TMP’s ‘Glorious!’ makes bad music good

Photo by Kat Dolarhide

FAR FROM HEAVEN. Sharry O’Hare stars as Florence Foster Jenkins, an untalented singer, in TMP’s “Glorious!”

In 2004 William Hung, a contestant on the television show “American Idol,” became famous for his awful singing and awkward delivery, combined with his unbridled enthusiasm to be a pop star. As a performer, Hung was simultaneously an object of ridicule and a source of admiration. With zeal that ran far ahead of his actual talent, Hung managed to parley his rejection on “American Idol” into a number of television appearances, work in commercial advertisements, an album and at least one motion picture role.

The example of Hung is nothing new in the world of entertainment. It is but a recent example of the “so-bad-it’s-good” phenomenon that occurs from time to time in popular culture.

Tacoma Musical Playhouse’s (TMP) “Glorious!” explores the stage life of another notoriously bad singer from an earlier era.

“Glorious!” is a comedy by Peter Quilter that is based on the true life story of Florence Foster Jenkins, a woman from Pennsylvania whose desire to be a singer far outstripped her abilities. Having inherited a fortune, however, Jenkins was able to bankroll her own career as a performer and recording artist.

By all accounts Jenkins was unable to carry a tune or to even adhere to the actual lyrics of the foreign language opera arias that she loved to sing. Dressed in overly gaudy costumes of her own design, she was an object of humor upon the stage.

TMP’s production manages to convey a personality so apparently self-deceived that she considered herself the peer of some of the greatest musical voices of her day. Indeed, the great Cole Porter counted himself among her fans; or at least he enjoyed being in on the joke of Jenkins’ bad singing even if she herself was not.

TMP’s “Glorious!” is thus an anti-musical comedy. The bulk of the humor comes from Jenkins’ earnest yet grating attempt at music. Jenkins is ably portrayed by Sharry O’Hare, who has taken on and succeeded at what must be a difficult task for a good actress: to believably impart the experience of a notably noxious performance.

Set in the 1940s, “Glorious!” draws humor not only from the antics of Jenkins herself but from some of those who circled in her orbit. Joshua Anderson plays Cosme’ McMoon, the stereotypically gay piano player whose one-liners deliver a steady tempo of laughs. There is also the obstinate Mexican maid, Maria, (another stereotype) played by Maria Valenzuela. Kat Dollarhide as Dorothy and Tom Birkeland as St. Clair (a washed-out English actor) are a pair of flatterers that help Jenkins with her “career.”

Beginning in Jenkins’ gaudy house, the play visits a recording studio, a cemetery and the Ritz Carleton before its crescendo in the re-creation of one of Jenkins’ songs that she performed before a sold out Carnegie Hall in 1944. Here, O’Hare takes the stage as the “Angel of Inspiration.” Decked out in a cheesy tinsel halo and overly feathery wings, the audience is treated to one final stinker of a Jenkins performance. Her wings wobble as she bobs awkwardly upward, trying to reach her high notes in an action that resembles a lap dog straining on tiptoe to get a bit of sausage held just out of reach by a teasing master.

By this point the joke has run its course and the play ends with McMoon’s narration that Jenkins died, aged 76, just a month after her Carnegie Hall “triumph.”

“Glorious!” is an entertaining romp into non-musical music. One might also leave the theater perplexed over Jenkins’ capacity for self-deception. In the end, however, it seems that sometimes a burning desire to be or to do something must be followed above all else.

“People may say I can’t sing,” Jenkins is reputed to have said, “but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.”

“Glorious!” runs through Feb. 22. For further information visit http://www.tmp.org or call (253) 565-6867.

Commenting rules