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Two Cities is a 2006 stage musical by Howard Goodall based on the 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. The music and lyrics were written by Goodall, and the book wa…
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Investigate this subjectTwo Cities is a 2006 stage musical by Howard Goodall based on the 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. The music and lyrics were written by Goodall, and the book was co-written by Goodall and Joanna Read.
Two Cities is a 2006 stage musical by Howard Goodall based on the 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. The music and lyrics were written by Goodall, and the book was co-written by Goodall and Joanna Read.
Unlike the novel, which is set in the French Revolution, the musical is set in the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the "two cities" of the title are not London and Paris but rather London and Saint Petersburg. However, the underlying story is the same: a love triangle between the young Lucy Mannersly and the two men who fall in love with her, torn between their loyalties to her and to their native countries as they become caught up in the politics of the war-torn times they live in.
The musical first ran from 5 to 30 September 2006 at Salisbury Playhouse, Salisbury of which Read was the artistic director at the time. Though the possibilities of its transfer to the West End had been suggested, a series of negative reviews on its gala night meant no such transfer took place and as yet no revival performance has occurred. The original cast included Rosalie Craig as Lucy Mannersley, with Glyn Kerslake as Dr. Manislav; David Ricardo-Pearce as Sydney Carton and Ben Goddard as Yevgeny Irtenev.
Two Cities was the result of a partnership between Goodall and Read that had begun several years before in 2003, when Read staged a production of Goodall's musical The Hired Man, based on the novel by Melvyn Bragg. The production was a huge success and won a TMA Award for Best Musical. During its production, Goodall had hinted that he might be interested in writing a new song for the revival, a chance Read had "enthusiastically accepted", as Goodall said. After the success of the production, Goodall says he "would have been mad not to try and work with her again, this time on a new piece." The first piece Goodall suggested as source material for the musical was Cyrano de Bergerac, being a story about self-sacrifice for the sake of an unrequited love. However, Goodall had misgivings about taking this further, partly due to the impracticality of having to radio mike a singer with a prosthetic nose, and partly because he did not like Roxanne's self-centred decision to choose the "good-looking halfwit" Christian above Cyrano himself. Instead, they settled on a similar story of self-sacrifice, that of Charles Dickens' Sydney Carton.
The major departure from Dickens' novel was the decision to focus the story on the Russian Revolution of 1917 rather than the French Revolution of 1789–1799. Goodall claims he was worried that if he kept the story set during the French Revolution that it would begin to bear too much resemblance to the musical Les Misérables, so he made the alteration. He explained that the Russian Revolution is "roughly as close to our time as the storming of the Bastille was from Dickens'." Many other changes crept in during the development process, but Goodall affirms that "the underlying compassion of Dickens' story has been, I hope, faithfully retained."
There were also various changes made during the development of the musical. Originally, in contrast to the novel, Goodall was going to have Dr. Manislav locked up for sixteen years rather than eighteen, but in the final version of the musical this was changed. There were also several changes to the lyrics as things progressed. The original version of "The Night School of Subversion" was very different musically, having a much more upbeat, almost circus-esque sound, and actually never featured the lyric that was to become the song's title. Lucy originally had a solo song called "Gentleman One, Gentleman Two", but this was replaced with a different song, "Just Suppose".
Prologue
The opening song, "Mirom Gospodu Pomolimsya", sung by the whole company, sets the scene before a church in St. Petersburg in 1895. Dr. Manislav is summoned to the scene by Yana, the old servant of the villainous Count Irtenev. The Count has raped a young girl and Manislav has been summoned to help her. Appalled at the way people turn a blind eye to such crimes just because the perpetrator is one of the nobility, Dr. Manislav speaks out against the injustice ("Testimony") but is simply arrested and locked up for trying to speak out against the ruling classes.
Act One
The scene changes to the East End of London eighteen years later, in 1913. The prostitutes Dulcie and Enid describe the squalor of the lives they lead ("On Petticoat Lane") when the rich young Lucy Mannersley emerges from a theatre with her ward and guardian, Peter Stryver. They bump into a friend of Stryver's, the lawyer Sydney Carton, who is familiar with Dulcie and Enid. Stryver tells Lucy that he has discovered that her father, Dr. Manislav, is still alive, in prison in St. Petersburg. Realising she must go and rescue him, Lucy prepares to set out for Russia with Stryver.
In St. Petersburg, the young student Kralena is thrown in prison for printing pamphlets inciting rebellion against the ruling classes. He vows that one day he shall see the workers take control, while Dr. Manislav, lying on the floor of the cell, reflects again on the injustice of his being silenced for trying to do the right thing ("One Day...") Lucy arrives with Stryver and arranges for her father's release, though Manislav seems to be delirious and doesn't recognise her. Kralena curses the aristocratic airs and graces of people like Lucy, and once they have gone, he again sings of how he shall one day seize power ("One Day...Reprise"). At the docks, a young peasant girl named Natalya sells her wares to the passing strangers, many of whom ignore her ("Departures"). However, one individual buys a locket from her. This man is Yevgeny Irtenev, the son of Count Irtenev. He explains to Yana that he has to leave to escape the anger of the working classes and says goodbye to her ("Irtenev and Yana's Farewell"). Lucy and Stryver, meanwhile, are having trouble with customs officials. Irtenev, posing as an Englishman named Edward Ireton
Source: Two Cities (musical) (CC BY-SA)
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