A Sentimental Journey: The Story of Doris Day
A Sentimental Journey: The Story of Doris Day comes to the El Portal Theatre directly from the 2011 Edinburgh Festival and The Mill at Sonning and the Wilson’s Music Hall in London. It stars. It features well- known British actress Sally Hughes as Doris Day and a cast of four actors who portray characters in Ms. Day’s life. To tell the story playwright Adam Rolstan uses 20 of Doris Day’s songs including “Que Sera Sera”, “You Ought to be in Pictures”, “Love Me or Leave Me” (a Ruth Etting song which Day portrayed in a movie), “Secret Love”, “Its Magic”, and inexplicably “With A Song in My Heart” (a Jane Froman song). Most of the songs were sung by Sally Hughes whose impersonation was close to Doris Day’s voice and way with a song. Now I collected all Doris Day’s records as a kid so I found Ms. Hughes exaggerated Day’s vocal mannerisms but not everyone agrees. The rest of the cast, Conor Sheridan, Nick Waring, Elizabeth Elvin, and Tom Selwood all had excellent voices and were very good actors as well.
My biggest problem with the evening was the concentration on Day’s horrible marriages. Frankly it was difficult to watch her being beaten on stage though I know in real life it happened. Perhaps this is explained by the Brits love of tabloid journalism but I would have preferred a greater concentration on her career and music and then on her later activities with animals. Well a dog, Lily O’Connell did make a brief appearance to lots of “ahs”. The four musicians, Jo Stewart, Glen Ochenkoski, Michael Benedict, and Ernie Nunez provided the familiar score. Eileen Diss provides a lackluster set. Jane Kidd did the costumes although her clothes didn’t do much for Ms. Hughes. Joseph Pitcher did the choreography, such as it was. Nevertheless the audience seemed to enjoy the evening and some of Doris’ acquaintances were there. It was still nice to hear those songs again. Lets hope the Academy of Arts And Sciences finally gets around to giving Day an Academy Award. A Sentimental Journey will play at the El Portal until Nov. 20.