Review: Grand Hotel by Alchemy Theatre Company, Austin
by Michael Meigs

Grand Hotel is one of Austin's best theatre experiences of the current season. Maybe the best.

This musical rendition of the complex, interlocking stories of guests and staff of a Berlin hotel began as a 1929 novel, followed by a play that same year, followed by a 1932 Hollywood-star-studded movie that was the uncontested winner of the 1932 Academy Award for Best Picture, followed by this 1989 musical theatre adapation. 

Entering the intimate Whisenhut theatre is indeed like acceding to a plush-carpeted hotel lobby, whether you're in the upper circle or descending majestically to either of the lower rows. There's understated elegance, a warm rug in dark reds and gold, a crystal chandelier overhead. Ocasional chimes ding in the background, as if a guest is being summoned to the telephone. And check out that gold-framed revolving door at the north side of the theatre space. The seventeen-member cast will be using all four entrances (N,E,S, & W) during the performance, so you won't know who'll be popping out from where. And believe me, there's a lot of popping out, for this is a kinetic, carefully blocked and precisely choreographed production featuring thirty-four characters.

The many stories cross, intertwine, clash, and contrast, just as you might expect if you're monitoring the busy lobby of a metropolitan hotel. The atmosphere of Berlin, 1928, hovers implicitly over these stories and individuals, giving the audience shivers of anticipation. No, there are no Nazis in sight; a single police detective stalks around late in the action after the crisis and dénouement. These are personal stories, each of which captures your attention and several of which mesmerize you. A penniless, self-certain minor aristocrat trailing six months of unpaid bills and periodically menaced by an underworld lacky; a white-hatted businessman proud of his integrity but seeing financial disaster threatening; the prima ballerina on her sixth farewell tour, angry at audiences and at her desperate manager; the grumpy physician lamed in the trenches of the Great War; red-haired typist Pflämmchen, penniless, dreaming of Hollywood, and on the hunt for a sponsor; the staff of the hotel, including an ominous chorus of cleaners ferociously resentful of the monied clientele; dancers, entertainers, a pianist; an ailing Jewish accountant who has taken out his life savings to grant himself the end of his days in luxurious surroundings.

The richness of the storytelling is intensfied by superb performances, too many to credit individually in this space. One of the magic powers of director Michael Cooper, who divides his time between Austin and California, is his ability to assemble casts of stunning performers, many of whom I haven't seen on local thespian circuits. Prominent among them are Taylor Bini as the yearning and vulnerable typist Pflämmchen, Cameron La Brie as the baron with a decent heart who's hounded into deceit and burglary, Sara Zare as the ageing ballerina, and earnest Patrick Regner as the desk clerk faced with placating clientele, a threatening manager, and a disruptive staff. Familiar to Austin theatre goers is Leslie Hethcox; inhabiting the fragile, humble, ill accountant Otto kringelein, Hethcox delivers a transformational performance ranging from collapse to wild exaltation and becomes in many senses the moral center of the piece.

Above all, this work is one of gorgeous movement, so vigorous, closely structured, surprising, and contained that it evokes the colorful whirl and display of a kaleidoscope or perhaps of a crystal ball with an ever-changing scene within. Cooper's masterful tracking of the characters is boosted immeasurably by Noah Wood's choreograpic brilliance. Oh, my gosh -- the charlestons, the tangos, the Harlem struts, the whirling ensembles--enough to make one wish to return night after night, taking a seat in a different quadrant each time. As in the best Broadway choreography, there's always more going on than you can capture, and it's all tailored to the stories being told.

Much credit once again to Alchemy's one-person orchestra Ellie Jarret Shattles, the pianist-cum-orchestra, who even has a brief but convincing speaking role. The music and melodies are constant, either as background or as accompaniment to production numbers. 

Austin is fortunate to host The Alchemy Theatre. The company's approach has been to resurrect and lovingly transform top-quality musical theatre pieces somewhat forgotten and tarnished by time.  Its thoughtful, sophisticated marketing and the number of its sponsors are proof of its professionalism. The company's first production, Max and Mabel, was forestalled by the pandemic but later debuted in in Carol Hickey's 40-seat concrete-walled studio in East Austin.  After two productions there (*) , the company was granted access to the Zach Theatre's Whisenhut theatre in the round. Last year's King of Hearts has received six nominations from the newly re-established and renamed Austin Theatre Critics Table (an award ceremony is set for June 9 (**)).

One is tempted to regret the one-grand-production-a-year season, though that would be thoroughly ungrateful. But more, please; this is quality theatre art in every detail. 

(*) CTX reviews: 2022: Mac and Mable (#1) and (#2) and 2023: The Baker's Wife)

(**) See Cat McCarry's listing in the Austin Chronicle, HERE.

EXTRA

Click to view the program for The Alchemy Theatre's GRAND HOTEL

Grand Hotel
by Luther Davis, Robert Wright, George Forrest, Maury Weston
Alchemy Theatre Company

May 30 - June 15, 2025

Whisenhunt Stage, Zach Theatre, Austin

Tickets can be purchased HERE or on The Alchemy Theatre’s website.