It is inevitable that different people will want different things from musicals. Some people seem to want escapism or spectacle to be the key ingredient. Some people want to escape to happier places, where people smile and sing and dance, and you can get cosy with tunes you know. Some people won’t settle for anything unless it is Sondheim; others want Rent or Wicked in a different form. Some people want high drama; others just want to laugh. Some only want revivals or adaptations of known quantities, be they novels or films. Some insist on names to lure them to the auditorium.
Those who fall into such often quite rigid and demanding categories make a fundamental error. Every single musical was a gamble, a chance, a hopeful fusion of ingredients once; only performance and audience reaction bring longevity to musicals. Even The Phantom Of The Opera was once a gamble, andLes Miserables did not get critical acclaim when it originally opened at the RSC. Hit musicals are made by time and repetition.
Great musicals require something much less - a chance. And if ever there was a musical which should be given a chance, it is the triumphant achievement that is Bright Star, now playing its premiere season on Broadway at the Cort Theatre. It boasts no big names, features a brand new score and an original book and it doesn’t deal in any big picture themes - rather, it tells a simple, folksy, some-what far fetched (but based on true events) story which centres on a brilliant young woman who becomes a mother, then a fearsome literary editor.
You can see the backers and producers scratching their heads, wondering how to convince anyone to see it. It is, on paper, an unlikely attention grabber.
But…
Steve Martin and Edie Brickell have written the music, book and lyrics of Bright Star and they know exactly what they are doing. A deep love for the South pervades everything that happens. While aspects of the material are unashamedly sentimental, it is never saccharine, and there is a brutality about the core storyline which will bruise all but the hardest of hearts. It’s a fable in many ways and it offers many useful observations about life, especially about deeds done in the name of either love or religion.
It is a musical which, in the hands of director Walter Robbie, revels in the intricate small detail. This might not be a musical with big set pieces, but it has its own, quite perfect, style and rewards careful attention to lyrics and staging. Josh Rhodes’ choreography is gentle and supportive, occasionally creating breath-taking visual pictures of hope, joy or nostalgia, but always providing a serene backdrop, a kind of moving set of recollections, reflections and moods.
Like every other musical, Bright Star is defined by its score. Lush and deeply felt in parts, bright and hopeful in others, snappy and with beats that command clapping or toe-tapping, it’s a score that fairly bursts with tuneful joy, as well as one that strikes chords of sharply felt melancholy, blistering regret and acute hopelessness. This combination proves irresistible, and as the waves of melody, burnt under the Southern stillness and sun, crash around you, they leave their mark, like foam on a riverbank. A real sense of renewal, and of the relentlessness of goodness, is everywhere in these tunes. It is bluegrass and country wholesomeness and seduction in every note.
The small, but quite wonderful, band play beautifully. At one climactic point, the violinist comes away from her fellows, to provide a haunting, sonorous underscoring to the action on stage. Like at every other point in the show, the music has narrative purpose; it’s not just singing. Each song, every phrase sheds light on character, situation, mood - intelligently and gently. Peter Asher and Rob Berman have taken great care with the musical vision for Bright Star and this pays real dividends.
If you pay attention to the opening number, If You Knew My Story, and take careful note of how the ensemble are arranged and then come into the light, to take their position in formation around the central character, much of what follows will be clear. The beauty of this story is not in its surprises, though there are several genuine shocks along the way, but in seeing how the characters cope and end up. The destination might be clear, but the stops along the way provide the delicacy, the joy, the heartbreak.
The lives of two people are told separately but in tandem. Alice Murphy is a big shot literary editor and Billy Cane has just returned from World War II, wanting to be a writer. He eventually takes his material to Alice and she agrees to hire him, eventually publish his work. When that happens, she agrees to visit his home town to see the places he has written about and meet his family. Neither of them are ever the same after that trip.
As Alice, Carmen Cusack, making her Broadway debut, is quite astonishing. From her utterly enthralling opening number, she grabs the audience by the hand and leads them into an intoxicating world of romance, grief, acceptance and redemption. She makes every moment vivid and real; her Alice is memorable in every way. Plucky, playful, adoring, desperate, crushed, determined, inquisitive, hopeful - all of these aspects of her strong personality come into play across the performance, many often at the same time. She establishes superb chemistry with every other player.
She sings with a throaty assurance that is full of character. It is hard to tell if it is sustainable in the long term, for much of the material sits at the edges of her comfortable range. But undeniably Cusack makes remarkable, thrilling sounds, and songs like Way Back In The Day, Sun’s Gonna Shine, So Familiar and the show-stopping At Last leave a lasting impression of star quality.
Cusack has unwavering first rate support.
A.J. Shively is quite a revelation as the young writer, Billy Cane. The triumph of his safe return from the War is marred by the unexpected news of his mother’s death and his reaction to that news is profoundly affecting. Stephen Bogardus is flawless as his Daddy and never more than at this point, She’s Gone: shattering lyrics for a rhapsody of pain.
Shively’s Billy has a beautiful, well-crafted relationship with Margo, who works in the library of his home town. He is drawn to her, but it takes time and experience to make him appreciate why. It’s a teasing sort of romance, hard on Margo, played with genuine grace by the lovely Hannah Elless. When the climax finally comes, in the deliciously sung and performed Always Will, it is difficult to not beam with delight.
Along the way to that point, Shively has many highs. There is clever and funny banter between Shively and Jeff Blumenkrantz’ sardonic editor, Daryl Ames, and the sultry siren Lucy Grant, played by the remarkable Emily Padgett, all of which culminates in the shot-fuelled sexy exuberance of Another Round. Blumenkrantz and Padgett make the most of every moment they have on stage and they provide a great urban contrast to the country folk who otherwise dominate the narrative. Cusack makes the final member of this quartet and her acerbic, driven, Anna Wintour-like managing editor gives each of the other three great scope for effective and memorable performances – a challenge all succeed in taking up.
Dee Hoty is quite magnificent as Alice’s quiet but deeply loving mother. She also loves her husband, Stephen Lee Anderson’s foolish Daddy Murphy, and the three have a difficult relationship because of Daddy’s views about “what is right”. Hoty is the one who communicates the real ravages of these difficulties – she has a marvellous scene where she sits silently, outside her home, listening to her husband and daughter chat. It’s a triumph of restrained but eloquent acting.
Michael Mulheren is in terrific form as the spluttering, rich, insensitive and, in the end, quite evil Mayor whose Adonis like son (Alice’s assessment, but indisputable) Jimmy Ray Dobbs falls in love with Alice and wants to marry her. The Mayor has other plans however and nothing will stand in their way. Mulheren is cold and calculating, but manages to clearly show that, however misguided, his actions are motivated by his real love for his son. The ending of Act One is positively shocking – entirely because of Mulheren’s conviction. He is superb.
As is Paul Alexander Nolan who plays Jimmy Ray from cool, arrogant, ice-box fixing matinee idol to older, richer, urbane but profoundly sad suited and booted man of respectable business. Nolan is terrific in every way and he handles very difficult scenes with vibrant intensity, ensuring that they come across as powerful and real, not mawkish and eye-rolling. He sings superbly too, a voice that glows with honey coloured intensity. Whoa, Mama, Heartbreakerand I Had A Vision are all triumphs and he works gently, harmoniously and excitedly with Cusack’s Alice.
There is as much comedy in the piece as deeply felt drama. Some silly romantic antics in the library between Max Chernin’s Max, Sandra DeNise’s Edna and Sarah Jane Shanks’ Florence are sweet and provide another example of “family” in a show packed with different variations on what that notion may mean.
The band are onstage throughout the action, inside a cabin which rotates around the stage and assumes different guises depending on the scene. This keeps the music literally in the centre of Bright Star and is very effective. Eugene Lee’s scenic design is simple and works perfectly, with whole locations being suggested by a few props and some furniture. But it all looks terrific and works very well. The way a train is put together is quite magical, as is Daddy Cane’s recollection of a foggy night he went frog-hunting. Japhy Weidman uses lighting that makes the goodness low and the darkness throb; the romantic and reflective scenes are all lit with sensitivity and charm, the light becoming part of the fabric of the story-telling.
Jane Greenwood’s costumes are gorgeous and beautifully detailed – she makes all of the women look more fabulous than they already are, and the men wear clothing pitched perfectly for their spirits and souls. There are so many nice touches – a new dress for Margo is seen in a box at one point, representing her hopes for Billy’s interest. When she finally wears that same dress, it is a clever touch and lifts that scene to its proper high.
This is a terrific production of an idiosyncratic but immensely appealing new musical. It is cast impeccably and performed with great skill, charm and gusto by everyone involved. The pace never flags; the interest never wanes; the tears and laughs never stop.
A Bright Star on the Great White Way indeed. A lesson about and in propinquity.
Five stars