A Wink And a Nudge

No musical is as mischievous and deviant as Victor / Victoria, a gender bending adventure set in 1930s Paris.

Based on the book by Blake Edwards with music by Henry Mancini and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse, the musical features a penniless soprano Victoria, who teams up with a gay impresario affectionately known as Toddy, to disguise herself as a Count named Victor as a female impersonator taking Paris by storm. 

A gangster by the name of King Marchan soon finds he is falling in love with Count Victor, and his infatuation of Victor soon leads to his tough bodyguard falling in love with Toddy. 

With the ingredients for a truly madcap adventure filled with mischief and knowing winks and nudges, local theatre production company Zebra Crossing's latest foray with Victor / Victoria seems to have landed on the safe side of town. 

Certainly. the production quality of the show is undeniable, from the rather elaborate sets and costumes to the sleek yet grand choreography that was mostly well executed by the cast. 

Laura Fygi as Victoria of course was sublime, her voice never for once giving away the fact that this is her first musical performance onstage, playing such a momentous role. One could say her voice was made for musicals too, rich and dramatic, certainly larger than life.  

What the production seemed to lack, however, was a certain je ne sais quoi to take it above and beyond what was certainly a good attempt of a faithful restaging of the musical.  But perhaps this very faithfulness to the original staging of the musical may have been that obstacle too - for this being a musical brimming with mischief and deviance, a little bit of those same two ingredients in the interpretation would have done wonders for its staging.

The characters too, from Victoria/Victor to King Marchan, were flat and two dimensional, resulting in audiences being unable to relate to them. Whether this is a fault of the script or the direction is not clear, but it certainly left audiences hungry for more.