Howdy partner. Turns out, if you speak all folksy-like, eat red meat, tell stories about Uncle Joe, and maybe do a bit of xenophobia, you can become a demagogue too. So shows recent history, and so shows Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg’s 1957 film A Face in the Crowd , which followed a drifter who becomes a celebrity and eventually a politician, fomenting ever wilder and more extreme views along the way.
No need to ponder why playwright Sarah Ruhl and musician Elvis Costello have chosen this moment to adapt it as a musical. Ramin Karimloo, better known for big West End and Broadway roles in Phantom and Les Mis , plays Lonesome Rhodes, who starts the story locked up in the local slammer for being drunk and disorderly. Sweet-minded local radio DJ Marcia Jeffries (an always-effortless Anoushka Lucas), wants to put the voices of real people – “from county fairs [and] soup kitchens” – on the airwaves and picks him out.
He’s a hit. A big one. A few dozen cracker-barrel aphorisms later, and they’ve got a TV deal.
Soon Lonesome is flogging energy pills to millions and advising a presidential hopeful on how to appeal to the average American. From Costello’s opening number – a bright and breezy song about Marcia’s radio show, all fluttering melodies and jaunty piano – the vibe is kind of kids’ TV. Gone is the rough edge and seriousness of purpose that makes Kazan’s film slightly terrifying.
Here, as adapted by Ruhl, the story is a bit schmaltzy, the politics qui.