Bagdad Cafe Review: A London Stage Adaptation With Theatricality but No Drama

Posted by Jenniffer Sheldon on Thursday, September 5, 2024

“Life is a cabaret, old chum.” Oh wait, wrong show. Or is it? Taking on Percy and Eleonore Adlon’s 1987 movie “Bagdad Cafe,” Emma Rice’s music-filled, uber-quirky production boasts everything from onstage guitar, keyboard and drums to puppets, mime, model cars, line-dancing, comedy accents, solo and ensemble numbers, a slash curtain and glitter guns. But despite its heart being manifestly in the right place — definitely, nay defiantly, on its sleeve — the whole thing winds up being considerably less than the sum of its parts.

Rice has always been at her best with a strong script, as in her ravishing re-imagining of Noël Coward’s classic film “Brief Encounter,” or a strong structure, as in her 2017 musical “Romantics Anonymous” (which was on the verge of an international tour beginning in Washington D.C. when COVID-19 struck). But the slighter the narrative the more obviously effortful her work becomes, which makes the play with music “Bagdad Cafe” a particularly tricky proposition, since the screenplay is long on mood and short on tension.

Related Stories

Icons representing film, music, books and news being connected by AI nodes and lines VIP+

Generative AI & Licensing: A Special Report

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 04: Zach Bryan attends the 66th GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on February 04, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

Zach Bryan Is Absent From 2025 Grammy Ballot, as He Joins the Superstar Ranks of Drake and the Weeknd in Declining to Submit

The narrative remains the same: Brenda (nicely earthy and addled Sandra Marvin) is already close to the end of her tether running her run-down, middle-of-the-Mojave-desert motel in California’s Bagdad with a feckless staff and family when everything is thrown into relief. In walks a mysterious, taciturn, coffee-loving German woman improbably named Jasmin Münchgstettner (Patrycja Kujawska), dressed from hat to shoes in traditional, buttoned-up Bavarian costume. Her extended presence brings hope and unexpected happiness to everyone.

Popular on Variety

While the film lacked dramatic action, that absence was replaced by close-up observation developing and deepening audiences’ responses to the characters caught in controlled strangeness. Everything was, literally, brought into focus. On stage, robbed of close-up and stillness, with Lez Brotherston and Vicki Mortimer’s multiple little set-pieces being comically wheeled on and off, details don’t resonate: everything feels diffuse.

To make up for that, Rice adopts a mostly jocular tone, playing up the playfulness of the cast of eccentrics. Cleaving, for the most part, to the film’s dialogue, her script fails to provide them with balancing depth but instead, as director, Rice gives everyone idiosyncrasies, routines and tricks to perform. This is all seized upon by the highly skilled company with evident delight, especially Ewan Wardrop, winningly delineating and dancing his way through a stream of sweetly off-beat characters.

By contrast, Kujawska offers a distilled, beautifully unfussy performance as Jasmin as both the unintended catalyst and, unexpectedly, as a violinist accompanying Salomé (Nandi Bhebhe), who devotes herself to playing Bach rather than mothering her child (played by a puppet). Operatic bass Le Gateau Chocolat is wasted as Brenda’s estranged husband, sitting in a car off the edge of the stage almost throughout but lending rich heft to the ensemble’s choral moments.

The show’s real problem is that little of this coalesces. There’s plenty of theatricality but the drama is so threadbare that both of Brenda and Jasmin’s would-be strong moments of reconciliation are defined by sentimentality rather than true sentiment, since any emotion elicited by their sudden shared understanding feels unearned.

With so much stage activity, “Bagdad Café” is certainly diverting. The trouble is, it’s diverting you from the realization that, as Gertrude Stein said of another Californian location, there’s no there there.

Read More About:

Jump to Comments

‘Bagdad Cafe’ Review: A London Stage Adaptation With Theatricality but No Drama

The Old Vic, London; 600 seats; £65 ($89) top. Opened, July 28, 2021; reviewed Aug 17. Closes Aug. 21, 2021. Running time: 1 HOUR, 30 MIN.

  • Production: An Old Vic & Wise Children production of a play in one act by Emma Rice adapted from the screenplay "Bagdad Cafe" by Percy and Eleonore Adlon, with songs "Calling You" by Bob Telson and "Brenda, Brenda" by Telson and Lee Breuer.
  • Crew: Directed by Emma Rice; sets and costumes, Lea Brotherston and Vicki Mortimer; lighting, Malcolm Rippeth; sound and video, Simon Baker; choreography, Etta Murfitt; puppetry, John Leader and Sarah Wright; magic, Ben Hart, production stage manager, Greg Shimmin.
  • Cast: Nandi Bhebhe, Le Gateau Chocolat, Bettrys Jones, Patrycja Kujawska, Nadine Lee, Emlyn Maillard, Sandra Marvin, Kandaka Moore, Renell Shaw, Gareth Snook, Ewan Wardrop.
  • Music By: Ian Ross.

More from Variety

Most Popular

Must Read

Sign Up for Variety Newsletters

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Variety Confidential

A Variety and iHeartRadio Podcast

ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV9nfXN9jqWcoKGkZL%2Bmwsierqxnkpa0pa3DZpqanpViv6bCyJ6uZqiclsZuscymmGaqmZiybrvLnWSvoZNifnN%2FlGlrbG9ka3w%3D

CATALOG
    FEATURED TAGS