You know what to expect from The Sound of Music (nuns, Nazis, Do-Re-Mi) – but Nikolai Foster’s richly entertaining revival honours its serious intent. The real-life story of the Von Trapp family’s flight from occupied Austria may contain lashings of melody and a prickle-eyed love story – but it also becomes a tale of personal loss, political integrity and the healing power of music.
This was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s final musical together – Hammerstein, the lyricist, died just months after the opening in 1959 – and the tunes don’t hang about. The title song launches a first half driven by Maria’s dreams and desires, especially her love for the widowed Captain von Trapp. Molly Lynch’s tremendous Maria, scrambling through pools and over rocks on Michael Taylor’s mountain set, has rambunctious vim – more pagan than pious. Endearingly full-throttle, she launches into her numbers with a guitar hero flourish.
This was far from the only musical Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote about damaged men and surrogate mothers. Here, David Seadon-Young’s walking wounded Captain is bearishly ill at ease, caught in the grief that disfigures his enjoyment of family life.
He seems even more lost in what is predominantly a musical world of high, female voices, harmonising in unison: nuns (warmly led by Joanna Riding’s abbess), piping children, blazing Maria. Male authority, especially after the Anschluss, is confined to flat, humourless dialogue. The valet eavesdrops, the telegraph lad collaborates, and the first Hitler salute we see cools the mood considerably.
Foster’s production ripples with feeling, especially in the first half. This is also where the bangers live, tune after lilting tune. Hammerstein’s lyrics are drolly unforced (“underneath her wimple she has curlers in her hair”) and Rodgers’ melodies filtered to alpine purity. The second half is busy with plot and reprises – though Seadon-Young delivers Edelweiss with a memorably forlorn defiance.
The show’s central characters are adrift with loss: Lynch’s Maria helps them all to play. A bed becomes a galleon, walls shuffle aside to make room to romp. The little Von Trapps (there are three alternating casts) embrace Ebony Molina’s lolloping choreography and wonderfully darting moves, relishing the chance to sing and dance and feel again.
• At Curve theatre, Leicester, until 17 January
