Frenchies seek ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’ at Hale Center Theater Orem
It’s not just empty sloganizing when Hale Center Theater Orem notes on its website that Broadway musical “The Scarlet Pimpernel” is “back by popular demand.” As of Tuesday, the show had already sold out 60 percent of its entire run. Thinking of catching the first preview performance on Friday night? A check of the box office on Wednesday morning revealed just two seats still available.
HCTO managing director Anne Swenson said that the production already has added performances, a complicated process that requires the approval of both the cast and the company that holds the play’s rights, and probably won’t pad out the run any further. If you, like the “Frenchies” in the show, are desperate to nab the elusive Pimpernel, then there’s no time to waste.
Swenson said she thinks the appeal of “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” last performed at HCTO in 2003, is partly on account of fond feeling for the book the show is based on, as well as the popularity of a 1982 film version starring Jane Seymour and Anthony Andrews. It’s also just a great show. “It has everything,” Swenson said. “It has romance, it has adventure, it has beautiful music and it has spectacular costumes.”
Attorney and actor Greg Hansen, who plays the Pimpernel, an English nobleman who rescues doomed French aristocrats from the guillotine during the French Revolution, said he thinks both men and women will enjoy the blend of swashbuckling action and soaring romance. Even the show’s villain, Hansen said, the conflicted revolutionary Chauvelin, who dogs the heels of Englishman Percy Blakeney (he of the reddish secret identity) and his bride, Marguerite St. Just, is an enjoyable, relatable character.
“All three of the lead characters are very human,” said Hansen, who is in the Monday-Wednesday-Friday cast. (Neal Johnson is the Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday Pimpernel.) “I think you can see yourself in all three of them.”
Hansen initially saw himself in Chauvelin. When he played the role of Armand St. Just, Marguerite’s heroically impetuous brother, in the 2003 “Pimpernel,” his first Hale Theater production, Hansen thought it would be fun to be the bad guy. “I always knew I wanted to do the show if it came up again,” he said. When it did, Hansen auditioned for both Chauvelin and Percy/Pimpernel.
He’s not disappointed to have gotten the role that he did. “My character is one person,” Hansen said, “but he actually has several different layers. It’s a challenge, to say the least.” (There’s Percy as himself; Percy as he presents himself to the French, as a foppish dimwit; Percy as the heroic Pimpernel; and Percy as Grappin, a blackhearted alter ego who secretly abets the Pimpernel’s purposes.)
“The Scarlet Pimpernel” is a large production. Swenson said that the 26 actors use more than 1,025 individual costume pieces, including several dozen wigs. “Most of the men have at least two wigs,” Swenson said, “and some of the women have three.”
The show has its lighthearted aspects, especially when Percy is pretending to be a dolt, but it can also be deadly serious. Literally deadly. In the first scene, a French aristocrat is dragged to the guillotine and — thunk! — off with his head. “It’s an incredible effect,” Swenson said, of the head-lopping. “Even those of us who know it’s coming, when we saw it last night in rehearsal, everyone gasped.”
The Scarlet Pimpernel
When: Performances nightly except Sundays at7:30 p.m., Oct. 14 through Nov. 27; Saturday matinees at 3 p.m.beginning Oct. 16; preview performances this Friday-Tuesday
Where: Hale Center Theater Orem, 225 W. 400North, Orem
Cost: $15.50-$19.50; preview performances are$10.50; $2 discount per ticket for children
Info: (801) 226-8600, www.haletheater.org