The Music Man (2022 Broadway Revival)
May. 9th, 2022 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroProfessor Harold Hill rolls into town, informs them that they’ve got TROUBLE in River City, and that he can start up a boy’s marching band to solve it. You know the story and you’re here for the music.
Hugh Jackman is absolutely well-cast as a charismatic salesman who snags people in his flim-flam aura whenever he talks. Hugh Jackman is also a fabulous dancer, especially for a man in his 50s, and really shines with the extensive choreography. Hugh Jackman does not have the singing chops I’ve come to expect for this show, especially having loved Craig Bierko’s version for two decades. He can patter just fine, but this version of the Music Man is insufficiently musical, especially when he’s playing against Sutton Foster, who won two Tonys and was cheated out of four others specifically for being amazing in musicals. (I did appreciate, as a random note, that they’re only 6 years apart in age. Credit to Broadway for not casting a 53-year-old man against a 20-something woman.)
A delightful surprise was Remy Auberjonois (son of René Auberjonois) in a cast generally full of mid-tier stage stars; and a more racially-diverse cast of supporting characters than one might expect of River City, Iowa. The ensemble was very strong and, again, the choreography was excellent.
They changed the lyrics to Shipoopi (“the boy who tries his best”) to make it less extremely sexist, and that was a nice attempt. They either omitted or Jackman forgot my very favorite line from Bierko’s version: Right after teaching the school board their first barbershop harmonies, he notes to the audience that, “From now on, you’ll never see one of these men without the other three.” Which is an amazingly accurate statement on barbershop quartets. And I do also still love the ending—they successfully made the band sound horrible and the parents’ reactions are so wonderfully true to life.
Overall: Great production, glad I got to see it, Jackman isn’t my first choice musically but that’s my only real complaint.
Hugh Jackman is absolutely well-cast as a charismatic salesman who snags people in his flim-flam aura whenever he talks. Hugh Jackman is also a fabulous dancer, especially for a man in his 50s, and really shines with the extensive choreography. Hugh Jackman does not have the singing chops I’ve come to expect for this show, especially having loved Craig Bierko’s version for two decades. He can patter just fine, but this version of the Music Man is insufficiently musical, especially when he’s playing against Sutton Foster, who won two Tonys and was cheated out of four others specifically for being amazing in musicals. (I did appreciate, as a random note, that they’re only 6 years apart in age. Credit to Broadway for not casting a 53-year-old man against a 20-something woman.)
A delightful surprise was Remy Auberjonois (son of René Auberjonois) in a cast generally full of mid-tier stage stars; and a more racially-diverse cast of supporting characters than one might expect of River City, Iowa. The ensemble was very strong and, again, the choreography was excellent.
They changed the lyrics to Shipoopi (“the boy who tries his best”) to make it less extremely sexist, and that was a nice attempt. They either omitted or Jackman forgot my very favorite line from Bierko’s version: Right after teaching the school board their first barbershop harmonies, he notes to the audience that, “From now on, you’ll never see one of these men without the other three.” Which is an amazingly accurate statement on barbershop quartets. And I do also still love the ending—they successfully made the band sound horrible and the parents’ reactions are so wonderfully true to life.
Overall: Great production, glad I got to see it, Jackman isn’t my first choice musically but that’s my only real complaint.
