The time is the present and the place is Ancient Greece, we are told in the opening moments. And this really is a play that has been around a very long time. Aristophanes’ comedy was written in 405BC and performed at a festival in honour of the God Dionysus who is, in fact, the central character of the piece. Stephen Sondheim picked it up in 1974 and freely adapted it with Burt Shevelove.
Its first performances took place in university swimming pools. Later revived, extended and with more songs, it was even more freely adapted by Nathan Lane and found its way onto more conventional stages. One of the lesser known Sondheims, its creator himself thought it had outgrown itself: “It had been an hour and a half long; it should have stayed that way.”
That is, you might say, fair comment and a bit of trimming, especially in the second half, would have undoubtedly been of benefit. Having said that, there’s plenty here to enjoy. The odd couple at the centre of the absurdist plot are the excellent Dan Buckley (Dionysus) and his backchatting slave Xanthius (Kevin McHale from Glee).
Faced with a world that has lost its way, division is rife and the theatre’s not too great either, Dionysus (who is the god of theatre as well as wine) decides the answer to society’s ills is to go to Hades and bring back the finest playwright who will set everything to rights. In the original this is Euripides. Here, Dionysus opts for Shaw.
It’s a bit of a road (or maybe river) story in the first half as the pair head for Hades, meeting up along the way with Heracles, Dionysus’ half-brother, (Joaquin Pedro Valdes, a preening gym bunny with a surprisingly strong voice) who gives them some advice and his leopard skin. Later, they meet Charon (a hilarious Carl Patrick) and, of course the frogs themselves.
Dionysus is, it turns out, phobic about frogs which is unfortunate as they kidnap him. There’s plenty of music and some not bad songs though none are numbers that come to mind when you think of Sondheim. The stand-out song of the night is certainly Dionysus’ ballad about Ariadne, his dead wife, sung with great sweetness by Buckley.
This is all pretty pacey and fun with plenty of action, albeit with the slightest and silliest of plots. Act Two, though, slows the pace and gets bogged down in a debate between Shaw and Shakespeare about who is really the better playwright and should be taken back to sort out the problems of the world. The argument is brightened up by the appearance of Pluto (Victoria Scone from Drag Race though the role changes hands between Danielle Steers, Sooz Kempner and Jo Foster in later performances) – though the constantly shifting mood and action doesn’t help the evening hang together.
McHale and Buckley are a pleasing double act and all of the cast is strong, changing between individual roles and the chorus, not to mention dancing frogs, great poets and Greek gods. There’s plenty of eccentric charm here, boundless energy and oodles of wit. And with a quick trim, it really could be a bit of a comic gem.
The Frogs runs at the Southwark Playhouse until 29th June. For more information, and for tickets, please visit www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk.
