The cast, with Rebecca Brudner as Thea and Austin
Scott Lombardi as Fiorello front and center (Photos by Alexander Hill)
The best and most probably generous way to enjoy this production
of Fiorello is to pretend you are not
in New York City at the otherwise resident home of the Classic Stage Company
but rather in retreat to Stockbridge, Mass where the Berkshire Theatre Group
first presented its revival of the wonderful but barely remembered 1959Tony
Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical this past summer. It is this
production that has been moved lock, stock and barrel to East 13th Street for
those who might like to see what a youthful, talented cast and company has done
with it.
What they have done with it is significant because there
will now not likely ever be a full scale Broadway revival. And this production,
as gleeful and exuberant as it is being performed, is just not up to Broadway or
even normal Off-Broadway standards. Fans of the City Center Encore Series have
already had the pleasure of two delightful concert stagings in recent times of
this musical about the former New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, neither
of which prompted a move to Broadway. This is not to suggest that a real powerhouse
performer in the title role couldn’t have made the difference.
At any rate, and once you relax and submit to the budgetary
and artistic limitations of the production imposed on it by director Bob Moss
and to those of the cast members, you can sit back and enjoy the terrific score
by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock that is played most earnestly by Alev Gokce
Erem on the violin and Robert Frost on the keyboard.
Being topical and timely in this election year is certainly
a help for this musical that boasts a rather nifty and fairly accurate book by the
revered scribes George Abbott and Jerome Weidman. It’s all about the rise of a
head-strong young lawyer as he gains political prestige in congress and onward
to become Mayor of NYC even after a blistering defeat to Jimmy Walker in 1929. To
the book’s credit, the women in his life are not treated as peripheral
entities, but rather as commendably and sensitively dramatized personalities.
Filed with the zingiest, singiest, music (the kind you don’t
hear any more) by Bock and the still with us and writing composer/lyricist Harnick,
it’s virtually impossible to sit still in your seat. If only the cast were able
to muster up more of the panache, spunk and sparkle that is already inherent in
the material. The ethnic and other dancing created by choreographer is lively but
pedestrian.
There is no question that Austin Scott Lombardi is putting
his heart and soul in his interpretation of Fiorello, but his physical frame and
rigorous posturing is closer to what we might envision about another NYC Mayor -
Jimmy Walker. But Lombardi does his best
to be a symbol during an epoch period in New York City history. What I
did love about his aggressively endearing performance that he made me believe
than an honest politician is not a figment of my imagination.
Despite a woefully misguided and inept attempt to give his cronies
the realistic sound of New Yawkers, I
particularly liked the energy expended by them and particularly Ryan Morsbach as
Ben, Fiorello’s political cohort, in the two great tough and brilliantly cynical
numbers “Politics and Poker,” and “Little Tin Box.” Chelsea Cree Groen as Dora
the sweatshop girl Fiorello helps during a strike, nails the hilarious “I Love
a Cop” with her kittenish voice. That gorgeous ballad “Til Tomorrow” still
manages to bring forth tears, as beautifully sung by a terrific Rebecca
Brudner, as Thea the woman whose admiration for Fiorello grows to love as his
first wife. Katie Birenboim, as Fiorello’s secretary who becomes his second
wife has a golden moment with another lovely ballad “The Very Next Man.”
A hand is due for the chorus cuties for their razzamatazz
number “Gentleman Jimmy. Unfortunately, there was too much awkward and intrusive
moving of scenery that gave the show a
community theater look. The costumes fulfilled their era-invoking duties. I wish
I felt moved to cast a yea vote for this revival, but I’m still resigned to
abstain until the real new deal comes along.
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