. Instead he became the tourist attraction and other people became rich. Skeets Miller (Ryan Sampson), the real-life cub reporter, who was small enough to slide down the narrow chutes and interview the dying Collins in situ on eight occasions, would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism.
Guettel’s music, rich and complex – far too rich and complex to be taken in at one hearing – is emotionally involving. The score, drawing on a number of American musical traditions, gives the tragedy an exceptional power and there are strong performances by Carter and Sampson in Derek Bond’s production. The Southwark Playhouse is underneath the railway arches of London Bridge Station. The echoing vault is a good venue for the caves and the yodelling; but it’s not so good, acoustically, if you actually want to hear the lyrics.
Adam Guettel’s sophisticated and adult musical, which opened off-Broadway in 1996 and deserves to be much better known in the UK, is based on a real incident in 1925 when a young backwoods cave explorer was trapped in a Kentucky cave when a rock fell on his foot. The rescue operation turned into a media circus, a death watch carnival of reporters, profiteers, preachers, film crews and 20,000 gawking tourists. You may have seen the 1951 Billy Wilder-Kirk Douglas film, Ace in the Hole.
Floyd Collins (Glenn Carter) had entered the cave dreaming of the money he would make from the cave by turning it into a tourist attraction and rescuing his family from poverty. Instead he became the tourist attraction and other people became rich. Skeets Miller (Ryan Sampson), the real-life cub reporter, who was small enough to slide down the narrow chutes and interview the dying Collins in situ on eight occasions, would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism.
Guettel’s music, rich and complex – far too rich and complex to be taken in at one hearing – is emotionally involving. The score, drawing on a number of American musical traditions, gives the tragedy an exceptional power and there are strong performances by Carter and Sampson in Derek Bond’s production. The Southwark Playhouse is underneath the railway arches of London Bridge Station. The echoing vault is a good venue for the caves and the yodelling; but it’s not so good, acoustically, if you actually want to hear the lyrics.