The young audience’s reaction proved the baby boomers’ taste in music and art isn’t always right on the mark.
With a high school audience this week, I watched Talk Is Free Theatre’s Darling of the Day.
It was a hit. Big time. The music, the lyrics, the storyline.
It was something I wouldn’t have believed, had I not seen it for myself.
Of course on social media, you’d expect TIFT – or any arts group, for that matter – to declare their productions, shows, pieces major hits.
So I was skeptical as I went in to see the 1968 musical that was a major flop on Broadway when it was released. It was a disaster, noted director – and long-time Toronto Star theatre critic – Richard Ouzounian.
Its story is timeless. It’s a love story, combined with a commentary on hoity-toity English society. In fact, “darling of the day” is a common term used in Victorian and Edwardian Britain that meant “fashionable celebrity.”
The play focuses on an a brilliant artist who was exiled to the South Pacific, but after Queen Victoria dies, he’s recalled to London to be knighted and honoured for his artistic contribution. The story also tells how he discovers love in an upper working class neighbourhood. The play is full of complications and humour.
The play features wonderfully written songs with incredibly witty lyrics – and that’s perhaps why the rejection occurred in the late 1960s, not to mention the belief of the older baby boomers that they discovered love.
A revised version released in 2005 saw better success, but it still didn’t really hit it off big with audiences.
Until TIFT tackled it here in Barrie.
The teens enjoyed the music and the lyrics, just as audiences in the sold-out shows through the play’s two-week run.
It was a risk even for artistic producer Arkady Spivak, who’s always been known as someone who pushes the envelop and stretches Barrie’s comfort zone in the theatre.
But it worked.
And knowing Spivak – who has taken plays to Russia and added Russian subtitles here – he will see some more rave reviews when he takes this one abroad, as he’s done something no one else has been able to do in the play’s lifetime: he has become Darling of the Day.
