Wallis

Edinburgh Fringe – The Space

Jane Bramwell’s and Michael Brand’s Wallis is an escape into a world of  decadence and understated glamour through which we’re given a hole in the 4th wall from which to get a glimpse into the social weavings of the British upper class. 

The venue transforms into a completely different world of high society living and socializing as we’re greeted by soft jazz, to the point where the world itself falls away from the atmosphere of sophistication. Wallis delves  into the life of Wallis Simpson (Megan O’Hara) as  she and her husband – Ernest Simpson (Simon Pavelich) are introduced into the ranks of British society and the inner circle of Edward VIII (Rhys Anderson).

 

The biggest issue with Bramwell and Brand’s Wallis is that they haven’t decided how to approach the title character; they push forward both ideas of her being this social climbing, opportunistic femme fatale that didn’t actually love Edward VIII and the other side of that which is that she’s this fish out of water that ended up in a bizarre situation. They try to do a middle of the road, both sides of the argument approach which makes the musical a little less forceful and focused than if they picked the side. Also it just means that Wallis as a character is quite underdeveloped.  If the point is to explore this idea of perceptions vs reality then that needs to be made a lot clearer than it is. Within the musical, there seems to be a working assumption that because we know the story, we’ll know the exact details of everything that happened – for example – why this ended up causing a constitutional crisis, what a was so bad about her past, but all we get is that it’s somehow James Baldwin’s (Andrew Williams) fault because he disagreed with Edward. To their credit, Bramwell and Brand have made their mind up about Edward VIII and decided that he can do nothing wrong and treat him as the golden child of the musical. They’re definitely quite biased towards Edward even if they haven’t made their mind up about Wallis.

“an escape into a world of  decadence”

A lot of the issues stem from the time constraints that this musical is under and relatively unwise decisions that have been made as to how that time is spent, especially in relation to developing character arcs and relationships ; as mentioned more time could’ve been spent developing Wallis, more time could’ve been spent on developing the relationship between Wallis and Edward –  instead of a reprise that tells us very little – so that we don’t have to assume that they’re in love because history says so, or even explaining the whole constitutional crisis would’ve been really interesting to see play out onstage or through song just because it would’ve been something different. Because of this unwise use of time, all the characters – except Ernest – are quite one-dimensional.  The songs within this musical themselves, apart from being loaded with so many reprises that it must be some kind of record, follow a similar pattern – especially full cast numbers- that go start with a jazzy melody and then at end with the cast straining their voices to reach notes that appear outside of a comfortable vocal range for them.

The cast are very good, they perform well and carry themselves with an air of elegance that is just fun to witness in our modern age. This specifically applies to O’Hara who has a mesmerizing grace and stage presence that demands our attention. There is a slight coldness in her interactions with Anderson and it’s not clear if that’s a character choice or just the under-development of the relationship. But there’s a restraint there that makes it difficult to buy into the relationship between the Wallis and Edward apart from the fact that it happened in real life. 

Wallis certainly has a solid structure with room for growth. There are many areas of development and clarification that are needed before we can truly appreciate the story that this musical is trying to tell. 

By Katerina Partolina Schwartz