Maybe Happy Ending, on Broadway now.
We've been back on Broadway and we've seen four shows we'd like to tell you about it. But first, a quick observation. For many years autumn was always the most exciting time on Broadway. It was the time of big openings with many shows debuting night after night, mostly through October and November. The openings were stellar affairs. So momentous was all this that it was heralded in the Great American Songbook classic Autumn In New York with a reference to "the thrill of first-nighting."
All of this changed as Broadway evolved with the advent of blockbuster hits that ran not simply for years, but for decades. Think Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Mama Mia, Chicago, Les Miserables, Hamilton, etc. The higher costs of producing shows on Broadway meant that they needed longer runs to recoup their investment. With such long residences for the mammoth forever hits, fewer theaters were available, even though not as many shows ventured onto Broadway. At the same time the growing importance of the Tony Awards shifted the whole season from the autumn to the spring -- a time when Broadway benefits both from the Tony promos and the beginning of an accelerated tourist season as well.
Today, most new shows open right around this time as we come to the run-up to the Tonys. By the end of this week all of this Broadway season's shows will have debuted and the Tony nominations will be announced next week.
Now to the shows we've just seen -- two revivals and two newcomers. We'll start with the oldest one first:
Love Life. We took in Kurt Weil and Alan Jay Lerner's Love Life (described as a vaudeville in two plays) as part of the Encores series at City Center. Originally produced in 1948, the musical has not been seen in New York since then. The show tells the story of a married couple, Sam and Susan Cooper, who never age as they progress from 1791 to 1948, encountering difficulties in their marriage (and thus the very fabric of marriage) as they struggle to cope with changing social mores. At the same time the show mirrors and comments on the American experience over this long swath of history. In a sense it's all about the search for and evolution of the American Dream. With a huge cast, the magnificent City Center orchestra and stars Brian Stokes Mitchell and Kate Baldwin, this production accomplished what would seem to be an impossible task -- bringing this daring, sweeping story to life and making it newly relevant. This was a very limited engagement and we're so glad we got the chance to see it. Outstanding!
Pirates, The Penzance Musical. Originally known as The Pirates of Penzance, this updated Rupert Holmes adaptation of the Gilbert and Sullivan musical is a big, splashy, broad comedic celebration from the Roundabout Theatre Company. With pinpoint perfect direction by Scott Ellis and soaring, swashbuckling choreography by Warren Caryle, the show is a true dazzler with high production values. Of course, we were attracted to it by its stars, the dashing Ramin Karimloo as the Pirate King and the delightful David Hyde Pierce as Major General Stanley. We're happy to say that both gents deliver on all fronts. And, they are ably assisted by co-stars Jinkx Monsoon and Nicholas Barasch, all part of a cast of 41. Long before the Marx Brothers, there was Gilbert and Sullivan. Which is to say, Pirates is silly, zany, preposterous and altogether delightful!
Death Becomes Her. One of Broadway's most boisterous new musicals has landed in one of its most elegant, historic theaters. And you can't help but be struck by the way in which Death Becomes Her has taken over the Lunt-Fontanne. The show's purple panoply is literally everywhere, enveloping the walls, the proscenium arch, the lobby and, of course, the now mandatory souvenir/logo shop. With a book by Marco Pennette and music and lyrics by Julia Mattison and Noel Carey, Death is based on the 1992 film of the same name. Basically, it tells the story of two famous, viciously catty, self-absorbed women who don't want to grow old. They are supposedly "friends" but we all know how that works in a cynical tale such as this. The special effects are inventive, the backhanded insults are quick and sure-fired and the performances are fine. But the show and its stars come at you with all the subtlety of a runaway freight train and this never lets up. Maybe we should have seen the movie -- then again, perhaps not . . .
Maybe Happy Ending. We've saved the most original and thought-provoking new musical for last. No big cast here (it's mostly a two-character show) but that suits this musical whose intimacy makes it all the more beguiling. This is a quirky show with a nonetheless universal appeal. From South Korea, the musical is set in the not-too-distant future in the Seoul metropolitan area. Oliver and Claire are helper robots that look completely human-like, created to help people, but were abandoned by their owners and now live in side-by-side apartments where abandoned helper bots live. Darren Criss and Helen J. Shen play the bots and they are nothing short of amazing, especially Criss who plays a somewhat less advanced bot than Shen. This is a high-tech show with a big heart and it's suprsingly romantic. With book music and lyrics by Will Aronson and Hue Park, Maybe is poignant and evocative, soaring across cultures, time zones and generations in a way that will leave you astonished at what musicals can accomplish in the age of artificial intelligence. The ending, in particularly, will stay with you and maybe even have you guessing, which is the point of the outing in the first place. Highly recommended, and a sure contender for the Tony award!
