My overall impression
This is perhaps the most ambitious undertaking I’ve ever seen in the context of a fringe festival. It’s a full-scale musical — a Les Miz-sized musical, primed for a Broadway or West End stage. Pulling off a show of this scale scratch-style in a black box theater almost seems insane — but these guys really made it work. If you can accept the Fringe context at face value (intimate space, limited resources), what you’ll get is essentially a very good workshop of a show with epic potential. Despite the necessarily bare-bones staging, I could honestly see the whole thing clear as day in my head — what this show WOULD look like on a huge stage, with full costumes & sets. And I sincerely hope that it eventually gets to that level. Dumas’ classic revenge story is really the perfect vehicle for a musical of this nature — 19th century setting, romance, betrayal, a little swordplay, that whole French thing… It’s got all the good stuff. Bravo to the creative team for pulling this off — massive job, really well done.
