By Charlene Baldridge

Not another person could be shoehorned in as the house was packed April 1 for the opening of the Old Globe’s world premiere musical, “Rain,” with book by Sybille Pearson, and music and lyrics by Michael John LaChiusa.

Directed by Artistic Director Barry Edelstein, the piece is based on the Somerset Maugham short story about sizzling Sadie Thompson, set in 1924. Thompson is a prostitute isolated in a small boarding hotel on the island of Western Samoa, along with two decent couples marooned there while their cruise ship’s personnel recover from an outbreak of the measles.

As adapted for the stage, Maugham’s story was so scandalous that all the Hollywood femme fatales wanted to play Sadie. Three succeeded: Gloria Swanson (1928), Joan Crawford (1932) and Rita Hayworth (1953).

The Old Globe world premiere stars Eden Espinosa as Sadie, a down-on-her-luck entrepreneur who claims to be looking for a new start with a body that’s approaching midlife. Her arrival at the Horn Hotel, run by the islander Noi Noi (Marie-France Arcilla) and her Scots husband, Jo (Jeremy Davis), is not well received, especially when the ship’s quartermaster (Mike Sears) and a sidekick (Rusty Ross) turn up for a little recreation of the recumbent kind.

The other temporary residents are a missionary pair, the Rev. Alfred Davidson (Jared Zirilli) and his wife, Anna (Elizabeth Davis); and a World War I doctor, Alec McPhail (Tally Sessions), and his wife, Louisa (Betsy Morgan).

Being cooped up in the boarding hotel, while enduring each other and the incessant rain, underscores the tumult within person and within each set of relationships, especially when Alfred, whom Sadie calls Mr. Jesus, decides Sadie is ripe for salvation and devotes himself to her redemption behind closed doors.

Trying to save her house, Noi Noi encircles it with incantations. She and Jo, the most unlikely of couples, are the happiest, perhaps because of their daily “English” lessons. Dr. MacPhail, decent at the core, is an alcoholic. His marriage to the long-suffering, under-appreciated Louisa is full of secrets. Both sincerely devoted to their missions, Alfred and Anna are in trouble, too. Vastly insecure, Alfred comes across as a prig, especially in his initial denunciation of Sadie and in his sabotaging of Alec’s attempts to help her.

All the singers have pleasant voices and most succeed at creating affecting characters. The most joyous and believable relationship is that of Noi Noi and Jo. Also deeply felt are the sorrow and sincerity of Louisa and Alec’s relationship.

Despite his good looks and nice, high baritone, Zirilli is rather wooden and fails to convey the depth of conflicted passion. I don’t feel the turbulence he is going through despite being told its causes. As for undeniable desire, native drums at moments of high dudgeon don’t do it. Where is the heat and undeniable intensity in the musical numbers between Alfred and Sadie? Is it the fault of the music or the performers’ lack of chemistry, or a combination thereof?

In Pearson’s adaptation of the story, and in its scoring by LaChiusa, each of the characters seems ultimately prepared to move forward with his or her life, whether together or alone, and we go home with the hope that each will effect their individual salvation (survival) despite the tragedy. We know that the resilient Sadie will survive so long as she has her red dress.

Some of the music – particularly the ensemble numbers and the duet/trio “Only the Rain Stays the Same” for Louisa, Noi Noi and Anna – is exceptionally fine, for instance Alec and Louisa’s “Let Love Do What It Does.”

Sadly, you can’t sing the scenery. The best thing about “Rain” is Mark Wendland’s amazing revolving set, which is the three-story boarding house and all its rooms and lanais; and the rain itself, the sea and sky and sand beyond. Katherine Roth is costume designer, Russell H. Champa is lighting designer, and Ken Travis is sound designer. Bruce Coughlin did the orchestrations, and music director J. Oconer Navarro, who conducts and plays keyboards, is hidden below the stage in the orchestra pit with a fine eight-piece orchestra, all members of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada.

—Charlene Baldridge has been writing about the arts since 1979. Follow her blog at charlenebaldridge.com or reach her at [email protected].