Stage Review: Ghost & Mrs Muir "Final" Performance
Well, after watching the very first public performance of the stage musical version of THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR, Hollywood Gothique made the experience a perfect circle by catching the very last performance at the NoHo Arts Center this afternoon.
Most of the tiny flubs mentioned in the initial review had been fixed: Mrs Muir’s daughter no longer had to do an on-stage costume change at the beginning of Act Two, for example.
There was one slight disappointment: the star of the show, James Barbour was not at the performance; his understudy, Kevin Baily (who usually plays the supporting role of Miles Blaine) stepped in at the last minute as Captain Daniel Gregg.
Fortunately, Baily did an excellent job in the lead, delivering the songs with gusto. Although he had to carry a script to help him remember some of the lines, this was not as distracting as it sounds; he made the script seem like a prop in the character’s hands (which worked especially well when Captain Gregg and Mrs. Muir are working on manuscript).
All in all, another fine performance – and hopefully only “final” in the sense that it’s the last one at this little theatre. We expect in a year or two to see that it is being mounted as a major production, hopefully on Broadway. And all of us who saw it in North Hollywood can think, “Oh yes, we saw it first – before it became the next big thing.”