Greek Gods, Nimbys and Sondheim: The Frogs at Southwark Playhouse

The Frogs | Southwark Playhouse until 28th June

If Here We Are is a twisted surreal experiment, then The Frogs is a full-on ancient Greek comedy reboot. This rarely seen Sondheim musical has finally hopped into London at Southwark Playhouse.

It was originally an Aristophanes play from 405 BC, poking fun at Athenian politics. Sondheim and his collaborator Burt Shevelove first adapted it in 1974, when it was performed in a swimming pool at Yale University, with Sigourney Weaver and Meryl Streep in the chorus, in the deep end!

This first version, Sondheim has described as one of the most unpleasant experiences of his career. Not only was he dealing with the academics on campus, but the acoustics in the swimming pool meant that you couldn’t understand the words. And his lyrics are quite intricate and demand to be heard.

The show took a decades-long detour, with Nathan Lane revising the book for a 2004 Broadway revival. He persuaded Sondheim to write additional songs, making it now a full two-act musical. It is this version that we now see in Southwark.

This is on dry land – no swimming pool, no water in sight – although intelligibility of lyrics is still an issue with the Frogs themselves: here, a group of amphibious NIMBYs.

The best-known member of the cast is Kevin McHale, who plays Xanthias, the servant of Dionysos. He was in Glee (people will know him from Glee) and he is the most successful of the cast in making the lines and humour land.

Dionysos, the god of theatre and also the god of wine (so that’s interval drinks covered!), is played by Dan Buckley who, whilst working hard, is less successful than McHale. I think that this needs a similar American delivery to make the lines and humour work, tailored as it was to Lane’s comic style.

We are told that “the place is ancient Greece. The time is now”, and it tries to be this zany, witty comedy blending the two time zones together. We then set off on a quest to go to Hades to bring back George Bernard Shaw to save the world.

The Lane revival had a political motive, arriving at the time of the Iraq war, and whilst there are similar parallels now, this is, wisely, left to the audience to determine. Act One bounces along quite nicely, and Act Two starts strongly with the arrival of Pluto, played at the performance I saw by Victoria Scone (fresh from RuPaul’s Drag Race), although having to tell the audience to applaud your entrance is a tad desperate! As is the habit now with guest stars, Pluto is shared among four actors across the run – a nifty move to encourage repeat visits!

However, with the arrival in Hades, things start to run aground. The discovery that Shaw is a pompous windbag is hardly a revelation, and the resultant contest between Shaw and Shakespeare becomes tedious due to an uneven tone and a lack of ability to speak the verse. This is doubly disappointing, as this section features beautiful music from Sondheim, as he sets a speech from Cymbeline to music, which undermines its impact.

I side with Sondheim, who felt that expanding the show was not to its advantage. Indeed, it has been best received in a concert version that Lane adapted, turning it back to a 90-minute piece but with the additional songs. Perhaps this version may surface at some point.

As a Sondheim fan, I appreciate The Frogs for what it is: a fun oddity. And whilst it is always great to hear lesser-known Sondheim songs, the second act becomes a bit of a slog.

If you are a Sondheim completist and have a taste for the absurd or surreal, this is a rare treat – it’s not every night you meet Sondheim at the bottom of the Styx.

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