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Mef Frances Ruffelle used to put on a one-woman cabaret show, it would be great. The West End and Broadway star has put together a great original song for I Can Die Too.
Written by a dozen or more songwriters and masterminded by music director Frew, they have a 1980s/90s pop feel to Cyndi Lauper, Britney Spears and Ultravox; a touch of torch music here, a little ballad there. With the help of cello, violin, keys and drums, Ruffelle is in his band singing them: no histrionics and good judgment to know when the song needs a swing of the hips, soft shoes or a direct, closed translation.
This, however, is not a cabaret show – although how to classify I Can Die Too is difficult to say. Credit was given to three writers – Ruffelle, Sally George and Pitlochry’s artistic director Alan Cumming – is about an actress, Lily, rehearsing for a play by Jean Cocteau The Voice of Man.
In a 1930 monologue, a woman spends the night anxiously calling her lover on the eve of her wedding to another man. In the novel, Lily repeatedly forgoes words she considers too dangerous to share memories of her romantic life – a lost teenage lover, an extravagant boyfriend, an adopted child – nothing out of the ordinary.
His ideas are what the music sounds like, which is played by five musicians while not being too much of a backing band. As is the case with behind-the-scenes dramas, Lily is a witch who annoys her friends, but the play is written so deeply that it’s hard to tell the difference between the fictional artist and the character she’s playing.
The only thing that happens on stage is an incoherent argument between Lily and her manager James (Stephen Ashfield). Everything else happens somewhere in a different time, far away and unpleasant. Soon, a story emerges – the reunion of mother and daughter – but too late to use it.
A studio show with a lot of gear, Bill Buckhurst’s production seems to have long life aspirations. If so, it takes more than good music to carry it.
