'Thou Shalt Not' is a miss

NEW YORK, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- With a book based on Emil Zola's classic novel, "Therese Raquin," with music and lyrics by popular singer-composer-actor Harry Connick Jr., with direction and choreography by Susan Stroman ("Contact," "The Producers"), the new Broadway musical "Thou Shalt Not" would seemed destined to be a hit.

That it is a miss is no surprise to theater pundits who predicted Zola's dark tale of adultery and murder was more the material of opera than of Broadway theater, especially at a time when audiences are seeking relief from the tragic realities of everyday life. "Therese Raquin" as an opera will have its chance in Dallas Nov. 30 when Tobias Picker's operatic treatment of the novel has its world premiere.

In the meantime, "Thou Shalt Not" will be struggling against the odds to win an audience for the most distasteful story set to music for the popular theater since Stephen Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd." That show, which was wryly comic, was able to make serial murders and inadvertent cannibalism palatable to Broadway audiences in happier times.

Unfortunately, "Thou Shalt Not" cannot be played for comedy, even if its second act ghost is meant to introduce some levity. Zola' style was totally realistic, and he intended "Therese Raquin," published in 1867, to be a scientific study of human nature based on a true story reported in Paris newspapers.

The show is not set in Paris, as is "Therese Raquin," but in the French Quarter of New Orleans during the first revival of Mardi Gras after World War II. It is the occasion for long pent-up revelry that can only seem macabre in the context of Zola's plot as reworked and updated by David Thompson, the writer who scripted "Steel Pier" and the current revival of "Chicago."

Thompson's Therese works in a jazz bar owned by her mother-in-law, Madame Raquin, who plays hostess like a latter day Texas Guinan, and helps take care of her sickly husband, Camille (cough, cough just as in "La Traviata"). Therese is an orphan relative of the Raquins and has been brought up to think of Camille more as a brother than a husband.

Along comes a stranger, a war veteran named Laurent who fill the job playing Madame Raquin's piano and offer Therese the torrid love affair she has been missing in her life with the affable but sexless Camille. Soon Therese and Laurent's thoughts turn to murder and he tips Camille out of an excursion boat while Therese looks on, not participating but an accomplice nonetheless.

In the second act, the guilty couple marries after the required year of mourning but they are haunted by Camille and the realization that they have been lured into a corrosive relationship by lust, not love that will end in eventual disclosure of their crime. Therese even threatens to expose Laurent, and Madame Raquin attempts to do the same, before she and Laurent end their misery in a double suicide.

Kate Levering, who recently was the ingénue star of the "42nd Street" revival on Broadway, tries hard but is miscast in a show that calls for real depth of characterization. She has a lovely, expressive voice and a talent for dancing, but it is not enough to carry the weight of Zola's complex, tragic heroine.

Craig Bierko, who starred in Stroman's revival of "The Music Man," last season, is more believable as a hunk who exudes sexuality and amorality, carefully plotting to come out looking like a hero in Camille's death by visiting the New Orleans morgue daily to find the body of his "closest friend." But he is unable to invest Laurent with much personality in what is essentially an uninspired performance.

The star of show really is the hapless Camille, played resourcefully by Norbert Leo Butz, who was the original emcee in the national tour of "Cabaret."

He wins his audience entirely with his boyish but genuine affection for Therese, and is even more sympathetic in his love-hate relationship with his protective mother, who is played with flair by the ever-dependable Debra Monk. It is Butz who brings the second act to some semblance of life as an engagingly playful ghost.

Monk manages to make Madame Raquin a total character, even when a stroke resulting from the shock of her son's "accidental" death relegates her to a wheel chair. She has an able partner in an old admirer, Police Officer Michaud, who is played by Leo Burmester as a totally satisfying Old Reliable, the diamond in the rough with a heart of gold. They are so good together; they deserve a show of their own.

The score by Connick, a native of New Orleans, revels in minor keys and a percussive beat. The music is always interesting and enjoyable but never rises to the level of a Broadway hit song, although he comes close with "Tug Boat," a lilting duet for Therese and Camille that is later reprised by Laurent.

Connick's style is relaxed, as best exemplified by his laconic jazz funeral march and Camille's ironic solo, "Oh! Ain't That Sweet." It also is catchy, as demonstrated in his Mardi Gras numbers, "Light the Way" and "Take Her to the Mardi Gras." It will be interesting to follow Connick as he tackles other Broadway shows, for as the song says, "Once you have found him, never let him go."

Stroman's direction, as always, is highly professional, and her choreography -- including an unusually torrid ballet number titled "The Other Hours" that has a revolving brass bed as its main prop -- is outstanding, especially in the Mardi Gras scene, which gets the best of William Ivey Long's colorful costumes. Thomas Lynch's sets are dreamily evocative of the French Quarter, imaginatively lit by Peter Kaczorowski.

In case you can't get enough of Therese Raquin this season, Kate Winslet will soon begin making a movie based on the Zola novel for Intermedia Film. Picker's opera on the subject will be performed in Montreal next year and in San Diego in 2003.