Customer Reviews

After The Fair (1999 Off-Broadway Cast)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

What a beautiful show! This work is intelligent, intimate, witty and charming and filled with stunning performances. Stephan Cole and Matthew Ward are indeed the new voices of musical theatre, and we can only hope for many more shows of this caliber from such a talented pair. BUY THIS CD and enjoy.

"After the Fair" is a very melodic and intelligent written score. After one listens to this recording, you will be hooked on the smart,funny and moving lyrics and diologue that Stephen Cole has written that compliments the lush and melodic score composed by Matthew Ward. All the actors are superb in bringing the story to life through their wonderful singing. Michele Pawk especially shines on this recording. Anyone who is interested in hearing the highest caliber of new voices for the American musical theatre only has to listen to this CD to discover that Mr. Cole and Mr. Ward are these new voices.

Listening to this C.D. every time makes me want to kick myself for not seeing this show when it played off-Broadway. The music is awesome and the song There's A Woman/What Is Real is just amazing! It's my favorite new theatre duet. What I'm really happy about on this C.D. is that Michele Pawk FINALLY gets a real lead role! She's an awesome performer and has always had one or two songs on a C.D.--but now she's on all of them! YAY!

I bought this recording on a whim after reading several reviews that compared it to shows like "Passion" or "The Light in the Piazza". As those are two of my favorite musicals, in book as well as score, I decided to give "After the Fair" a try.

Coming to it with no real expectations one way or the other, I was pleased with what I found. Like "Passion" or "The Light in the Piazza", "After the Fair" has a small cast- essentially only four characters, and it doesn't call for any fancy sets or big dance numbers. The melodies and the story center around the romantic entanglements of the the central characters. The story, based on a short story, "On the Western Circuit". by Thomas Hardy, focuses on a married couple and their maid. When the maid is given the night of to go to a fair, she returns infatuated by an upper- class young man. She strikes up a correspondance with him, but because she is illiterate, the wife of her employer writes the letters. Meanwhile the young man, who had thought her a fling is touched by the emotional honesty and intelligence in her letter- letters she didn't really write at all. Meanwhile the wife has also fallen for this young gentleman through his letters, and the maid has discovered that she is pregnant as a result of her activities with the young man after the fair.

Like Sondheim's "Passion" a great deal of this musical is told through letters that the characters write to one another. As a result most of the songs are solos or duets- there are few ensemble numbers, though the one of two songs that all the characters come in on, are more effective for it. No they're not "catchy" songs that's you'd find in a musical by Frank Wildhorn or Andrew Lloyd Webber- but I find that "catchy" often means that the melody is familiar and predictable. While you won't be humming them all day this score is more likely to stay in your mind longterm. I encourage fans of smaller, chamber musicals to give this one a try

Frankly, the reason I purchased this CD is because I didn't want it to disappear before I got a chance to hear it -- and to add it to my collection of show recordings. It took me some time to get around to playing it, and it was only after listening to it for a second time that I read the synopsis. I was able to follow the story easily, without knowing the plot or being familiar with Thomas Hardy's short story. For me, that's a sign of pretty good musical writing.

Since I haven't seen the show, I can only judge its merits by what's on the disc - the music and the performances. As good as the music and lyrics are, I think that Stephen Cole and Matthew Ward have a long way to go before they can be crowned "the new voices of the musical theatre." And although Beethoven's "big and brassy" Ninth Symphony may sell out Orchestra Hall, there's also an audience (perhaps smaller) for his string quartets - in a much smaller concert hall. And, yes, some people find chamber music to be boring, but others can't be dragged to another Beethoven Ninth.

"After the Fair" might not have a lot of hummable tunes, sometimes the the notes seem to bounce all over the place, and sometimes the lyrics are a little trite. But right now I can't recall a melody from "Pacific Overtures" or "Sunday in the Park with George" or "Passion," but after listening to this show only twice, several days ago, I can sing "Every morning I run just to greet you" at the drop of a hat. The ensemble pieces are especially well written, even if Lerner & Loewe ("My Fair Lady") and Harvey Schmidt & Tom Jones ("110 in the Shade") wrote better songs for their leading ladies to express their anger. The five-piece ensemble does a fine job of supporting the singers. I, too, prefer a full orchestration, realizing that a show this size couldn't afford a pit full of musicians. Nor is a full orchestration always right for a show. Compare the expanded Broadway recording of "Charlie Brown" to the original, more intimate Off-Broadway recording.

Nor do I find the English accents offensive. To my ears, Michele Pawk sounds every bit as "British" as Julie Andrews ever did, and English actors have been playing Americans ever since "Gone With The Wind." Miss Pawk is a truly gifted singer/actress, and I hope there are song writers out there somewhere who will write the show that makes her a star, perhaps even Messers Cole & Ward. All the performers are excellent and in excellent voice, even if David Staller pushes his voice a little too much at times.

So, what's behind the negative comments? Perhaps it's the fact that "After the Fair" is not a conventional musical, but rather an intimate chamber opera. And like most operas, it isn't about cheerful stuff. No one dies in this show, but no one lives happily ever after either. And I think the music fits the piece quite well. No, it's not perfect, nor do I predict it will become a dinner-theatre staple like "The Fantasticks" or "I Do! I Do!" That said, I wish a lot of companies would mount this show and prove me wrong. I'd rather see "After the Fair" than the 100th production of "Hello, Dolly!"

[...]

Now that I have heard the CD of AFTER THE FAIR I could kick myself for missing the production at St. Peter's. From all I can tell from this aural experience, it was a deeply moving musical theatre experience. The score is quite thrilling and touchingly human and it is beautifully arranged and played and sung by all concerned. This is an opus that deserves many an airing.

I found the compositions really boring, weak and uninspired. For me, the melodies sound like some high school pupils trying to do musical. The singers are professionals, though, but nothing more, they lack any spirit. I saw there are people who like this CD, but for me this is a complete time-waster, sorry!

For all the "big and brassy" and oh-so-commercial, themeparks-as-musicals that fill the New York stages, finally there are thoughtful, intelligent and persuasive voices in Stephen Cole and Matthew Ward. These artists have created a moving piece of work, entertaining and challenging. Leave the chestnuts and the bombast shows for the out-of-towners and suburbanites, we need all the Coles and Wards we can get! BRAVO, gentleman, and let us hear from you again soon. And for the rest of you, please add this to your shopping carts!

I've often boasted to my friends that I've never heard a musical I didn't like, and I've listened to well over one hundred of them. Alas, chalk up AFTER THE FAIR as the first, and what a shame it had to be! I could have handled the lack of catchy tunes and contemporary scoring if it weren't for those POSITIVELY DREADFUL AMERICAN ACCENTS of the four leads trying to pass themselves off as British! It's not so much the singing -- that's fine -- it's the dialogue. There's so much of it, and unless you're Meryl Streep, Renee Zellwegger, Gwyneth Paltrow or any other American actor who CAN convincingly adopt a British accent, then there should -- no, MUST -- be a law that forbids any American actor to even ATTEMPT one unless they've undergone a minimum of three solid months of training! In trying to sound like London's working class, Jennifer Piech (as the maid, Anna) channels Frank Spencer from "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em". Ouch, my ears!

I was excited to hear this CD, based on the reviews that customers had written. I was bored to tears. This is NOT my kind of musical. It reminded me of a poor imitation of "A Little Night Music". The notes bounce all over the place, and the singers don't quite seem to have a handle on the music. It appears at times that they are making up what they are singing on the spot. Their voices are pretty and it is well recorded, but I will never put this disc in my player ever again.