Review of Too Close to the Sun

Published on 30 July 2009 by Shanni Elcock

I never once thought the moment would come that I would suppress a cheer while watching someone commit suicide. Worse still, I never thought that I'd be in a room where I could hear people clap while a man put a gun to his mouth to blow his own head off.

Of course I never accounted for anything being as bad as Too Close to the Sun.

Too Close to the Sun is a fictional account of the last year of Ernest Hemingway's life at his ranch in Ketchum, Idaho. While press releases suggested that the show would be exciting, full of deceit and drama it was anything but. The script was riddled with muddled themes that one might have puzzled over had the show been interesting enough.

My relief at Ernest Hemingway's suicide was not a result of the script casting him as an evil character that the world should be rid of. Nay, it was a direct result of poor lyrics, unimaginative composition and at times ridiculous attempts to create humour through disastrous dialogue.

Lines such as 'Women over 50 are like the North Pole: frigid and nobody wants to go there," were thoroughly amusing and would have changed my opinion about the scripting had my companion not mentioned that his grandmother owned a fridge magnet with the same joke.

The lighting deserves honourable mention for subtly capturing the different times of day. As does the costume design, which was thoughtful and wholly representative of the time period, carefully paying homage to the low heels, long skirts and scarves favoured by American women in the early 1960s.

The set was imaginative enough, its plastic animals' heads placed on high wooden walls created the air of a man's hunting retreat. The detail employed in decorating the ranch, including dark paintings to highlight Hemingway's depression and throw cushions neatly placed on wooden furniture, perfectly represented the will to make "Ernesto" happy, as was displayed by wife Mary throughout the play.

Helen Dallimore, as Mary Hemingway, was the production's saving grace. She shone as Ernest's fourth wife, and created a strong character full of elegance and poise despite writer John Robinson's poor dialogue.

All in all, Too Close to the Sun was a shoddy farce of a musical which could not even be saved by Dallimore's brilliant efforts and strong costume and set design.

If you appreciate bad theatre book now because the show will close on 8 August.

Too Close to the Sun posted early closure notices on July 27.