High Society no Longer Exists, but it’s Worth Making a Song and Dance about It

Kate Fleetwood (Old Vic)

High Society

Kevin Spacey leaves his post as artistic director of the Old Vic with one last wild and vibrant fling. He’s chosen as his final production the musical of the film of the play, High Society. As The Philadelphia Story, it was the original 1939 play and 1940 movie, both starring Katharine Hepburn; in 1956, and this version was one of Mr. Spacey’s early triumphs at the Old Vic. Under the present name, the tale of the feisty society girl who balks at marrying her boring would-be second husband only to remarry the first became a Hollywood extravaganza for Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.

Spacey’s swan-song musical is staged in the round, directed with genuine panache by Maria Friedman, herself a great performer. Tom Pye’s sets are the most lavish I can remember seeing at the Old Vic, with a succession of objects appearing on lifts in the small central stage, including a pair of grand pianos; one scene is furnished with design classics such as Barcelona chairs and sculptures by Hepworth and Giacometti; and the period has been brought forward from 1939 to 1958 so that the women can all be breathtakingly dressed in New Look frocks.

You can add to this Nathan M Wright’s vigorous, often daring choreography – the dancers are confined to a small space, but this never seems to affect the largeness of their gestures, even when there is evident danger involved in doing a tap routine on the piano lids. Sometimes the dancers fill the entire space with what appear to be freewheeling, almost spontaneous movement by the entire troupe. It’s exciting, especially in the Act II ensemble that seems, generously, never to end. And then there’s a sensational audience warm-up by Joe Stilgoe, and his show-stopping four-hand piano duetting with the musical director, Theo Jamieson, who also conducts the biggest band I can remember at the Old Vic.

To top it all there’s an unforgettable performance by a truly great actress, Kate Fleetwood as Tracy/Sam Lord. Ms Fleetwood seems to specialise in unforgettable performances, and as the one that sticks most firmly in my own memory is her Lady Macbeth, we can add versatility to her numerous gifts. She can actually sing and dance, not just adequately, but splendidly. What else can we say? She makes us forget Grace Kelly. When she makes her entry down to the stage, she’s in breeches and boots, carrying not just a brace, but three pheasants, and her shotgun. (Note to director: the night we were there, she was carrying the gun unbroken – not something a girl from the top drawer would be guilty of doing.) The Lady Macbeth experience is not wasted: Fleetwood can be chillingly aloof, though she never shows Hepburn’s don’t-give-a-damn coldness; but she’s not as good at aloof as she is at almost tragic, when she seems nearly shattered by sadness.

If Arthur Kopit, the writer of the book of High Society, intended in the 1950s to satirise the snobbishness of the Oyster Bay set, the satire no longer works. The targets have changed now that the connection between aristocracy and great wealth scarcely exists, and that the rich are different from you and me in a new way – they’re vulgar and more common. Maria Friedman seems completely aware of this, and allows the main characters, save for Tracy, her first husband Dexter, and kid sister Dinah, to be – more or less – types, rather than dramatically developing characters.

While this makes the whole business depend on Ms Fleetwood’s terrific performance, it has its drawbacks in the first half, as there’s no real chance for the subplot involving Mike Connor (Jamie Parker) and Liz Imbrie (Annabel Scholey) to grip our interest, ditto their confusion of Uncle Willie and Seth Lord, or the reconciliation of Tracy’s parents, Seth and Mother Lord (though Barbara Flynn manages to convey that getting back together with her old stick of a husband has yielded unexpected sexual dividends). Ms Fleetwood failed to convince me that she was really that cross with her father over his affair with the dancer.

So it comes as a relief that the second half takes off and soars above all this petty plotting, and treats it as an occasion to wallow in Cole Porter’s music and lyrics, allowing three newcomers really to shine: Jamie Parker as Mike; Rupert Young as a tall, suave, elegant singer and dancer in the role of Dexter; and especially the beautiful, believable Ellie Bamber as the kid sister, Dinah.

Is High Society as classy as some other musicals? Perhaps not. But with performances such as these, and Ms Fleetwood giving her considerable all, who cares?

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