Tame 'Tom Jones' needs more flair and less fluff
BEVERLY -- To judge from the reaction to last Sunday's New York Times Magazine piece about teen dating, you'd think that today's young people were the first to discover sex without commitment. It's been going on since at least '49 -- 1749, when Henry Fielding's "Tom Jones" appeared.
Tom had all kinds of "friends with benefits," to use the current phrase, before finding his true love, Sophia. ("I do not ask for your heart, Mr. Jones," one of them tells him.) A movie and a miniseries later, Tom is now ready to be toasted in song -- in "Tom Jones: The Musical," which is receiving its US premiere at the North Shore Music Theatre.
Alas, Tom's liaisons seem more Disneyish than dangerous here. Even with most of the women wearing see-through hoop skirts, a hunky Jones in David Burnham, and a passing nod to Fielding's satire, this musical rarely rises above Cliffs Notes plot summary and Andrew Lloyd Webber ersatz emotion.
The music was written by George Stiles, the talented composer of the Olivier-winning children's musical "Honk!" Here, Stiles's tunes are serviceable enough, but they have not developed the muscle that Fielding's novel requires, even for a radical musical reduction. Change the lyrics and all but one of Stiles's songs would be at home for the quackers in "Honk!"
And Paul Leigh's lyrics are no threat to Sondheim's supremacy: "Fair Sophia,/ Did I dare aspire/ To your love? . . . Still, Sophia/ Till my days expire, I'll recall that paradise/ That once was nearly mine."
It isn't until the end of the first act that "Tom Jones" shows any real flair, as many of the principals converge at an inn where a variety of copulation is both suspected and indulged in. Stiles and Leigh neatly capture the energy in "Sir!" -- a song that captures the "Noises Off" farce of the action with musical and lyrical wit to spare.
This comes at the 90-minute mark of a three-hour musical that desperately needs to be shorn. And if it really hopes to get to Broadway (as the program indicates), it needs more "Sir" and less sap. And more sexual sophistication. The see-through skirts get awfully boring after a while, as does Tom's bed-hopping.
On the plus side, director Gabriel Barre keeps the good-humored pace up, and the actors have talent and personality. Many of them sit in the front row when they're not onstage, changing costumes and providing sound effects. Tim Jerome and Jeremy Webb are appropriately hammy as the bawdy Squire Western and the evil Blifil. Stiles doesn't really give them much to show what they can do vocally.
Burnham could use more mischievousness as Tom, but why blame him? It's a quality that's too sorely lacking in the rest of the musical.
Ed Siegel can be reached at siegel@globe.com.
Tom Jones: The Musical
Musical in two acts. Book and lyrics by Paul Leigh.
Music by George Stiles.
Based on the novel by Henry Fielding and a concept by John Doyle.
Directed by: Gabriel Barre. Set, James Youmans. Costumes, Pamela Scofield. Lights, Donald Holder. Sound, John A. Stone. Choreography by Christopher Gattelli.
At: theNorth Shore Music Theatre, through June 20. 978-232-7200.
