Midnight Cowboy is best known as the iconic 1969 film that pushed the boundaries of the buddy movie. In this musical version by Bryony Lavery and Eg White, directed by Nick Winston, the story of Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo is brought to the Elephant stage.
Young Buck (Paul Jacob French) has dreams of a large payday hustling women in New York. He reinvents himself as a cowboy with fringed jacket, hat, loud boots and strut, but finds life just isn’t that easy.
James Leo Herlihy’s 1965 novel, touted as main inspiration for this musical, covers a lot of Joe’s life pre-NY. In Lavery’s book, these are represented by the voices of his grandma, tragic teenage sweetheart, cowpoke mentor, and so on.
It’s a down and dirty tale. The film version caused consternation for its frankness as Joe finds it easier to get money in his pocket hustling men, who look him up and down on the sidewalk like he’s a piece of meat.
Most of his encounters are transient until he connects with ailing lowlife Ratso (Max Bowden), and they resolve to tackle the shadows and snakes of the Big Apple together, planning to head to Florida.
There are two major issues with this production of Midnight Cowboy I struggled with. First, it forgets at times that it is a musical. Second, it only allows Joe and Ratso to connect at the end of act one, meaning the second half is much stronger and focused.
The transient supporting characters offer compensations, notably Tori Allen-Martin‘s bored and horny wife who entices Joe into bedroom gymnastics, and Matthew White’s closeted and self-loathing businessman Towny.
As he hustles, fails, and yet keeps his cool, Joe passes through several locations including a hotel reception, drug-taking basement party, sleazy cinemas, and greyhound buses, all suggested before a shiny black backdrop.
French’s performance allows his mask to slowly slide as he goes through the motions, but there are moments of tenderness with Bowden’s tubercular Ratso that warm the heart.
As befits a story first seen widely in the X-rated film, the Midnight Cowboy musical is frank about sex and homosexuality (without showing nudity). It also tackles the dehabilitating power of both the Church (in the person of Rohan Tickell’s Mr O’Daniel) and drugs (the Kingdom of Hell party).
In terms of songs, Ratso’s “Don’t Give Up On Me Now”, reprised by Joe in act two, and Cass’s “Whatever It Is You’re Doing” in act one, come across the strongest.
The fact that the strongest music comes from the film version (“Everybody’s Talkin'” and snatches of the incidental music) raises the question of why White needed to develop this at all.
Still, as a finished article, this show captures the spirit of the film in fits and snatches, and generally does a good job once it finds its feet. Bowden steals the show as the man alone who knows his time is limited.
Ryan Dunnett’s lighting and Jack Baxter’s video design seem engaged in a constant battle to be seen (the projections were only half visible through the glare) but the band – conducted by Dan Glover last night in an emergency rescue – were loud, snappy, and committed.
3.5 stars from me.
Midnight Cowboy continues at Southwark Playhouse Elephant until 17 May with tickets here.
Image credit: Pamela Raith