Review: BEAUTIFUL LITTLE FOOL, Southwark Playhouse Borough
Photo credit: Pamela Raith
Imagine growing up in a house that hosted parties attended by some of the greatest artists, writers and socialites in American history. That was Scottie’s childhood.
Perhaps that should come as no surprise when your parents are F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald at the height of the roaring twenties. But in Beautiful Little Fool, Scottie takes a retrospective look on her parents' fractious relationship, the good and the bad, and how it shaped her own life decades on from their premature deaths.
This new musical appears to be something of a passion project for composer Hannah Corneau, who also stars as Zelda - although she was ably understudied on press night by the effervescent Amy Parker.
While some numbers fizz and even defiantly hint at empowerment - see Act I opener ‘Nobody Parties Like Us’ - unfortunately, the vast majority of the score is rather bland and instantly forgettable. This is in no small part due to a reliance on repetition, not just in style but lyrically also.
That said, the small company does a stellar job at selling the limited material to its audience. Amy Parker, stepping into the role of Zelda (and this really does become The Zelda Show by the end), gives a standout vocal performance, shifting deftly between melancholy and raw anger.
The mother-daughter relationship between her and Scottie (played by Lauren Ward) appears genuinely conflicted and complex. All Scottie wants is love, affection and some normality in her life but Zelda often simply does not know how to give that.
Ward moves between the present day Scottie, now 48, sifting through her parents belongings, and showing a more childlike version of herself growing up. These interactions are believable, although that is more due to Ward’s convincing performance than Mona Mansour’s bloated book.
David Hunter plays an undercooked F. Scott Fitzgerald, who is little more than a caricature lacking the depth of his own writing ability. The piece is clearly focused on the women around him but the fact that he is so underwritten jars, though Hunter does his best with the material he is given.
While Michael Greif’s direction lacks some imagination, the same cannot be said for Shankho Chaudhuri’s set design, which is bold, detailed and pushes the theatre’s tight space to its limits.
Ultimately, at just over 90 minutes, this is a broadly enjoyable look at Scottie Fitzgerald’s troubled relationship with her mother Zelda - but for further success beyond this short run, the score urgently needs revisiting with a few more gems sprinkled in to truly capture the imaginations of the audience.
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Tom Ambrose
