That Bastard, Puccini! review: ‘grips from start to finish’★★★★★ - The Jewish Chronicle

Twenty-five years ago I saw an ENO production of a rare opera which, as far as I can tell, has not been seen anywhere in Britain since. It was called La Bohème. It was sort of OK – a decent enough piece of “verismo” but unmemorable.

If you think I’ve taken leave of my senses, I’m not talking about that La Bohème – one of the most regularly performed and loved of all operas. This was another version, by Leoncavallo, the composer of Pagliacci.

James Inverne’s That Bastard Puccini! takes the story of the two Bohèmes, a piece of forgotten music history, and turns it into an engrossing new play that is by turns witty, slapstick, thought provoking and moving. Leoncavallo and Puccini were, it turns out, in competition, writing their respective versions at the same time in a headlong rush to be the first to finish, amid accusations of intellectual theft and with rival opera houses battling against each other to destroy the other composer’s version.

Inverne’s skill is to craft a play that grips from start to finish, despite the fundamental of the story being about two people sitting at a keyboard writing music. That’s because That Bastard Puccini! isn’t really about the craft of composing, despite that being its foundation. It’s about two rival composers, brought magnificently to life by both the writing and the brilliant acting of Alasdair Buchan as Leoncavallo and Sebastian Torkia as Puccini.

They both command the stage, perfectly judging when to ham it up and when to play it (more or less) straight. Much of the evening is laugh-out-loud funny, with Inverne playfully and skilfully utilising every aspect of what is an often ridiculous (but no less true for that) story, with a constant stream of brilliant anecdotes involving characters such as Mahler and Massenet, that is also a thought-provoking examination of the nature of artistic creation and the pressures it places on those involved.

The writing has real verve, with the innate brilliance of the material giving Inverne the confidence to not so much break the fourth wall as to disregard it altogether, having the actors play characters who themselves play other characters both for the audience and for each other (if that sounds complicated, it just works) and to have real characters in a specific place and time look back on events from later in history.

Alasdair Buchan, Lisa-Anne Wood and Sebastien Torkia (Photo: David Monteith-Hodge)[Missing Credit]

This is very much a three-hander, and Lisa-Anne Wood as Leoncavallo’s wife, Berthe, almost steals the show with a hilarious portrayal of Puccini’s publisher, Ricordi, and a sudden sort of coup de theatre half way through the first act (I won’t give it away as it’s so unexpected and thrilling).

It's difficult to imagine how Daniel Slater’s production could be bettered. It has a swagger which propels the evening with pace but which also gives space for the cast to relish every aspect of the play’s comedy, drama and rather moving conclusion.

The set is exactly how your mind’s eye would imagine a late nineteenth century composer’s living room looked, and the production takes full advantage of the Park Theatre’s intimate space. But this is a big play because the characters make it so; it could transfer with ease to a bigger theatre, and I suspect that it will do. If you have any interest in opera, it’s an absolute must-see. But you’ll love it even if you’ve never heard of Puccini, Leoncavallo, or La Bohème

Park Theatre

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