In Show Boat, the granddaddy of all musicals, displaced persons comprise the entire cast as Cap'n Andy's traveling entertainment venue churns up and down the Mississippi River, taking on a variety of passengers and troubadours.
In The King and I, a widowed British schoolteacher Anna begins a new life in a strange and authoritarian Asian kingdom. In The Music Man, the always-on-the-move and ever-cunning Harold Hill creates nothing short of upheaval in small town Indiana. In The Most Happy Fella, a mail-order bride gets less than she bargained for when she's thrust into the rough-hewn world of early California wine country. Even more recently, Hamilton tells the story of a displaced orphan who becomes one of America's founders while Come From Away examines the lives of 9/11 airline travelers who are suddenly diverted to an unprepared Canadian hamlet.
But perhaps nowhere in the lexicon of American musicals are there two more bewildered characters than Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglas, two New York buddies who, while hiking the Scottish highlands, stumble into a strange and enchanted locale called Brigadoon.
Brigadoon is a mysterious place that you won't find on any map. That's because it only appears once every hundred years. How could this be? Well, in the world of this lustrous and lyrical Lerner and Loewe musical it's all neatly explained: To protect Brigadoon from being changed by the outside world, 200 years ago the local minister prayed to God to have Brigadoon disappear, only to reappear for one day every 100 years.
All citizens of Brigadoon are forbidden to leave the town, or it will disappear forever. In the show, Tommy, who becomes smitten with a Brigadoon lass named Fiona MacLaren, asks hypothetically if an outsider could be permitted to stay in Brigadoon. The local schoolmaster replies: "A stranger can stay if he loves someone here – not jus' Brigadoon, mind ye, but someone in Brigadoon – enough to want to give up everythin' an' stay with that one person. Which is how it should be. 'Cause after all, lad, if ye love someone deeply, anythin' is possible."
For Tommy, who's always been commitment shy, Fiona and Brigadoon seem to change everything. But the more cynical Jeff refuses to believe the magic of Brigadoon and seems to find the place a bit creepy, if not downright scary. "How can you believe all this?" he challenges Tommy. "How can you just accept it?" And therein lies just one of the conflicts that fuel the story of Brigadoon.
It's hard to believe that this classic musical is 70 years old.
And it was still harder for us to believe it when we were fortunate enough to see its all-too-brief and ravishing revival over the weekend as part of New York City Center's Encore series with the magnificent Kelli O'Hara as Fiona and the full-voiced Patrick Wilson as Jeff. When Kelli O'Hara sings its as if the angels are calling us from on high. And Patrick Wilson is not only able to send his voice into the far reaches of the balcony but he does it while injecting a credible emotional tug into nearly every note. Together, these two are Broadway musical heaven as they sing The Heather on the Hill, Almost Like Being in Love and From This Day On. And Wilson is poignant and compelling as he delivers the haunting There But For You Go I.
With a cast of 39, an orchestra of 30, original choreography by Agnes de Mille (re-choreographed and superbly directed by Christopher Wheeldon) and the dancing of Robert Fairchild, formerly of the New York City Ballet and An American in Paris, this "new" Brigadoon proved enthralling. In fact, the entire cast deserves lavish praise, with shoutouts to Asasif Mandvi as Jeff, Ross Lekites as Charlie, Rich Herbert as Andrew and Dakin Matthews as Mr. Lundie.
Brigadoon is sheer Broadway magic in that it dares us to dream and dream gallantly and it challenges us to believe more with our hearts than our minds.
When it opened in 1947 Broadway knew a hit when it saw one. As one critic raved: "[This is] a stunning show. It has whimsy, beguiling music, exciting dancing – and it has a book.... Brigadoon is by far the best musical play the season has produced, and it is certainly one of the best within my entire play-going experience."
Seventy years later. we wholeheartedly agree!
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