The creators of this handsome, substantial and highly enjoyable
production know their intended audience well. The show is pitched clearly to
the women who love the book on which it is based and those who would
accompany such women to theater. Not that it is a careful transition
of the book to the stage. It is that the sentimentality, the romantic spirit
and the pride in things familial that inhabit the book inhabit the show.
There is a unity of feeling from the approach to storytelling, the
performance styles, the sound of the score and the look of the design that
speaks of competence even when it fails to rise to some higher standard. The
only real lapse is the unaccountable choice of a logo (see the drawing to
the right) that seems to imply something from the New Yorker Magazine's
coverage of sophisticated high society in the first half of the twentieth
century.
Storyline: A musical based on Louisa May
Alcott's novel of four sisters in Civil War era New England. Told through
the eyes of Jo, the sister who wants to be a writer, are the stories of the
sisters, their mother, their neighbors and the people Jo meets when she
moves to the big city to try to make it as a writer.
Sutton Foster, who made her mark as the gutsy,
spunky girl from a small mid-western town trying to make it in the big city
in Thoroughly Modern Millie makes quite a mark as Jo, the gutsy,
spunky girl from a medium sized New England town. She's enough of a stage
presence on which to build a show like this, and she pulls it off very
nicely. She gets a great assist, as well, from Maureen McGovern in the role
of her mother. John Hickock contributes a well developed performance as the
professor that Jo meets in the New York boarding house.
The book clearly and efficiently tells the
portions of the novel's plot that have been retained for the show. The
choices of moments to musicalize seem effective, but not all the songs are
strong enough for their slots. There is a clever show-within-a-show number
with its intriguing double voicing. "Our Finest Dreams" is a fine
relationship-establishing number. "Off to Massachusetts" a nice specialty
number. What is more, there is magic when McGovern sings "Here Alone" or
when Sutton stands and delivers "The Fire Within Me" as Act Two's high
point. But so many of the others are too obvious attempts to follow
predictable formulas: the Act I ending anthem "Astonishing" sounds very much
like a song from an animated movie, "I'd Be Delighted" seems like a Sound
of Music moment, and "Days of Plenty" gives McGovern a "You'll Never
Walk Alone"-type big finish of her own.
Contributing greatly to the substantial
feeling of the evening is the visual design. Derek McLane's stage-flanking
scaffold and his forced-perspective backdrop of the roof over the attic to
which Jo withdraws to write are first rate, and Catherine Zuber's period
costumes carry you back to an ideal of middle class respectability in the
1860s. Kim Sharnberg's orchestrations, played by a pit orchestra of
thirteen, sound lush and full, completing the feeling of substance. Despite
prominent credit going to the choreographer, there simply isn't much call
for dancing in this show.
Music by Jason Howland. Lyrics by Mindi
Dickstein. Book by Allan Knee. Directed by Susan H. Schulman. Choreographed
by Michael Lichtefeld. Music direction by Andrew Wilder. Orchestrations by
Kim Scharnberg. Vocal arrangements by Lance Horne. Design: Derek McLane
(set) Catherine Zuber (costumes) Lazaro Arencibia (wigs and hair) Kenneth
Posner (lights) Peter Hylenski (sound). Cast: Janet Carroll, Sutton Foster,
Chris Gunn, Danny Gurwin, John Hickok, Amy McAlexander, Megan McGinnis,
Maureen McGovern, Jenny Powers, Robert Stattell, Jim Weitzer.
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