The show probably should have been called Down and Out in Beverly Hills, where the less than jovial Rachmaninoff, played by Felder, recaps his life, in his garden, in 1943, shortly before his death, and less than a year after he moved there for his health. But that title was already taken.
The Tsar in the name of the show is Nicholas II of the House of Romanov, which makes me want to sing (if not for the restraining order) – Romanov, Rachmaninoff, lets call the whole thing off.
I’ve seen several of Felder’s shows, the most recent being when he played Tchaikovsky, and his piano playing was, as always, wonderful. He delves deeply into his characters, but, I must admit that I wasn’t that interested in the long conversations he had with the Tsar about missing Russia and about the downfall of the Romanovs.
Fortunately, however, there was a fair amount of time spent discussing Nicholas’s daughter Anastasia, which allowed me to daydream about Ingrid Bergman while waiting for more music and led nicely to a more interesting discussion in the Q and A postscript.
Such sessions can often be deadly, but not with Felder. I enjoyed his lengthy, informative, detailed responses more than the brooding dialogue that preceded it.