Okay, I confess:
I’m a musical theater nerd.
Not that I ever had the talent – or the guts – to get up on stage and sing. But watching actors burst into ballads was one of my favorite pastimes as a kid. Don’t tell anyone. I’ve been trying to hide it since 7th grade, after realizing an iPod playlist full of Andrew Lloyd Webber wasn’t exactly cool.
So I was excited for Half a Sixpence, a musical based on H.G. Wells’ novel Kipps. The original show, with music by David Heneker and a book by Beverly Cross, opened on Broadway in 1965, but a revised version co-produced by Cameron Mackintosh and Chinchester Festival Theater debuted in July 2016. Given that Mackintosh was the genius behind Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, and Hamilton, I had high expectations for this play.
Which were met, to some extent. The production itself was quite the spectacle: gorgeous folding backdrops and a multi-part revolving stage allowed the scenes to literally glide from one to the next, and the pit orchestra’s solid brass section imbued the score with energy and dynamism. Lead Charlie Stemp dazzled with his remarkable dancing– think midair splits and graceful pirouettes – as he captured the buoyant optimism of Arthur Kipps.
The story centers on Arthur, a poor country orphan who goes to London as a draper’s apprentice. Fortune befalls him via the death of an estranged grandfather, and he finds himself torn between two young women: Ann Pornick, his childhood playmate who now works as a parlor servant, and Helen Walsingham, a posh lady who tries to mold him into a gentleman. In choosing between them, he must sort out his own identity.
Despite the updated production, problematic plot elements remind us this is a show from the ‘60s. Offhand allusions to slavery sound tone deaf, and gender stereotypes provoked some raised eyebrows in our group (the female characters fixate almost entirely on men, marriage and babies).
But more interesting to me was the play’s portrayal of social class, which is presented as both inherent and performative. Take Mrs. Walsingham, Helen’s mother. Born into gentility, she feels entitled to a life of luxury despite her declining fortune, which implies that her identity as a “lady” is separate from actual possession of wealth. Likewise, Arthur stumbles into money, but this alone doesn’t grant him a gentleman’s status. Rather, he must signify that he belongs to the upper class via appearance and behavior.
Speech is crucial to “performing’ class. As Helen’s protégé, Arthur attempts to exchange his Cockney accent for the Queen’s English (technically called Received Pronunciation, or RP).
“If you remember the vowels and remember the H’s, all will go well,” Helen assures Arthur before a dinner party.
This reminded me of Queenie in Andrea Levy’s novel Small Island. The daughter of an English butcher, Queenie leaves the countryside to live with Aunt Dorothy, “Mother’s posh sister from London” (Levy 247). Her elocution teacher says she’ll “never get on in polite society” without speaking the Queen’s English and therefore instructs her in proper pronunciation (248). The goal of all this training? To marry a gentleman. By performing class, Queenie tries to secure both a husband and an accompanying rise in the social hierarchy.
Other characters face barriers to social mobility, despite their best efforts to conform. Jamaican immigrant Hortense finds that her version of English is unintelligible to white Londoners, even when speaking with “an accent that had taken [her] to the top of the class in Miss Stuart’s English pronunciation competition” back home (16). Race, cultural upbringing, and colonial relations undermine her class performance.
Returning to Half a Sixpence, I was bemused by the denouement, which struck me as both rushed and improbable (spoilers ahead). Although engaged to Helen, Arthur wants to give up his gentleman’s lifestyle after realizing he’s a simple guy at heart (“Give me bacon in a roll,” he says, after a dinner of snails and quail). A rather fortunate loss of fortune allows him to renege on the engagement and propose to Ann instead. Conveniently, their wedding day ends with the news that Arthur has become rich again, due to a lucky investment in a new play (By now, Arthur has grown accustomed to sudden windfalls and is rather blasé about the whole thing). Nevertheless, the message is clear: you can be true to yourself and rich at the same time!
If you’re a white man, this might be feasible. But Queenie and Hortense remind us that race, culture, gender, and class aren’t always compatible, and that success in the social hierarchy sometimes demands sacrifices – or may even prove impossible. But if you’re willing to overlook the dated plot, a flashy production and talented cast make for an entertaining evening.
~Grace Johnson, ’18
Half a Sixpence runs for 2 hours, 45 minutes at the Noel Coward Theater until September 2, 2017. Tickets start at £25.
Works Cited
Levy, Andrea. Small Island. London: Review, 2004. Print.
