Julieta Cervantes
Musicals, particularly Broadway musicals, and particularly Broadway musicals with large stars in them, are essentially grand sweeps. The group is amped to see the likes of Hugh Jackman in Meredith Willson’s The Music Man—tickets are bought earlier than it opens on the energy of his title, and Thursday evening, opening evening, was fairly the grand to-do, with an actual band exterior the theater simply in case you had not heard sufficient brass and percussion onstage. Inside have been stars like Anne Hathaway and Blake Vigorous.
There have been no preview performances for members of the press earlier than opening evening. As befits its material, The Music Man opened with a fanfare. Come curtain up, the ovation was resounding.
This wasn’t simply because the group was full of the present’s largest supporters, monetary and in any other case. Two months in the past, it turned a standard-bearer of energy within the face of adversity. You might have seen the viral second when Jackman stepped ahead to reward Broadway understudies and swings when the present like so many others was within the throes of Omicron, and when Kathy Voytko stood in for lead Sutton Foster, taking part in Marian the librarian, on the present’s fourth preview. (One of many present’s lead producers is Barry Diller, chairman and senior government of IAC, which owns The Each day Beast.)
Jackman that evening appeared the daddy of the corporate, and so it's through the present. He sings, he dances, he's in the very best fitted fits on Broadway. Certainly, generally it's like he's dancing one other of his one-man reveals moderately than with an organization. His look, his smile, his leer, his mugging is all aimed toward us. He's at all times middle stage. He's the conductor, choreographer, ringleader.
This isn’t to say he's a peacock, or outwardly smug, however he's a magnetizing focus—and but oddly, we don't miss him when he's not on stage. He fades on this present, even whereas within the highlight. Jackman the performer is the proper synthesis along with his character Harold Hill, the music man of the present’s title, who too is on a mission of calculated seductions—venal and romantic. Hill is a conman who travels from city to city, eliciting funds for a band within the city, after which absconding with the cash. Then he will get to River Metropolis, Iowa, whose townsfolk, whereas “Iowa Cussed” because the tune goes, additionally embody Marian the librarian (Sutton Foster), her youthful brother Winthrop (Benjamin Pajak), who has a lisp and is withdrawn—and so it's that Hill finds the one city he can't so simply say goodbye to.
Julieta Cervantes
Will Marian succumb to Harold’s insistent, more-than-slightly stalkerish advances, and can Harold’s true id be revealed? Mayor Shinn (Jefferson Mays) and Charlie Cowell (the great Remy Auberjonois) are the closest issues The Music Man has to villains. They're decided to reveal Harold because the rogue that he's.
The unusual factor is that they're each completely proper about Harold and are ok actors for us to sympathize with their righteous bluster, despite the fact that the mayor is a sexist bully to his spouse, Eulalie (the great Jayne Houdyshell benefiting from a too-slight position). For those who like your Broadway numbers large, then the likes of “Seventy-Six Trombones” and “Shipoopi” are current, appropriate, and should have you ever—just like the gentleman on the opposite aspect of the aisle to this reporter—rocking forwards and backwards fortunately.
On the present’s finish, Harold reveals his personal villainy bluntly to younger Winthrop, and the musical has a tough time with Harold extending any form of reasoning past it, till the good rabbit out of the hat on the finish—sure, a boys’ band has fashioned, and irrespective of how unhealthy they're, the boys’ dad and mom love them for enjoying their devices. And so… Harold did carry music and like to River Metropolis, it appears. It feels a creaky finish, particularly on this manufacturing the place the facility and our allegiance completely lie with Marian, not Harold, on the finish.
This manufacturing, directed by musical grasp Jerry Zaks, is 10,000-carat conventional—Santo Loquasto’s interval gown of sharp fits for the boys and swirling skirts for the ladies are a knockout. The units, nonetheless, look surprisingly parochial, with painted native am-dram timber, till the stage opens up far too not often into bigger areas, because the superbly dusky library used for “Marian the Librarian,” the place Warren Carlyle’s choreography is given the area to come back alive and thrill moderately than simply swirl prettily. However there is no such thing as a modernizing right here, no winks to darkish subtexts. One factor, which is performed for uncomfortable laughs all through, is Winthrop’s lisp.
The Music Man’s large, maybe unintended shock is that it turns into Marian’s present. It's Sutton Foster who finally instructions our consideration and applause, and it's Marian’s story and transformation we comply with most intently. Foster not solely sings superbly, she acts this position completely—we comply with Marian and listen to her due to Foster’s clever inhabitation of her. The primary act shouldn't be form to Marian each in story and songs (the weak “Goodnight, My Somebody” and “My White Knight”). However in act two comes “Until There was You,” extra a tune of transformation than love—and it's so highly effective that Harold reprises it.
Joan Marcus
Jackman fades moderately subsequent to Foster’s very pronounced efficiency. We by no means really feel Harold is at risk of discovery or what which means, we aren't completely positive what his character has realized on the finish. We all know he loves Marian, we all know he feels disgrace. However his route to those self-discoveries appears glancing. She retains his secret for her personal energy. Listening to the viewers on opening evening was instructive. Sure, they appreciated Jackman and his ferocious, lithe stage vitality, however Foster-as-Marian actually gained them over.
Marian attains management, and that is particularly candy to observe within the second act after the primary act’s frankly terrible sexist songs, “The Sadder however Wiser Lady” and “Marian the Librarian,” which merely suggest her as prey. “No dewy younger miss/Who retains resisting on a regular basis she retains insisting!/No wide-eyed, healthful harmless feminine/No sir,” sings Harold.
Nicely, by the top Marian has the facility to save lots of Harold or depart him to the mob, and clearly chooses the previous. However it is extremely clear to us that that is her option to make. Sure, Marian loves Harold, even when she is worthy of so significantly better. And so it's, we comply with, within the second act, the beat-by-beat progress and mastery of Sutton Foster because the star of The Music Man.