Wine time: The Frogs - Southwark Playhouse

For a show called The Frogs, there isn’t much amphibian activity in the piece. But being a show with music by Stephen Sondheim, you could be mistaken for thinking it’s a critical theatrical piece. But like Sondheim’s final musical playing at the National Theatre, while it may not be a musical that fills you with provocative thoughts, it’s a fast-paced romp through hell and back to save the world for the sake of arts. With rousing choruses, thrilling choreography and plenty of cheap laughs, what more can you want from the theatre? It’s currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough).

There isn’t much to the plot, except that Dionysus (Dan Buckley), disillusioned by the state of a divided world, and his sidekick and slave, Xanthias (Kevin McHale), cross the river Styx to the underworld to find a great writer who they can return to the world to teach the world about life. He has his mind set on bringing back George Bernard Shaw until he hears the poetry of Shakespeare. 

This version of the Frogs was in London at the Jermyn Street Theatre in 2017. It helps to understand the background of this show. We have Nathan Lane to thank for this version of The Frogs. If he hadn’t been intrigued by the piece after discovering a copy of the script in the late seventies, he possibly would not have wanted to expand the show twenty years ago. Otherwise, it may have faded from memory as a show that featured students Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver and performed at Yale University’s gym swimming pool. From accounts of the time, it was a venue with an acoustic that was even more suspect than the Southwark Playhouse. 

But anyway, this piece was freely adapted originally by Bert Shevelove from the Ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, and then even more freely adapted by Nathan Lane 20 years ago with an expanded book and score by Sondheim. Against the backdrop of the war on terror after 9/11, he saw something noble in the idea of finding art to save ourselves from the antagonism of the times. 

Fast forward twenty years. In this production, there might be similar parallels that the creative team were thinking of in an era of polarization and platitudes, but director Georgie Rankcom also brings out the humour and silliness of the piece. At times, the jokes are like watching a Monty Python show. 

Rankcom also gave a new perspective to the Sondheim musical Anyone Can Whistle, and here, makes sure the show is relentlessly funny. And with choreographer Matt Nicholson, they have made sure the piece is as thrilling and imaginatively staged as possible. When they cross the River Styx and encounter the frogs, while the frogs may be a metaphor for the dullness of the status quo, here they leap about and dazzle with their oversized flippers and big, froggy mouths. 

The entire cast is deft with their comic timing and musicality. Dan Buckley, as Dionysus, is the glue in this piece that holds the show together, given that he is on stage most of the time, balancing comedy, music, silliness, and occasional seriousness. Ex-Glee actor Kevin McHale also has a surprising comic and vocal turn as the slave Xantias. There is also a guest star turn with drag performer Victoria Scone performing the role of Pluto this week, with others lined up for the rest of the run. 

One could complain about the lack of music or the weightiness of the subject matter if you come to the theatre expecting something worthy. Particularly if it’s Sondheim. But you need to look no further to the point of this show in the chorus in the second half, which is a song to Dionysus, the god of wine: 

Out of wine comes truth,

Out of truth, the vision clears,

And with vision soon appears,

A grand design.

From the grand design,

You can understand the world,

And when you understand the world,

You need a lot more wine.

As one of the characters in another Sondheim show says, “I’ll drink to that.” Cheers. Directed by Georgie Rankcom and musical direction by Yshani Perinpanayagam, The Frogs is at Southwark Playhouse until 28 June. 

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Production photos by Pamela Raith