King’s Theatre, Glasgow, on tour June-July 2004

Flora the Red Menace

WHEN YOU’VE loved a show and raved about it, as I did Flora the Red Menace when it was first seen at Dundee Rep last year, you return to see it again with a sense of trepidation. What if it isn’t as good as you remembered? What if you’d been in an unusually benevolent mood the first time? What if the production has lost the special spark it once had?

In the case of James Brining’s production of the little-known Kander and Ebb musical, there was an extra worry. Although it had received at least three five-star reviews, it was met more coolly in some quarters. The show’s all right, went the argument, but it’s nothing special. After all, it was the duo’s first toe in the Broadway water and hardly in a league with Cabaret or Chicago which followed. The company did it well, they said, but not spectacularly.

Happily, I can stick to my guns. You don’t need to claim this is the world’s best musical to recognise it as a fascinating show. And you don’t need to pretend it has a West End-sized budget to see that the Dundee ensemble company does it tremendous justice. In fact, you could argue that its very irregularities, its loveable imperfections, are what make it such an enjoyable evening. This is not bland, mass-produced pap, but quirky entertainment on a human scale.

Written in the 1960s and set in the 1930s, it’s about a plucky fashion illustrator, Flora Meszaros, who refuses to be beaten by Depression-era economics. She’d be just another thrusting young entrepreneurial type pursuing the American dream were it not for her meeting with fellow designer Harry Toukarian who introduces her to the Communist Party. The show pivots on the question of whether Flora should follow her own instincts about social justice or stick to the unyielding party line.

Weighty stuff for popular entertainment, but it never seems so in a bright and breezy production graced with a set of strong songs powerfully and sensitively sung. Brining stages it without clutter or interruption and draws engaging, high-energy performances out of Emily Winter and Richard Conlon in the lead roles. With lively support from the other seven actors, Winter and Conlon trace a bitter-sweet story of young love that is given bite and focus by its wider social implications.

In short, it’s a rare example of a musical that has point and purpose as well as wit, romance and even a splash of tap-dancing pizzazz.

Flora the Red Menace can be seen at the Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, from Wednesday 30 June to Saturday 3 July, 2004.

© Mark Fisher, 2004