Tony-winning director John Doyle's West End revival of Mack and Mabel, which, in typical Doyle fashion, uses a group of actor/musicians, will end its run at the Criterion Theatre on July 1.
Mack & Mabel, which features music and lyrics by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, centers on the silent movie era and two of its biggest stars: Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand. Sennett was a comedic film pioneer the man behind the Keystone Kops and Normand was his protégé. The two had an on-and-off love affair that ended badly—with Sennett washed up in Hollywood and Normand dead at age 36.
Doyle first staged the musical at the Watermill Theatre, where it ran from May 18, 2005 through July 9, 2005. Mack and Mabel opened at the Criterion on April 10, 2006 with David Soul and Janie Dee in the title roles. In his Theatre.com Review of the West End mounting, Mark Cook wrote: "The beauty here is that the effects don't overshadow what is essentially a simple and poignant—though eventually tragic—love story, and it all slots into the frilly Criterion Theatre rather nicely. It suits the simple nature of the movies being made, too, given that Sennett—probably the Benny Hill of his day, with his giggling bathing belles and Keystone Kops—made simple, unpretentious and highly visual comedies that provoked universal laughter. There is a downside to downscaling, though: when Sennett sings of 'Hundreds of Girls' you long to see a few, and the aforementioned Kops are only seen as archive footage projected against a curtain. But I guess you can't have everything."
