THEATRE PREVIEW:

“BLOOD BROTHERS” at Copley Symphony Hall

Published in San Diego Union-Tribune March, 1995

The eight year-old stepped up to the BBC microphone for a radio show audition. Suddenly, there was an air raid; it was 1940. The producers asked if someone could sing, to maintain calm. The little girl started singing, and hasn't ever stopped.

After hundreds of BBC radio shows and her own radio program ("Pet's Parlour"), performing in shows for the troops with other child prodigies (such as Julie Andrews and Anthony Newley), Petula Clark went on to become the most successful female chart star in British pop history.

She was a young movie sensation in England, appearing in two dozen films there, but only two in the U.S. (both of which were flops): Francis Ford Coppola's "Finian's Rainbow" in 1968 with Fred Astaire and "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" in 1969 with Peter O'Toole. She won two Grammys ("I Know a Place" and "Downtown") and did loads of TV, concerts, stage shows and tours, but it wasn't till 1993 that she made her Broadway debut.

She opened in "Blood Brothers" and stayed for ten months. Then she got an offer to take the show on the road for the national tour, which began last September and ends this June. The first presentation of San Diego Playgoers' 1995 Best of Broadway season, "Blood Brothers" drops into the Civic Theatre for eight performances, starting March 27.

"I took the tour because I wanted to see America," Clark said recently by phone from her dressing room in San Francisco,. "Back when I was doing concert tours in the sixties and seventies, I never stayed anywhere for very long; it was all a bit of a blur. Now I'm making a point of seeing as much as I can."

In the New York production, Clark played mother to half-brothers David and Shaun Cassidy, the grown-up teen idols. Soon Shaun had to get back to his "real job" as screenwriter in L.A., so David went on the road with Clark. According to New York's Newsday, Cassidy is "a gutsy revelation" and Clark is "in thrilling vocal form."

"Blood Brothers" is something of an anomaly. Despite a seven-year ongoing engagement in London, a continuing two-year Broadway run and six Tony nominations, the show opened to scathing reviews in New York.

"We have this wonderful producer, Bill Kenwright," Clark explains. "He's from Liverpool, too, just like Willy Russell (the playwright/lyricist/composer who also penned the plays-turned-movies "Educating Rita" and "Shirley Valentine"). This play really means something to him. He dug his heels in on Broadway and said 'I will not let the critics destroy this play. This is a people's play.' And he was right. It's real language for real people. Willy Russell doesn't know how to write any other way. "

The women in Russell's other stories find some way to escape from their poor, dreary lives, but Mrs. Johnstone (Clark's role), never really does. She starts out as a young-ish Liverpudlian with seven children and twins on the way. She gets duped into leaving one twin with the childless woman for whom she cleans house, giving a solemn oath that the boys will never know the truth. Of course, they become inseparable, the prince-like child and the pauper. They even fall for the same girl. And both of them wind up dead (I didn't ruin it for you; the whole play is a flashback, which starts with the mother wailing over her two murdered sons).

"Initially," Clark admits, "I said 'No' to 'Blood Brothers.' I didn't think I was right for it. Liverpool was a long way from anything I had known. But I have seen this kind of poverty, known this kind of woman. I have great respect for her... This is an extremely interesting play -- not a knees-up, "42nd Street" show-girl musical, but a play with music. It has so many different layers. It's socially conscious, timeless, and universal in many ways."

During a recent road-show break, Clark and Cassidy recorded the "Blood Brothers" cast album in London; the Royal Philharmonic will be dubbed in later.

Clark always seems to be on the move. She and her husband of thirty years have homes in London, Switzerland and France. Their three children, ranging in age from 20 to 30, live in Paris and Miami. She isn't beginning to think of slowing down.

She recently started working on an album of "new contemporary stuff." She still answers all her own fan-mail ("an awful lot from Europe and the former Czechoslovakia"). And she seems happy on the road. "I like the live thing of theater; I think that's what this business is all about. I like feeling that stuff coming back from the audience; they're telling you how you're doing.... Every night, in every city, we've gotten a standing ovation."

DATEBOOK

"BLOOD BROTHERS"

The national tour of the award-winning, long-running musical, with book, music and lyrics by Willy Russell, runs for one week only, March 27-April 1. Performances Monday-Saturday 8 p.m. Thursday and Sunday 2 p.m. Copley Symphony Hall, 750 B Street. $30-48; 220-TIXS.

PAT LAUNER is a freelance writer and the theater critic for KPBS-FM.

©1995 Patté Productions Inc.