Endearing and Moving Performances From a Mostly Young Cast Lift ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock: The Musical’

One of the most accomplished and affecting musicals introduced during the past 30 years, “Spring Awakening,” used a German play written in the late 19th century to explore the loss of innocence among young people growing up in a cruel, hypocritical world. In the new “Picnic at Hanging Rock: The Musical,” the approach and the vibe are similar, but the result, while intriguing, isn’t quite an instant classic.Librettist and lyricist Hilary Bell and composer Greta Gertler Gold adapted “Picnic” from a 1967 novel by an Australian author, Joan Lindsay, that was also the basis for a 1975 film. Set in Lindsay’s native Victoria, the book focused on a group of students at a girls’ boarding school who, on Valentine’s Day of 1900, travel to a historic site, originally a volcano and formerly home to aboriginal Australians.Along with a teacher, three of the girls disappear, igniting a scandal and precipitating other disturbing and tragic developments. A young Englishman who was visiting Hanging Rock at the same time embarks on a search and ends up having to be rescued himself, by a coachman named Albert.In the musical, Albert is a member of Australia’s First Nations; he represents indigenous trackers who, as the program tells us, in the late 1800s and early 1900s were tasked by law enforcement with locating lost persons and fugitives. Albert’s presence serves as a constant reminder that this beautiful, forbidding land, a source of titillating mystery for the other, predominantly well-off characters — including the Englishman, Michael — was essentially stolen, injecting an element of dark karma.The musical’s creators and its director, Portia Krieger, also underline the budding sexuality of the female students and related social pressures. Emphasis is placed on the unusually tight bond between Sara, the youngest and least privileged of the girls — forced to stay behind by a callous headmistress, because she hasn’t mastered her piano scales — and the popular Miranda, who is as kind as she is charismatic.Reese Sebastian Diaz with the cast of ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock.’ Matthew MurphyThere’s a decided sense of eroticism to the thrilling, liberating impact Hanging Rock has on Miranda and the schoolmates who join her in defying the headmistress’s stern warnings not to wander off on their own. A math teacher who gets lost following them is spotted, as she was in the novel, wearing only undergarments. Ms. Bell’s book inserts flashbacks to add drama and, at times, blur the lines between reality and reflection, while Ms. Gertler Gold’s winding, often meandering tunes and arrangements provide dissonant harmonies. The singing, accordingly, can sound purposefully shrill, as if the gifted players have been instructed to sustain a mix of tension and terror.Ms. Krieger nonetheless culls endearing and moving performances from her mostly young cast. Standouts include, in addition to Sarah Walsh’s haunted Sara and Gillian Han’s luminous Miranda, Tatianna Córdoba’s coquettish turn as Irma, a lively heiress, and a charming Kate Louissant, who projects both intelligence and mischief as Marion, the class scholar.A Broadway veteran, Erin Davie, conveys the headmistress’s steely self-regard without making her seem entirely soulless. As the math teacher, Kaye Tuckerman speaks in a dry, breathy voice and paces the stage and the theater — actors periodically venture into the audience — with a controlled gait, suggesting a repressed academic or a willowy dominatrix, depending on what she’s wearing. (Ásta Bennie Hostetter designed the smart period costumes.)Reese Sebastian Diaz and Bradley Lewis are credible and sympathetic as, respectively, Michael and Albert, but even the latter character ultimately plays a supporting role to the women and girls in “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” and the land itself. The show, which I saw in its second preview, could still use some work, but it has a compelling subject and decent bones, and both are well served in this production.

Endearing and Moving Performances From a Mostly Young Cast Lift ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock: The Musical’

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