For decades people have been seeking to rescue Zelda Fitzgerald from her reputation as F Scott’s mad, bad wife. She’s been remade as a feminist icon – a woman driven to extremes, and even incarcerated, by a society and a husband who couldn’t cope with her creativity. Some have tried, too, to capture the Fitzgeralds’ melodramatic marriage on stage (such as in the Craig Revel Horwood-directed Beautiful and Damned in the West End in 2004), with limited success. This latest attempt, with music and lyrics by actor Hannah Corneau, is directed by Michael Greif, the man behind the original Broadway productions of Rent and Dear Evan Hansen.
He has, unsurprisingly, assembled a cast that can pour plenty of vocal bravura into Corneau’s largely poppy score. We follow the well-worn trajectory of the Fitzgeralds’ ascent and decline from Jazz Age fame through the lens of their daughter Scottie as she wanders through their archive (book-lovers will ache over Shankho Chaudhuri’s set of shelves and stacks). The framing is as little explored as the rest of the show’s ideas – why is Scottie there in the first place? – but does allow for a moving performance from Lauren Ward, as she interacts with her parents at various ages.
Between Mona Mansour’s book and Corneau’s corny and repetitive lyrics (“Trust is a funny thing / You have it one day and then it’s gone”) we never get more than a superficial drawing of the central couple. There’s no sense here of why they were so dazzling, or darkly troubled. David Hunter works to bring out F Scott’s mix of arrogance and insecurity, Amy Parker – who stepped in for Corneau on opening night – belts out Zelda’s emotions as a wall of lights bursts suddenly behind her, and there’s some tender romance to their Alabama meeting in One Night in July.
But no melodies linger from the many ballads, and there is no sense of the spark or wit of these two wordsmiths colliding beyond a single waspish argument on the Riviera. The show steadfastly ignores Zelda’s mental health issues for the sake of its sudden, damn-the-patriarchy climax. Still, there’s not long to wait for the next Zelda musical – The Fitzgeralds of St Paul is scheduled for a New York launch this spring.
• At Southwark Playhouse Borough, London, until 28 February
