Review: THE SOUND OF MUSIC Fills the Air at North Shore Music Theatre

North Shore Music Theatre (NSMT) is alive right now with the wonderful music of composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, in their final collaboration, on a well-sung production of “The Sound of Music.”

Based on Maria Augusta von Trapp’s 1949 autobiography, “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers,” which details her time as a young postulant in Austria in 1938, the musical, running through July 23 in Beverly, features such Rodgers and Hammerstein classics as “Do-Re-Mi,” “Climb Ev’ry Mountain,” “Edelweiss,” “My Favorite Things,” and the title song.

But like most R&H shows – including “Oklahoma!” “South Pacific,” “Carousel,” and “The King and I” – “The Sound of Music,” set during the pivotal moment in World War II when Austria was being subsumed by the Third Reich, is about much more than just a singable score.

The current NSMT production, the eighth in the company’s 68-year history, sometimes dances too lightly – if still well, under Briana Fallon’s smooth choreography – around the story’s serious historical subtext, even as swastikas creep into sight on Loren Shaw’s original costumes, coordinated here by Kelly Baker, and on Kyle Dixon’s sets.

Steering mostly clear of the bone-chilling menace that the second-act Nazi encroachment represents may be a considered decision by director Kevin P. Hill, and a nod to the show’s broad popularity with audiences of all ages, but it’s a delicate balance for sure. Hill’s direction, however, is otherwise fluid and highly effective.

And there is much to work with, including an excellent book by the estimable writing team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, well known for rewriting the book for “Anything Goes,” adapting “Life with Father” for the stage, and winning the 1946 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for their play “State of the Union.”

In the late 1950s, the pair – working together at the Crouse family’s summer home in the Annisquam neighborhood of Gloucester – adapted Maria von Trapp’s memoir for Broadway producers Leland Hayward and Richard Halliday as a stage vehicle for Halliday’s wife, Mary Martin. After out-of-town tryouts in New Haven and at Boston’s Shubert Theatre, the show opened on Broadway at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on November 16, 1959, starring Martin as Maria and Theodore Bikel as Captain Georg von Trapp.

In 1965, the stage musical was made into a feature film, with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, that earned five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and became not only a classic but also one of the most commercially successful films of all time.

For its female lead, NSMT has chosen busy Broadway and television actress Desi Oakley. While her Maria May not be the most multi-dimensional, Oakley does have a winning blend of exuberance and strong vocals, evident from the beginning in her scene-setting rendering of the title song near the top of act one, and, later in some full-throated yodeling on “The Lonely Goatherd.”

Joseph Spieldenner portrays widower Captain von Trapp with appropriate bearing throughout, exploring his character’s underpinnings and adding needed heft to key dramatic moments such as the Captain’s facing the Nazis who are taking over his homeland, and endeavoring to safeguard his children and newly married second wife, Maria.

Hill has assembled a vocally strong company of some 40 performers for this production, the second in NSMT’s 2023 season, that clocks in at just under three hours.

One of the true standouts at NSMT is Janinah Burnett as the Mother Abbess. Burnett grounds the Nonnberg Abbey in the reality of the time. She also raises her resplendent voice on “Maria” and “My Favorite Things,” and lets it soar to the rafters and beyond in the act-one solo closer, “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.”

Also contributing affecting character work is Travis Anderson as Rolf Gruber, a 17-year-old messenger boy torn between loyalty to the Nazis and his love for the oldest Von Trapp daughter, Liesl.

Bringing humor and warmth to their roles as the von Trapp children at the July 15 matinee were Tori Heinlein as Liesl, Wade Gleeson Turner as Friedrich, Isabella Carroll as Louisa, Jack Baumrind as Kurt, Penelope Rhoads as Brigitta, Dalya Eracar as Marta, and Regan Shanahan as Gretl. Often joined by Oakley and Spieldenner, the seven young performers harmonize winningly throughout, never more so than in their pitch-perfect rendition of “So Long, Farewell.”

And if Frau Schmidt looks familiar, it’s because she is being played by the ever-popular Mary Callanan, seen last season at NSMT in “Kinky Boots” and earlier this summer in a memorable turn as a Broadway diva in “The Prom” at Boston’s SpeakEasy Stage Company.

Callanan – a veteran of Broadway shows and national tours including “Bandstand,” “Mamma Mia!” “Annie,” and “My Fair Lady” – first played her current role on a 1990s tour of Asia, top-lined by Marie Osmond, and continues to do yeoman character work in the part today.

Photo caption: Janinah Burnett and Desi Oakley in the North Shore Music Theatre production of "The Sound of Music." Photo credit: David Costa Photography.

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