Stjerneoplevelse gives Unhappily Ever 5 stars
★★★★★
A musical cabaret with the courage to surprise
CPH Musicals skips the obvious musical hits and proves just how much fantastic music is hiding outside the standard repertoire
I usually like to think of myself as something of a musical theatre expert, and it takes quite a lot these days to surprise me with numbers I haven't heard before. But Unhappily Ever After did exactly that. Several times I sat there thinking: where has that song been hiding my whole life? It almost felt like discovering the world of musicals for the first time again.
Behind the show is CPH Musicals, a relatively new theatre company that has worked since 2022 to raise the profile of the musical genre in Denmark. With a focus on small, intimate productions, they want to show that powerful musical experiences don't necessarily require a big stage or a big orchestra.
The cabaret takes as its starting point the line most fairy tales end with: "...and they lived happily ever after." But do they, really?
Rachel Kador is both writer and director of Unhappily Ever After. She acts as narrator and our guide through the show (and also performs in a couple of the numbers herself). As narrator, she plays with the idea of what happens after "...and they lived happily ever after," and the answer is that life rarely follows the fairy tale's script. Through both the Disney-fied familiar fairy tales and the far darker original ones, we're reminded that happy endings are often more complicated than they look.
It's a simple idea and the perfect axis for a cabaret made up of many different numbers. The songs are drawn from both old and new musicals and deal with bad dates, broken hearts, failed proposals, and the hope that the next love might be the right one. Rather than one continuous story, we get a series of small moments that together paint a picture of love's ups and downs.
There's a real thoughtfulness behind the song choices. There's no pandering to the audience or attempt to please with the biggest musical hits we already know inside out. Quite the opposite. Here, quality and story dictate the repertoire, and it's bold, intelligent, and surprising — exactly what I needed as a musical theatre fan. I wish more musical concerts dared to take the same chance and challenge audiences with lesser-known shows.
It was especially the numbers from musicals like Tick, Tick... Boom!, Legally Blonde, and The Bridges of Madison County that made an impression. At the same time, composers like Stephen Sondheim and Jason Robert Brown were represented, which also gave the repertoire musical weight without being predictable.
At H2O, the stage is small and the audience sits right up close. There isn't much room, but there doesn't need to be. The music and talent filled the room all the way to the ceiling and reached right back to the last row. You could almost feel the audience holding its breath — not just because of the summer heat, but because you were constantly swept up in what was happening on stage. Even though the singers each have very different voices and styles, the ensemble feels remarkably tight-knit.
What I especially enjoyed was that the songs weren't just sung. They were acted. Each number felt like a tiny miniature musical, where in just a few minutes you got to know the characters and got swept up in their story. There was loud laughter several times, and a few numbers also brought tears to the eyes.
A large part of the experience is also thanks to Ethan Nowack at the piano. He's the only musician throughout the entire show and plays for every number. You almost don't notice it as it's happening, because it feels so effortless, but it's an achievement in itself. His confident piano playing ties the show together beautifully.
Unhappily Ever After is a small show with big ambitions. It reminds us that the musical genre holds much more than the familiar favorites. I left with a mental list of songs I now need to get to know better. That's probably the biggest compliment I can give a musical cabaret.
I'm crossing my fingers that CPH Musicals decides to remount Unhappily Ever After soon. It's a show that deserves to be seen by many more people.
