How it’s New York: The Music Man debuted in 1957, during what is known as the Golden Age of Broadway. It’s a nostalgic show, and New Yorkers can also feel nostalgic for that kind of opening night glamour: there’s a full orchestra.
How it’s Irish: Marian Paroo, the main love interest, is Irish American, and her mother is Irish from Ireland (with brogue to match). Irish actress Marie Mullen shines in the role.
OMG. OMG. OMG.
And I quote.
When I looked down at my notebook for my notes on the music man, that’s what I found. So basically you can stop reading right here because OMG what a fantastic show.
It’s a revival of one of the great and glorious shows of Broadway is golden age, so odds are you know many of the songs and maybe even the story already. Heck, The Beatles covered one of the shows beautiful love ballads, “Till There Was You.”
I have a soft spot for the show, having starred as the mayor‘s wife, Eulalie MacKechnie shin, in six grade. I love that show so much I think I can safely blame it for my subsequent life as a stage manager/director/designer/PhD/theater teacher/critic.
The point that I am making of course is that this is an A-1 slice of Americana wrapped up in a Golden Age musical. Mmmm.
Meredith Wilson- who I now understand is a man, but believed at the age of 11 was a woman (which can also account for some of my career)- wrote the book, musical and lyrics, based on a story he wrote with Franklin Lacey.
He lovingly portrays a small town in Iowa, full of Iowa stubborn, skepticism, gossip, but good hearted people at the end of the day. Much of the story is based on his own memories growing up in Iowa (the musical is set in 1912), some of which he described in his memoir, and there I stood with my piccolo. Yep, he played in a marching band.
The plot concerns con artist salesman Harold Hill (a twinkling Hugh Jackman), whose current scam is to convince towns to let him form a boys band, sell them the uniforms and the instruments and then skip out of town without actually giving any lessons. And I think stiff the suppliers too. (The scam isn’t all that clear to me).
In the little town of River City, however, she hast to also win over Marian (down-to-earth, secretly romantic Sutton Foster), the local librarian, who is also the town piano teacher. She still single and mum is worried about that, because, as mum says, “I know all about your standards, and if you don’t mind my saying so, there’s not a man alive who could hope to measure up to Paul Bunyan, Saint Pat, and Noah Webster you’ve concocted for yourself out of your Irish imagination, your Iowa stubbornness and your li’berry full of books!”
Marian sees right through Harold Hill. But- he’s got something. For example, when the bickering School Board demand to see his credentials, he shouts “Eureka!” at the amazing combination of tones the four men naturally possess (in fact, they do). From that moment on we never see one without the other three. it’s a brilliant strategy both as an escape for Hill and as music for a delighted audience. The quartet, consisting of shine in the hummable “Lida Rose” – slow at first, then danceable, with Marian’s “Will I Ever Tell You” soaring above it. I get chills just recalling it.
Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations and Music Director Patrick Vaccariello take the tempi on the bright side, which polishes the strong melodies until they gleam.
Marian is devoted to her younger brother Winthrop (adorable, and sweet singer Benjamin Pajak), who lisps, and hardly speaks, since his father died. It’s when she sees Hill interacting with him and showing him some fun that she agrees to go out with him.
I had forgotten the insane cleverness of the almost rap beatbox opening number of the mini salesman on the train from Illinois complaining about the current state of traveling salesmanship– the new cars are changing everything– and about this guy Harold Hill, before Jackman stands up. Hugh Jackman’s Harold Hill is perhaps just a little bit too handsome, , but who’s complaining. Like the best salesman, he seems sincere, not oily. That’s because, on some level, Jackman shows us, he is. What a swivelly dancer he is, too. If only his singing were less twangy.
There are beautiful ballads like the wistful “Good Night, My Someone,” sung by little Amaryllis (who loves Winthrop, winsomely played by Emily Jewel Hoder), as well as Marian. Some critics have complained about the transposition to lower keys for Sutton Foster to sing, but it’s not as if she’s an alto– just not a lyric soprano . We can feel all Marion’s frustration with the ignorant townswoman who think that Balzac must be something dirty when the gossipy townswomen sing “Pickaittle (Talk-a-Little).” Foster is knowing but secretly lonesome. Mom is not wrong.
As her Irish mother, Marie Mullen lights up the stage.
(I did wonder about the generations here: Winthrop is only little, Marian is on the verge of spinsterhood, and Mullen is 68. But it’s a treat to see Mullen chew the stage with this role, so I hand-waved it away. If a show can be color-blind– which this is– I say let it be age blind too.)
My beloved role, the mayor’s wife, is played to the teeth by Jayne Houdyshell, who can raise a laugh with a raised eyebrow.
Warren Carlyle’s choreography is full of wit and invention, particularly as seen in the library in which Hill lips on and off desks and carts singing “Marian the Librarian.” Another standup piece of choreography is “Shipoopi,” where we see that Hill has taught all the town’s frustrated teenagers how to dance. Yes, the lines have been changed (bowdlerized?) from lines that celebrate making passes at girls to lines about men treating girls right, in a way that is not period (Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman did the rewrites). But it was always t a very silly song. I for one don’t miss the slut-shaming and I’m not convinced it would be better to do it as written and add irony. But then again, I did not like the deconstructed Oklahoma!, either. What you should be watching is Carlyle’s inventive dancing and the micro interactions among the different characters, not listening to lyrics for how the times have changed. (Though there could be a bit more hinting that things were not always perfect, to be fair.)
Santo Loquasto’s sets are warm and inviting, drawing on the saturated color palette of American folk art, particularly Iowan Grant Wood; they are beautifully lit by Brian MacDevitt. There are rolling hills, there are red barns. For example, in the song the Wells
Fargo wagon. Another stand out is “The Wells Fargo Wagon,” sung with excitement by Winthrop and the company, a teenie tiny little wagon begins to descend down the painted hills of the backdrop– before a real live one, complete with horses (or people in horse suits) arrive. Loquasto’s costumes are evocative: for example, when Marian starts to soften, her neckline softens too.
Director Jerry Zaks keeps the action moving too quickly for you to think too much (which is good, since the “bad guy saved by good woman” was a hokey plot 50 years before Lifetime made it the norm). And yet, all of the nuance is there, as well as love and respect for the source material. Never do you feel like the show is winking at us. Thank goodness.
There’s a full orchestra. There’s a huge cast (21 Broadway debuts, in a cast of 42!).
Does the audience start clapping during the overture? They do. Are they cheering at intermission? They are. Are they on their feet for “Seventy-six trombones” at the end? Certainly.
Did I buy a T-shirt that has 76 trombones on it? I did.
The Music Man presents fondly an America with heart and hope, an America that can be changed by love. Maybe it never existed, but that’s OK. It has great songs. And dance. And a big heart. OMG.
Just go.
