Shangri-La

For a musical, Shangri-La takes itself very seriously. James Hilton, apparently started out with the feeling that a number of ideas, all found in the Hilton novel Lost Horizon on which the musical is based, were important and should be expressed. Undoubtedly these ideas, ranging from the brotherhood of man through the value of moderation to the evils of mechanized civilization, have a profound importance. The first concern of the stage, however, is human personality and not abstract philosophy. Philosophical ideas get a valid dramatic statement only so long as they illuminate some dilemma in which the people on stage find themselves. But the important characters in Shangri-La have no real problem since their story turns on accidents over which they have no control. As a result, their airy musings, based on nothing more solid than some vague discontent, are irrelevant, obvious, and dull.

The most "profound," and perhaps the most uninteresting, of the assembly is a British diplomat named Conway, played by Lew Ayres. A dedicated type, Conway has risked his life to pry another young Englishman, an aging dance team, and a female missionary of uncertain age and denomination loose from a Chinese Communist prison. He and his charges almost get killed, though, when their plane crashes in the wilds of Tibet. And then they are rescued by a group of mystical monks--also of uncertain denomination--who conduct them to a hidden valley populated by deliriously happy and uniformly muscular peasants. It appears that the air of the place has all sorts of magical properties, inducing, among other things, a longevity up to two hundred years. The monks have set up a monastery with the purpose of preserving the art treasures of the world from the destruction of war, and spend most of their time contemplating moderation. Conway and his companions, however, think only about whether they should stay in paradise or go home. The answer, needless to say, is obvious, but it takes a few accidents and some two hours to drag it out into the open.

This detailed plot resumee is given only to show just how pointless all the philosophical utterances really are, since they deal with a question that, the way the authors have slanted it, can have only one answer. And Lew Ayres' acting does not reveal any hidden relevance. He is quite competent, but when he gets through with them, the dull lines are still dull. Supprisingly enough, much the same is true for Martyn Green, who pays one of the monks. The star of many Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, Green has demonstrated in the past that he is one of the finest, if not the finest, of the singing comedians working today. But Shangri-La, for the most part a determinedly serious show, gives him no chance at all to display his comic talents. The only real honors go to Susan Cabot, as the missionary. A talented comedienne with a large voice, she does remarkably much with her shoddy material.

One of the shoddiest things in the show is Harry Warren's music. The songs are not actively unppleasant, they just make no impression whatsoever. After the performance ends, it is quite impossible to remember more than about eight notes, and the effort involved even then seems hardly worthwhile. Director Marshall Jamison's clumsy efforts to emphasize the music by sending everybody but the soloist offstage during the important numbers hardly help to make the songs more memorable.

In only one department does Shangri-La achieve any sort of success: the fine sets designed by Peter Larkin and the costumes of Irene Sharaff make it one of the most handsome musicals ever. Yet it is still a failure, mostly because its authors were content to use the stage as little more than a lecture platform.