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November 30, 2003
TT: Like they used to
I just got back from...well, I'll tell you on Monday. I promise you'll be interested. At least I think you'll be interested. (And no, it wasn't Baghdad.)In my absence, The Wall Street Journal ran my review of the new Broadway revival of Leonard Bernstein's Wonderful Town, which opened last Sunday. Since there's no link, and I expect most of you were elsewhere on Friday and thus didn't get a chance to see what I wrote, here it is:
Let's cut right to the chase: "Wonderful Town" is now the go-to show on Broadway. Donna Murphy and Jennifer Westfeldt are the best of all possible stars. Kathleen Marshall's dance-filled direction is picture-perfect. As for the songs, they're by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green--need I say more? If a visit to the Al Hirschfeld Theatre doesn't make you feel sunny all over, you need to consider switching to an industrial-strength anti-depressant.
The only thing I can't figure is why it took a half-century for "Wonderful Town," which opened this week, to receive its first full-scale Broadway revival. The legend of New York City, after all, is as potent today as it was in 1953. This is still the place where gifted folk from every small town on earth come to find their futures, and "Wonderful Town" is the quintessential expression of their quest. Based on "My Sister Eileen," the Jerome Chodorov-Joseph Fields play loosely adapted from the autobiographical short stories of Ruth McKenney, "Wonderful Town" tells the tale of Ruth and Eileen Sherwood, two adventurous sisters from Ohio who burn their bridges, find a basement apartment in Greenwich Village and find out that Manhattan really is all it's cracked up to be.
Simplicity is the keynote of this wonderful "Wonderful Town": John Lee Beatty's set is a see-through skein of skyscrapers and fire escapes, with an occasional backdrop flown in to orient the viewer. If you think a Broadway musical absolutely has to be financed by tapping the Federal Reserve, you may find the effect sparse, but for me it was just right. In reviewing the gazillion-dollar "Wicked" (which I liked), I suggested that it was really "a mini-musical ŕ la ‘Godspell' trapped inside the body of a Brobdingnagian Broadway spectacular, signaling wildly to be let out." This is what I had in mind, a spare, uncluttered production that puts the show and its stars in the spotlight.
The plot, to be sure, is paper-thin, and in a less zesty staging, "Wonderful Town," with its period references and fresh-faced optimism, might seem more quaint than anything else. Not to worry: Kathleen Marshall, who did the dances for "Little Shop of Horrors," shows why choreographers make the best musical-comedy directors. Faced with the challenge of cramming the action into a comparatively shallow downstage space (this is a concert-style production in which the orchestra is placed on stage), Ms. Marshall weaves the actors in and out of one another's way with frisky precision. Imagine a frieze-like painting of New York street life, wound up and set in motion, and you'll get the idea.
The playing space may be smaller than usual, but it leaves plenty of room for good acting, and Donna Murphy knows what to do with it. The role of Ruth, the sharp-tongued older sister who's afraid she's too smart to get a man, was created in 1953 by Rosalind Russell, Hollywood's favorite dame-in-a-suit, and Murphy has that precedent clearly in mind. She pops off her wisecracks as if she'd eaten a bag of lemons, peel and all, and growls out her songs with just enough self-lacerating rue to make you want to hug her. I'm not old enough to have seen Russell, but she couldn't have been better than this. No one could.
Ms. Murphy can carry this show all by her leggy self. The good news is that, unlike Hugh Jackman in "The Boy From Oz," she doesn't have to. Instead, she's supported by Jennifer Westfeldt, a Broadway debutante best known as the co-star and co-author of the indie movie "Kissing Jessica Stein." Ms. Westfeldt plays Eileen, the good-hearted, slightly ditsy man magnet of "Wonderful Town," as a Lisa Kudrow-like variant of Jessica Stein--less neurotic, more adorable--and succeeds in the seemingly impossible task of not getting upstaged by Donna Murphy. You won't have the slightest trouble understanding why all the men in the cast follow her around like lovesick cocker spaniels, tongues unrolled.
What else? A discreetly trimmed book by David Ives, who has sharpened the punch lines without adding sore-thumb anachronisms. A 100% live, synthesizer-free 24-piece orchestra led to resplendent effect by Rob Fisher. Which brings us to those good old Bernstein-Comden-Green songs. Interestingly, none has become a standard, though cabaret singers trot out Ruth's "One Hundred Easy Ways (To Lose a Man)" from time to time. The reason is simple: "Wonderful Town" is a book show with musical numbers, not a quasi-opera like "West Side Story," and its best songs are funny, not touching. By the same token, it isn't the subplottish courtship of Ruth and Robert Baker (Gregg Edelman), the magazine editor for whom she flips, that drives the show, but the romance between the Sherwood sisters and the city with which they fall hopelessly in love.
I wondered whether so youthfully idealistic a musical would speak to a new generation of émigré New Yorkers suckled on cynicism, so I brought along a 20-year-old friend who, like Ruth and Eileen, came here full of hope and looking for glory. Guess what? She ate it up--and so will you. At a time when even the most case-hardened of Manhattanites toss and turn at night, "Wonderful Town" is a tonic reminder of why New York remains the capital of the land of dreams.
In other words, go. Soon. Now.
Posted November 30, 2003 7:14 AM
