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At last, a Broadway show where you can
whistle the tunes as you exit the theatre
and actually remember the songs two days later!
Meredith Willson's classic American musical The
Music Man is back on Broadway after an absence of more than
40 years. The 1957 Tony Award winning hit that made Robert Preston
an icon has an impressive new look under the direction of Susan Stroman.
This production brings new dimension to the career of 2000's Prof. Harold
Hill in the person of RobertSean Leonard, who has the Herculean task of
making the role his own. Leonard earns his Broadway debut credentials
with a rich singing voice and deft gestures that animate his musical con
man. As a new arrival to the uptight, ultra-conservative town of
River City, Iowa, Prof. Hill's deft calculation of this virgin territory
for a swindle is right on the mark with Leonard's rendition of "Trouble",
a show stopper for sure. In short order it is easy to want this handsome
and self-confident hunk to lead everyone's parade.
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Prof. Hill's routine ploy - the sale of musical instruments to a newly created boys band for the town of choice, then a speedy exit without training the troupe - hits a snag in the form of Marian Paroo, the Librarian. Marian is charmingly brought to life by Rebecca Luker. The town's leading bibliophile, and piano teacher, is trying, through a library heavily stocked with "shocking books", to educate, liberate and enliven the town of reserved, inward looking citizens. Marian is the only one who can expose the hustler, but when the two cross swords, it's a love match. This trust/mistrust battle is further complicated by Hill's positive influence on Marian's shy younger brother, Winthrop (Michael Phelan), whose severe lisp has kept his social skills from blossoming as he matures.
Hill must cleverly find ways to generate serious and sufficient
interest in his scheme as well as stall the impatient and skeptical mayor
(Paul Benedict). These trials lead the audience through numerable
music and dance sequences, such as "Goodnight, My Someone", "Pickalittle",
"Marian the Librarian", and "Gary, Indiana". The musical instruments
finally arrive, but more time is needed until final payments in cash are
made, so the wait is extended to include uniforms. The pressure for
the "professor" to validate his credentials increases in ratio to Marian's
own internal pressure to take the leap of faith for a man she knows to
be a phony in all but his affections for her...maybe.
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Director/Choreographer Susan Stroman has provided the audience with an eye-boggling spectacle of a small town on stage, with cleverly constructed moving sets and ingenuous staging of the small cast that makes it seem the stage is overflowing with talented performers singing and dancing their hearts out. Silk-voiced Rebecca Luker draws the perfect Marian, a reserved, introverted reformer, not afraid to stock such "shameless" authors as Balzac on the public shelves, but afraid of her own feelings for this startlingly slick salesman who enthusiastically follows her around town, courts her with unfaltering grace and gets her young brother involved in this band project that is very much suspect. Ms. Luker's voice is pleasing, indeed, in the many numbers the show provides her. The chemistry between Leonard and Luker works well and makes the many confrontations between them believable and involving.
The Music Man is an all around entertaining and worthwhile theatre event.
Whether you remember the wonderful rhythms,
tongue-twisting lyrics, soaring musicality and heart-pounding marches from
the original stage presentation, the film version, the original soundtracks
or the incalculable number of high school, college and community theatre
productions, renew your acquaintance with it all. If you have never
experienced the joys of this particular show, come meet the ulitmate, smooth-talking,
charismatic
con artist and his middle American marks.
You won't walk out with a shiny new trombone or the ability to play like
the Dorseys or Clarence Clemons, but you will be certain to be humming
some new tunes and practicing some "new" catch phrases.
WHATTAYATALK? WHATTAYATALK? WHATTAYATALK?
The Music Man 2000 has already earned Drama Desk Nominations and Outer Critic's Circle nominations. Can Tony Award nominations be far behind?
Now at the Neil
Simon Theater
252 West 52nd Street, NYC
Tickets at Ticketmaster: (212)
307-4100
Robert Sean Leonard, Rebecca Luker, Max Casella, Paul Benedict, Ruth Williamson, Katherine McGrath, Ralph Byers, Michael Phelan, Clyde Alves and Kate Levering.
Directed and Choreographed by Susan Stroman
Music, Book and Lyrics by Meredith Willson
Story by Franklin Lacey and Meredith Willson
Sets by Thomas Lynch
Costumes by William Ivey Long
Lighting by Peter Kaczorowski
Sound by Jonathan Deans
Musical; Director: David Chase
Talented and successful as Willson was, he only composed
three Broadway shows, "The Music Man",
"The Unsinkable Molly Brown" and "Here's Love".
In the late 1930s Willson moved to NBC in Hollywood,
and was musical director on many of the famous
radio shows of that era. He also composed for
motion pictures and in the 1940's was twice nominated for an Academy Award.
During World War II he served as a Major in the U.S. Army, involved in
operation of the Armed Forces Radio Service. In the 1950's Willson
was a guest on many early TV panel shows. Many of his songs have
become standards, including “76 Trombones,” “Its Beginning to Look A Lot
Like Christmas,” “You and I,” “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You” and
“Till There Was You,” a song which reprised as
a hit for the Beatles in 1963.
