Displaying items by tag: Katie Kleiger

In the 2019 film Yesterday, a struggling musician wakes up in a world where The Beatles never existed. A similar theatrical case study could be done with every musical that might not exist without Hamilton; Operation Mincemeat should be first on the list.

That is not to say it is not enjoyable. In fact, Operation Mincemeat is exactly the kind of show that benefits from being seen in person. The score, written by SpitLip members David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson and Zoë Roberts, is rarely the main attraction. Its appeal lies instead in the comedy, characterization and ingenuity required for five actors to tell the true story of an outlandish World War II operation involving a corpse, a fabricated identity and strategically planted documents.

Director Robert Hastie and choreographer Jenny Arnold build that story out of controlled theatrical chaos. Many of the funniest sequences have the spirit of “Make ’Em Laugh”: fast, physical bits driven by props and exaggerated reactions. Some jokes get a wonderfully disproportionate amount of production value – “Monty the Musical,” for example, is infinitely funnier because the show commits so completely to the bit.

Ben Stones’s scenic and costume designs are simple, endlessly adaptable and essential to the production’s speed. The set provides a flexible framework for the show’s constant transformations, while a change in silhouette or single accessory can distinguish one of the cast’s many secondary characters in seconds. The quick changes are thoughtfully constructed and flawlessly executed.

The cast meets that challenge of executing the creative team’s boisterous visions with tireless commitment. Katie Kleiger makes Ewen Montagu charming and exactly the right amount of insufferable, while Jake Bentley Young’s anxious, endearingly dorky Charles Cholmondeley feels like the most genuinely lived-in character. That sincerity makes Young’s quick steps in and out of secondary roles even funnier. Erin Ramirez gives Jean Leslie the intelligence and brightness needed to infiltrate the operation’s boys’ club, even if the writing leaves her less developed than she deserves.

Luke Antony Neville is the standout as no-nonsense secretary Hester Leggatt, finding comedy in her restraint before delivering the show’s most emotionally complete moment in “Dear Bill.” Neville performs with such clarity and tenderness that the musical briefly stops displaying its own cleverness and simply lets a person be heard, allowing Hester’s pain to reverberate throughout the theatre. Mariah Copeland is less successful when Colonel Johnny Bevan’s military pressure tips into overplaying but shines as the wildly funny Spanish consul Salvador Gómez-Beare and throughout her other transformations.

The Broadway Company of Operation Mincemeat. Photo by Matt Crockett.

The casting conceit is harder to assess. Every performer plays across gender, age, and nationality while cycling through their many roles, a choice fundamental to both the comedy and the show’s perspective on who is permitted to lead, fight, and be remembered. Yet some passages sound as though the score does not sit comfortably in the performer’s range. Since the tour preserves the original production’s basic character assignments, those rough spots feel less like an unavoidable cost of flexible casting than vocal challenges left unsolved.

Other problems are more practical. Between inconsistent diction, accents that could occasionally be pulled back, and uneven sound mixing, too many lines disappear. The dense exposition and distinctly British frame of reference already ask an American touring audience to keep up; every lost lyric risks taking a historical detail or joke setup with it.

The first act starts shakily, with bits that overstay their welcome and subplots that could be trimmed. Then, at some imperceptible point, I realized I was invested. Act II has stronger momentum, but its influences become more distracting. Escalating military conflict is repeatedly conveyed through punishingly paced, rapid-fire rap that feels less like character-driven storytelling than a theater kid channeling Christopher Jackson’s George Washington. Another number veers so close to the sound and structure of Six’s “Ex-Wives” that the resemblance is difficult to ignore.

The attempt to reckon with Montagu’s disregard for Glyndwr Michael, the real man whose body made the operation possible, also falls flat. The show wants to restore dignity to someone its characters treated as a prop, but that reckoning feels nearly as incidental to the musical as Michael initially does to Montagu – an unfortunate gap in a story about whose humanity history overlooks.

Still, Operation Mincemeat succeeds where it most needs to: in the room. This may not be a score I rush home to hear again, nor a musical that escapes the long shadow of its influences, but it is a tremendously inventive live performance. Its best moments come from what five gifted performers and an incredible creative team can make happen before our eyes.

Operation Mincemeat is running at the CIBC Theatre through October 11, before continuing its tour across North America through July 2027. Tickets are available at Broadway In Chicago.