If you allow me the liberty
of fallaciously including in the current season anything that opened
before July (let's just forget about awards deadlines and go by our
inner clock), then the three best musicals of the season made their
prsence known way after the hot air blown over the most disappointing
musical theatre season in a very long time.
I know two of the three authors of The Kid (composer Andy Monroe and lyricist Jack Lechner, who collaborated with librettist Michael
Zam) far too well to have offered a full
review of the piece in these pages, and had too much inside exposure to its
development through variously participating in and moderating the BMI Musical
Theatre Workshop, and having had my opinion as a colleague solicited by the
authors at various phases of that development…but now that The Kid’s
off-Broadway run at Theatre Row is over, I can say without the “conflict of
interest” spectre that it’s as deserving of further development, leading to a
Broadway transfer, as was Spring Awakening and
Next to Normal. A lighter, and in
a strange way, more traditional musical than either of those two—a
feelgood show, come to think of it—it’s based on the book by sex
columnist Dan Savage, a gay writer chronicling the process he and
his partner went through to adopt a baby. Any criticism I’d make (which I’d
tell the guys in private) addresses what seems to me only a few easily fixable
aspects; taken on aggregate, score and book are top notch, featuring those
ever-harder-to-find qualities of wit and tunefulness in abundance. And while
director Scott Elliott is still finding
his comfort zone with certain characteristics of the musical as a form, I was
unprepared by his previous work for how much affinity he does have
for it in terms of the large picture, which involves pacing, structure
clarification and playing style. Mr. Elliot as well should be able to navigate
his To Do list with brisk efficiency. Here’s hoping he gets the chance; and
gets to reunite his lovely cast, which featured a charming Christopher
Sieber in the lead, striking the perfect
balance between jaundiced, wry observance and delicate vulnerability.
Another musical still in development but also in the
oh-so-close stage is Take Flight,
by redoubtable old masters John Weidman (book), David Shire (music) and Richard Maltby, Jr. (lyrics), currently at the McCarter Theatre in New Jersey.
It musicalizes—and personalizes and humanizes with deft
artistry—the history of American flight (and in a larger sense the unique
character of American pioneering) by alternating, intertwining and crossweaving
story threads that concern key points in the lives of the Wright Brothers (Stanton
Nash, Benjamin Schrader), Charles Lindbergh (Claybourne Elder) and Amelia Earhart (Jenn Colella). One of the rewarding and refreshing things about
director Sam Buntrock’s
production, in this day and age of over-production, is how it tells an epic
story with nothing detectable in the way of high tech. Against a set (David
Farley,
also responsible for costumes)
that represents, in a literal sense, only rolling ground and open sky,
the
simplest wagons of furniture are rolled on and off, the most
rudimentary
abstract skeletons (the Lindbergh and Earhart planes)—not much more
than
framed playground swings with a little extra aerodynamic balance—are
suspended from above; and with that and not a whole lot else except
story, song
and actors to deliver them, the stage is fuller than at any
Euro-musical
spectacle, because the material is strong enough to engage the
complicity of the audience's imagination in completing the illusion. It
all leads to a remarkable finale tableau in which there is
only the ensemble and the floor they stand on, yet the miracle of
flight is
stunningly convincing and even exhilarating.
There’s
not an actor in it, from the leads (who also include William Youmans and Michael Cumpsty) to the supporting ensemble who doesn’t him-/herself
achieve some moment of divine “elevation” performing a script that is compact
yet rich, and a score (music and lyrics) that embodies both the
epitome of musical theatre sophistication and a populist accessibility
commensurate with Americana.
Again—it’s
not quite THERE in the sense of having
solved it all. I’m not sure I can pinpoint why (I suppose, in this instance, if
I could, the creative team would have)…the best I can offer is that the opening
sequences, though clearly establishing the evening, don’t quite lock into gear;
that we’re a little too far into the first act before it finds its metaphorical
wings. But oh the show that’s there once it
does…
Finally, at Playwrights Horizons, there’s The Burnt Part Boys, a multiple developmental award-winner by relative newcomers Mariana Elder (book), Chris Miller (music) and Nathan Tysen (lyrics), and worthy of all its honors. Set in a West Virgina mining community in 1962, it tells the story of young teenager Pete (Al Calderon), an adventurous and angry lad who steals dynamite, prima cord and a detonator box from his older brother’s kit—his older brother being a miner himself—and ventures off with wryer, more artistic pal Dusty (Noah Galvin) to blow up the mine where his father was killed ten years ago, to prevent its re-opening and danger to a new generation. (And along the way they’ll discover another same-age orphan of the mines, feisty young Frances [Molly Ranson] who has taken to living in the wilderness rather than being perceived by her peers as an oddball and an outcast.) When older brother Jake (Charlie Brady) discovers what Pete’s done, he grabs his co-worker pal Chet (Andrew Durand) to track the boys down before it’s too late. But there is more than chase and (possible) catch-up involved. Here in these mountains, the echoes of past generations, and folk heroes, echo everywhere—and historical pioneers, all of them looking not a little like Pete’s own dad (all personified by Michael Park) have their own messages to impart about adventure and manhood. (Randy Redd, Asa Somers and Steve French are a trio of additional miners who also do a little Greek chorus work, but manlier.)
For
the most part, the intermissionless story is well told and earns its
emotionalism (notwithstanding a slight lag around the 3/4 mark that could do
with some compacting and/or trimming); and the score is a savvy amalgam of
folk influences, richly complex high choral vocal arrangements, winks at
familiar iconography (e.g. without direct quotation, there’s nonetheless an
unmistakable—and affectionate—throwaway swipe at the Disney Davy
Crockett theme) and good old musical
theatre vocabulary.
In
a vein not dissimilar to Butnrock’s approach to Take Flight (see above), director Joe Caralco’s production
likewise evokes the vast panorama of mountains, caves, cliffs and crags with
next to nothing—lighting, plus the orderly and disorderly arrangement of
wooden chairs and ladders.
Ahhh,
me. When everyone’s doing their homework, it takes so little else to make an
audience happy…