Is “The Music Man” Not-to-be Missed? Or a Missed Opportunity?
Spoiler Alert: I’ve always felt the theater experience was more personal—and precarious—than any other art form. And I’ve tried to refrain from sharing my thoughts on highly anticipated shows to allow friends to experience them on their own terms. But the current revival of “The Music Man” left me so dispirited, that I’m compelled to consider “why?” That said, I hope you view this post as less a critique of the production’s failings than a celebration of its inherent promise.
The revival’s marketing suggests it hoped to be another “Hello, Dolly!”
Long before it opened, this revival’s ambitions were clear—employing the same turn-of-the-century letter-press graphics for its marketing as 2016’s “Hello, Dolly!” (which set a box-office record, selling $6 million-worth of tickets in one day).
That producers settled for easy monetary gains is the audience’s loss. Because only 10 minutes in, it’s clear that this beloved celebration of small-town America is more resonant with dramatic possibilities than its countless high school productions would suggest. Left unexplored, the show risks being seen as a rose-colored relic.
Wilson’s score, which includes “Seventy-Six Trombones,” “Lida Rose,” and “‘Til There Was You” remains as memorable and hummable as any ever written. Yet this loving look at his turn-of-the century Iowan childhood can be so saccharine, that I’m sure more than a few 1950s audiences found it cloying even then.
With “Hello, Dolly!” Director Jerry Zacks proved not every musical warhorse warrants the revisionist’s brush. But this “Music Man” screams for it. Surely, producers saw that in one of the most beloved musicals of all time lay the perfect social commentary on these times. Sadly, they chose to ignore it. But audiences can’t. Which nearly guarantees they’ll leave unfulfilled.
The music man of the title is a bold-faced interloper and con man who disrupts the lives of River City’s townsfolk by recklessly playing on their fears; who cites non-existent threats to their way of life as fact; and whose divisiveness blinds citizens to the fact they’re being taken for suckers. Sound familiar? The 45th President’s tenure was defined by a haze of darkness and danger. And this latest “Music Man” could benefit from both—providing a contrast that would make the overly earnest songs more palpable (if not poetic).
Zaks certainly had the dramatic talent, with a cast that includes Tony-winners Jayne Houdyshell (“The Humans”) and Jefferson Mays (“I Am My Own Wife”). And a celebrated 2018 Stratford Festival production, which explored racial and class differences with a Black Harold Hill, proved the show was ripe for reinvention.
Wilson spent his early career scoring movies, including Chaplin’s satirical attack of Hitler, “The Great Dictator” (1940), and that chronicle of Southern greed and hate, “The Little Foxes” (1941). Both earned Wilson Oscar nominations—proving he had a keen understanding of humanity’s darker side. And were he alive today, I imagine he’d be open to exploring the show’s uglier subtext. Revealing the heartland’s underbelly is a classic American theme: from the smalltown teen who learns her visiting uncle is a murderer in Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt” (1943) to Grant Wood’s anything-but-bucolic “American Gothic” (1930).
Any hints of danger or mystery start with Harold Hill. When he sings, “I love you madly, madly Madam Librarian” (in “Marian the Librarian”), it’s an ode to lechery not love—revealing Hill to be as much snake as snake oil salesman. Jackman would seem the perfect choice to play such a hound dog. But his Hill comes off like a neutered one.
Listening to jazz musician Michael Dease’s rendition of “Marian the Librarian,” I’m struck by how easily his spare instrumental captures the songs lustful, slightly threatening energy… and how this revival glaringly fails to.
Playing a character able to seduce an entire town (men, women and children alike) demands more than good looks. Yet Jackman possesses none of Robert Preston’s “entrancing, otherworldly smarm.” His lifeless Hill (and Craig Bierko’s blatant mimicking of Preston in the 2000 revival) suggest that Preston achieved what only a handful of performers ever have. Creating and embodying a role so completely that they become a part of the character’s DNA. (I bet the upcoming revival of “Funny Girl” proves Barbra Streisand’s Fanny Brice to be another.)
Joseph Cotton and Theresa Wright in Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt” (1943)
Broadway’s “Pied Piper”, Preston shared this TIME cover with the aforementioned “American Gothic”
Producers wanted Sinatra to star in the 1960 film, but Wilson insisted on Preston. His Hill seemed somehow alien and not of this earth—which made his being brought down to it all the more moving. “The Music Man” is ultimately a story of three transformations. Marian: from suspicious to starry-eyed. Harold: from otherworldly con man to common man. And Winthrop: from a boy too wounded to speak, to one who speaks for all of us. The story’s trifecta moment occurs during “Shipoopi”—a song so inane that Seth Mcfarlane spoofed it on “Family Guy.” It’s the kind of number most modern directors would cut—yet it’s during “Shipoopi,” that Winthrop “comes back to life” as he watches his sister and Hill surrender to their true feelings. If staged thoughtfully, the song’s contrasting silliness can bring an added layer of emotional resonance to the scene. Zaks briefly toys with the idea—bringing a spot lit Winthrop slightly downstage to watch the couple dance—but doesn’t commit to it. It's one of many theatrical moments that are sadly unexplored.
Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster, © Joan Marcus
“Pick a Little, Talk a Little”—in which the town’s busy-bodies gossip about Marian—is another. In our age of digital shaming, this otherwise comic number might have taken on a surprisingly darker tone. And while Jackman spends nearly half his time on stage dancing, the choreographer never uses dance to show the audience just what it was about this man that could seduce a whole town. No, I’m not talking Fosse’s pelvic thrusts. It was Gregory Hines’s assured fast footedness—as hypnotic as a huckster’s sleight of hand—that came to mind.
And yet…
Having chalked it up as a forgettable (though expensive) night out with my mother—it happened. Jackman’s Harold Hill sank to his knees and pulled the disenchanted Winthrop into his arms, saying, “There’s always a band.” And I was overcome with tears.
There it was. That profound—albeit highly romanticized—moment of truth. Timeless and touching despite the cloying two hours that preceded it. How much brighter might this gem have shone if placed within a darker setting.
Nearly finished with this post, I finally read The New York Times’ review, and was not surprised to see it seconded my sentiment—remarking that the “generally perky” production needed “more danger in the telling.” If there’s a common theme among the responses of friends AND critics alike, it is bittersweet disappointment. We recognize what this “Music Man” could have been. And wonder why its creators hadn’t.