Welcome to the end of days…trapped willingly in Stillpointe Theatre’s maze…
Come one, come all…to Whitechapel: A New Musical, making its world premiere at The Club Car, Stillpointe Theatre’s resident home performance space, and you’re in for a salacious treat. Directed by Ryan Haase with Musical Direction by Stacey Antoine, and Choreography by Sarah Fremuth, this 80-minute sordid story drops you right into the heart of the ominous tale of Jack The Ripper. Welcome to ‘The Ten Bells’, a lowly tavern circa 1888 where the bloody crimes of the monstrous legend are all anyone seems to be able to talk about…unless you’re Mary Jane Kelly, Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Catherine Eddowes, and Elisabeth Stride, down-on-their-luck ladies of the night who are just trying to survive. With music by Matt Conner, and Book & Lyrics by Stephen Gregory Smith, this unique look at this fascinating dark blotch in England’s history spins the narrative more towards giving the victims of Jack The Ripper agency over their plight, or at the very least, letting a little light into their darkness.
Conceptually, the show is disjointed and feels like it’s still being workshopped. That isn’t to discredit any of the wonderful work that Director Ryan Haase and the rest of the Stillpointe Team are doing to give this new show life and legs in its world premiere; there’s incredible talent on the stage and a lot of really striking moments and beautiful songs. But on the whole, the show feels out of sync with itself, unfinished, and a bit raw. The notion of honing in on the five victims and their stories is an excellent lens to cast this sensationalized historical event through, but Stephen Gregory Smith’s book is lacking, almost as if he were writing this more as one-off numbers for a cabaret rather than a complete musical theatre show. Riddled with awkward moments where the plot progression feels forced along into the next musical number, some of which don’t fit nicely into the setup that Smith has created, the show is clunky, even with it’s “show-within-a-show” concept. Commer’s music is also dancing atop a fine, high tightrope, listing and leaning between the sides of “extreme homage” and “basely-borrowed” from Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret and a few other musical titans whose tunes sound a little like they were lifted right out of their original scorebooks and splashed liberally down into Whitechapel. The segments of “Note” and “Newspaper” (though brilliantly staged by Ryan Haase with the three gentlemen-characters all hiding behind their newspapers or with their backs turned to the audience as they lean over the bar singing) are almost identical to some of those recitative in Sweeney Todd, and the chorus of “The Fight” is plainly “Money Money” from Cabaret, though Smith’s lyrics do an excellent job of matching the patter of that section of the song, particularly the bit about the pebble in the shoe.
There’s also a sense of incompletion in Whitechapel, and not because it ends with a cliffhanger or because it’s left open-ended, but rather because as Conner and Smith are racing through to squeeze their idea— which to be clear is beyond proof of concept it just isn’t finessed and polished enough to meet the benchmark of ‘finished work’— into this one-act, 80-minute, floorshow, they’ve slighted one of the victims by repeating “Light Out of Darkness” rather than giving her a unique song. The formulaic nature of Conner and Smith’s show primes the audience for this notion that every time one of the five featured female characters (as indicated in the opening number by the ‘blood-spool’ they rip around from their wrists, and then leave dangling in plain sight for the remainder of the show so that you know they are marked women) gets a solo song, her number is up, as it were. So when Liz and Catherine are sort of smooshed together near the end of the production (as if they ran out of time or ideas) and one of the solo features from earlier is repeated, it cheapens the experience on the whole.
Missed opportunities, disjointed clunkiness, and lacking cohesivity aside, Whitechapel in its essence if fascinating, if for no other reason, because it’s brand new and it’s not the same tired chestnuts of musical theatre popping up everywhere in spades all across Baltimore. And a new show, however unpolished and still working out the libretto and musical kinks, is well-worth investigating, especially because of all the raw and wondrous talent being featured in this show in particular. A particular shoutout is owed to Tech Director Danny Lopez for how astonishingly muted and balanced the live band sounded (and they weren’t visibly masked— the pit was open and exposed off to the side and back of the play space) never once did you feel like the band was overpowering the vocalists, and the mics on the vocalists picked up consistently throughout the performance. Another nod of praises should be going to said live band (featuring Musical Director Stacey Antoine on piano, Joe Pipken on percussion, Greg Bell on bass, and Jamie Williams on guitar) giving life this new score. (They were actually so muted from a volume standpoint at the beginning of the show that I had to swivel my head around because I couldn’t believe that Stillpointe was using tracks! They were not, they were just delicately dampened and it was a brilliant move on Lopez’ part!) Lopez also gets another series of kudos for the ‘rain’ that exists perpetually in the background from beginning to end— being noticed whenever they’re talking about the storm and fizzling away to a gentle ‘white nose’ style soundscape that drives the production almost as much as the actor on stage.
For as impressive as Lopez’ sound balance and design work is, the lighting design for the show is curious if nothing else. (I won’t say questionable because it works but it definitely has moments where it almost feels distracting from what’s happening on stage.) There are times when its atmospheric and times when it really lends itself to the musical numbers as their tumbling out of the bag onto the stage but there are other times where the lights feel like they have a mind of their own and are acting as their own illuminating character…which doesn’t necessarily belong among the derelicts of The Ten Bells. All in all there’s definitely mood lighting and atmosphere…of some variety. Very curious to say the least. What Lopez’ lights do effectively more than anything else is help Director Ryan Haase’s scenic work feel natural. Haase takes a minimalist approach with three steamer trunks, cloth coverings for the load-bearing-support-poles in The Club Car and some black gauze curtains. That’s it. The bar itself and the pool table get worked into the show and since Whitechapel takes place primarily inside The Ten Bells, it really works. Keep the set simple, let the actors radiate brilliance as they workshop their way through the libretto and music.
One strolls into a new musical focusing around Jack the Ripper and the 1880’s of Whitechapel with certain sartorial expectations. Costume Designer Kitt Crescenzo does not disappoint! Pairing up her expertise with the seasoned styling of Hair & Makeup Designer Danielle Robinette; you get the gritty, gruesome day-to-day of streetwalking strumpets…sinister slags…and just…lonesome ladies. Robinette has the ensemble dress-wearing-characters teasing and ratting their hair to look like something out of a Tim Burton meets Stephen Sondheim extravaganza (and Robinette takes that approach for some of the named characters as well) but where Robinette’s brilliance comes into play is the grody grit graciously greased with glitter makeup plots featured on the players. It’s wild. It adds that hint of fantasy to this hard-knock lifestyle and really accentuates Crescenzo’s costume work…which consists largely of those flute-puffed-bustle-enhanced dressy affairs in various colors appropriate for the time. You feel like you’ve just slipped through the surly bonds of time and stepped straight into The Ten Bells…or The Red Rat (take your pick.)
While some of the musical numbers may lack critical components— like the bridge in “The Stableman’s Wife” or diversity of lyrics in “Eat the Rich”— what the musical presentation does not lack is jaunty dance moves, compliments of Choreographer Sarah Fremuth. There’s a lot of splashy-sassy leg kicks featured in these numbers; Fremuth gives the quartet ensemble a great deal to do when they march through during the more up-tempo tunes. And letting everyone stomp about with oversized eyeballs on forks (shoutout to properties designer Anna Platis) for “Eat The Rich” is a cheeky move on Fremuth’s part.
The aforementioned ensemble— featuring Mars Duque, Sarah Burton, Melanie Kurstin, and Adrian Graham— are not only the backing quartet for a lot of the vocal moments in the show, but they also serve as the ‘soft-interactive-opening.’ At approximately 8:00pm on the dot, Adrian Graham, dressed in fabulous gold accents, startles the audience with a loud vocal bark of attention, getting the ‘ladies’ to mill about, taunting and teasing and enticing the audience before the show actually rolls to a start some ten minutes later. Duque, Burton, Kurstin, and Graham are also the harbingers of finality come the show’s conclusion, when Mary Jane Kelly starts her somber “You Are Me & I Am You” with the four other named girls in the glamourous white and glitter-sequin-red ‘victim’ marks. The aforementioned ensemble slow-step like pallbearers, carrying a delicate embroidered shroud like a coffin making for a stunning image when they lay it over top of Mary Jane. It’s shocking and beautiful.
You get visceral characters that add nuance to the background— like Leather Apron (Jason Hentrich) and Mad Doctor (Christopher Kabara)— whose sole purpose in this production seems to be to add resonate bari-bass sounds to the ensemble numbers (and those “Note”/”Newspaper” recitative sections) in addition to providing an unsettling sense of danger and/or comic relief, with Hentrich being the grody source of danger and Kabara being the somewhat dark and deadpan edge of humor. Both are sleazy in their own right and both chew background scenery divinely.
Curiouser and curiouser goes this cast of character— meet The Bartender (Geraden Ward) who is also referred to as Joseph by Mary Jane and the other women. With a rich and robust hearty voice that blasts a welcome to the house in the opening number, Ward inadvertently sets a false expectation for the evening. (This is a Conner & Smith problem…not a Ward & Cast problem.) This big opening introduction number (whose title card didn’t get flashed in Nolan Cartwright’s projections…but there were some projection based hiccups happening on this soft-open-preview performance, and as you don’t necessarily need to see the song titles to enjoy the show, it isn’t that big of a deal) is almost like a nocturnal carnival invite— something seedy and spicy, something naughty and bawdy, enticing you to venture down this bloody rabbit hole…which leads to somewhat of a musical and plot-based disappointment because of all the out-of-joint moments and inconsistencies and incompleteness. Ward, however, has stunning vocals and carries the tune well with a liberal dose of showmanship. Gritting their heels into the role, you get this showcase of toxic masculinity with just a taste of 1880’s barman-dandy from Ward’s performance, which makes the notion of what might have actually happened in history that much more shocking.
Polly. Annie. Elisabeth. Catherine. Mary Jane. They aren’t exactly the six wives of Henry VIII but they’re no less important just because they didn’t marry into, and subsequently lose their lives/positions to royalty. That is one thing that Conner & Smith do exceptionally well (as was witnessed in their previous world premiere musical at Stillpointe— Witch!) they give voice to the obscured women ill-used and abused to history. And in this case it’s the five victims of Jack the Ripper. Polly (Caralena Kopp), Annie (Kristen Zwobot), Elisabeth (JacQuan Knox), Catherine (Brooke Donald), and Mary Jane (Amber Wood) are a well-matched quintet who have an intrinsic sororal bond between them and when they sing together— particularly for “You Are Me & I Am You” it’s a glorious, well-blended, perfectly harmonized sound. Each of these women get their moments to showcase their sensational talents and this, beyond all of the other positive things mentioned about the theatrical experience that is Whitechapel, is the compelling, show-stopping reason to come and see this tale.
With heavy painted age-lines, Caralena Kopp really leans into the innocence and grit of her character, particularly when it comes to her solo “Like Moth to Flame.” Kopp is featured in the raunchy number “Flowers In Bloom” which is one of the finer and more nuanced lyrical compositions that Smith works into this musical, and it’s a cheeky good time for both performer and audience alike. While the song dictates the character be broken, Kopp’s musical mezzo belt is far from it, proving her character is not defeated, even if it’s only fairy-dreams that her life could have worked out differently. (Much like all the characters in Conner & Smith’s musical, these five women aren’t given enough stage time/musical explorations to be properly fleshed out and dynamic. The performers are doing their damnedest to create vivacious, dynamic characters with what little they’ve been provided…and if Conner & Smith are going to take the copout and say that there isn’t much known about the women…well…suspension of disbelief and creative license would certainly more than makeup for that…the characters would have been better served being in a full-length, two-act musical rather than a race-pace, cabaret-style show.)
Kristen Zwobot’s Annie has a similar experience. All five of the leading female characters— and come to that, everyone who speaks in Whitechapel— has an excellent handle on that back-alley cockney English accent, really driving home their impoverished lifestyles. Zwobot has a glorious soprano sound that lilts and flows through “The Stableman’s Wife” (which is arguably one of the more incomplete numbers in the show) but she endows the song with such fervent emotional sorrow that you can’t help but feel the tears springing to your eyes when she sings. With excruciating detail of her how Annie’s life derailed, one tragedy at a time, you get raw pathos pouring out of Zwobot in that number.
Elisabeth (JacQuan Knox) and Catherine (Brooke Donald) are sort of lumped together by Conner & Smith. (It’s almost somewhat questionable as to whether or not when the characters both meet their end if one saw the other on bite it or not…that might just be staging or that might have been Conner & Smith’s intention.) Both Knox and Donald have powerful voices, alighting brilliantly on “The Fight”, which is Knox’ featured solo and Donald gets relegated to have the repeat number, “Light Out of Darkness” but does a superb job with handling it. The two of them are brassy and sassy, particularly when it comes to slinging loving insults at one another (and the over enunciation of the word ‘continue’ to sound a little more hard on that first syllable during “The Fight”.) Knox and Donald are also the only characters who get a title-card section which is all speaking and not singing “The Faffing Fems.” There’s some lowdown dog-out puns being flung around in this segment— including direct cues to the pit for that ‘ba-dum-dum’ from the drummer. It’s hilarious.
While the show lacks a clear protagonist from a libretto standpoint, you might say Mary Jane Kelly (Amber Wood) is as close to that as anything. Her voice is sensational. And as she does the majority of the leading vocals on the various songs that populate the production, it’s a great experience for everyone listening. Wood sings through these shanties, ballads, and other stylistically intriguing romps with gusto and guts, but also femininity and gentleness. It’s a superb conversation considering the pell-mell of style and direction that Whitechapel takes. While her character is ballsy, Wood isn’t afraid to show the more vulnerable side of the Mary Jane character, even if she’s doing it through humored optimism or fury-laced fear.
It is nothing if not intriguing and has a good framework to be built upon in the future. The talent alone makes the production worth investigating, and you get a chance to take a different perspective on this darkly sensationalized moment in history. Join Stillpointe Theatre through February first for their world premiere production of Whitechapel: A New Musical.
Running Time: Approximately 80 minutes with no intermission
Whitechapel: A New Musical plays Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings through February 1st 2025 with Stillpointe Theatre in The Club Car— 12 W. North Avenue in the heart of the Station North Arts Neighborhood of Baltimore City, MD. Tickets are available at the door and in advance online.
