When the curtain rises on the Goodman Theatre’s Candide, the stage lights up on a set filled with costumes and furniture all screaming a single color scheme, green and pink. In so much modern theater, creativity has become a rarity. But Candide has proven that imagination, in set design and beyond, still has its place on the stage, and that’s what makes it such an innovative show.
Candide, a novel written by the philosopher Voltaire in 1759, is the story of an impressionable young man, after whom the play receives its name, who is raised by a wealthy German family. He has been indoctrinated with positivity by his mentor Pangloss, whose idea of the world is spelled out in the song “Life is Happiness Indeed.” When the story begins, Candide falls in love with his benefactor’s daughter, Cunégonde, leading to his banishment, leaving him to contend with all of the world’s failings. Throughout his struggles, he re-examines his naïve perception of the world. Meanwhile, he goes on many adventures while constantly thinking about how to return to his beloved Cunégonde.
Geoff Packard, who played Candide, brought his character to life with a realistic innocence. Other leads included Larry Yando as Pangloss, Lauren Molina as Cunégonde, and Hollis Resnik as the Old Lady, all of whom mixed their actions with their words in a melting pot of successful storytelling.
While the players contributed a great deal to the performance, its set designers and choreographers were the real stars. Every aspect of the performance seemed tailored to a tee, and successful at that. From the very first scene change, in which the backdrop falls to reveal an enormous wood-paneled room, to the finale of the show when flowers sprout out from within the wood walls, the production is full of stage tricks and surprises. The lighting alone would be something to marvel at. In one scene, Candide witnesses a man being executed, and the spotlight reflected the doomed man’s shadow in a towering display along the walls of the set.
The music, composed decades before by Leonard Bernstein, was as fresh as ever. The only trouble was in slightly mismatched voices. Packard, a tenor, gave Candide a whimsical tone that, considering the character’s personality, was fitting. But when singing alongside Molina in lovers’ duets, Packard’s voice seemed weak compared to hers. Molina’s Cunégonde had such an enormously operatic sound that anything at a lower volume seemed almost inaudible.
The story is full of twists and setting changes, both of which are quelled by the narrators who shuffle into the spotlight at random to explain what is occurring in the story. This proved one of the unnecessary parts of the play, the duration of which totaled three hours. While the story could have been told with visuals alone, the attention to detail made the show run long. Seeing as the book itself is a novella, there was no reason to explain in words every minute element of the story.
What this production failed to pick up on was the silly, mocking tone of Candide’s script. There were hints of irony and farce throughout the performance, but never to a great enough extent. For long-standing fans of Candide who love such versions as the one starring Kristin Chenoweth, this might be considered a blasphemous departure. But what it actually showed was this production’s concentration on story over comedy, which is not such a terrible divergence.
The Goodman Theatre’s Candide was unique, a new spin on an old standard. Though it had its faults, in the end it really was happiness, indeed.