3908
(1 vote, average 5.00 out of 5)
Written by Louis Weisberg
Nov 27, 2011
Skylight Opera Theater’s “The Music Man” continues through Dec. 18 at the Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway. Call (414) 291-7800 or go to www.skylightopera.com.
The best holiday show in Milwaukee this season doesn’t contain a single reference to Christmas, snow or Santa Claus. In fact, it’s set in mid-summer.
But Skylight Opera Theatre’s production of Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man” explodes with the kind of sentimental cheer we crave this time of year. Perhaps no other major musical better conveys the spirit of the season than this exhilarating story of faith, miracles and rebirth set in a small Iowa town in 1912.
Unlike so many big musicals, the story line of “Music Man” is much more than a vehicle on which to hang song-and-dance numbers and special effects. Harold Hill, the titular character, is a traveling salesman who sets out to sell musical instruments and uniforms to the parents of River City by promising to organize their recalcitrant (according to him) boys into a band under his instruction. Hill is a brilliant and unrepentant grifter who reads and exploits people’s weaknesses as easily as he drops words of unctuous flattery.
What Hill can’t do is read a note of music. After the instruments and uniforms arrive, he plans to take the money and run, leaving River City with a lot of expensive and utterly useless band paraphernalia. It’s a scam that’s made him legendary among the region’s traveling salesmen, one of whom is determined to stop him before he completely ruins the profession’s reputation.
But Hill's nemesis proves to be the town’s librarian and music teacher, Marian Paroo, a character as cynical in her way as he is in his He intends to romance her attention away from his lack of musical knowledge, but the steely Marian is one of the few locals immune to Hill’s charms.
It’s not until Marian observes the tonic effect Hill has on her emotionally withdrawn little brother Winthrop and the rest of the town that her feelings sway. Marian ultimately becomes grateful for the magic Hill injects into their stubbornly lusterless Iowa existence. Beneath the impenetrable façade of the man, which is not unlike hers, she ultimately finds a kindred soul – someone else who won’t settle for the ordinary.
This is a story of ideas as grand as 76-trombone parades, and part of the brilliance of the book is that its subplots tie so neatly to the overarching narrative and reinforce its themes. The book is also distinguished by a Wells Fargo wagonload of quirky and authentic characters, a welcome contrast to the stock figures so common on the mid-century musical stage.
“The Music Man” is musically grand as well, with a familiar score that includes such toe-tappers as “(Ya Got) Trouble,” “Seventy-six Trombones” and “Gary, Indiana,” along with such plaintive numbers as “Till There Was You” and period tunes like “Lida Rose.” It’s not surprising that so many of my fellow audience members left the Nov. 25 performance whistling songs from the score.
Taking on this grand musical for the first time, Skylight has assembled a 12-piece band and 36 actors, the most ever featured in a single production by the group. That’s a lot for the Cabot Theatre’s relatively modest-sized stage to handle, and it’s a great credit to the precision skills of director Bill Thiesen that he keeps the action moving with such ease. Choreographer Pam Kriger also makes the most of the space, with economical moves that convey the music’s exuberance without the leaping, gymnastic routines typically employed by larger scale productions of this work.
In fact, every facet of this production is as impeccable as it is charming, from Peter Dean Beck’s sets that invoke Norman Rockwell’s America to Gregory W. Slawko’s colorful, elaborate costumes, some of which could stand as characters all on their own.
The production’s chief strength, however, is the extraordinary cast Thiesen has assembled. The commanding Norman Moses, a Skylight veteran, looks and sounds like Robert Preston, who originated “The Music Man” on Broadway and starred in the hit 1962 movie version opposite Shirley Jones. But his performance is more nuanced. Particularly in the final scenes, Moses shows the audience glimpses of the tenderness that Hill has bottled up for so many years, making for a surprisingly moving climax.
Likewise, Niffer Clarke finds the vulnerability beneath the purposefully straight-laced Marian. Clarke wears Marian’s poise like armor but there’s mist in her eyes and longing in her seemingly effortless, crystalline soprano voice. I’ve seen numerous productions of this work over the years, including the Tony Award-winning 2000 Broadway revival, and I’ve near heard Marian sung better.
Mark Bucher, founder of Bay View’s Boulevard Theatre, clearly has a blast as the bombastic, vocabulary-challenged Mayor George Shinn. As his pretentious wife Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn, Debra Babich wrings laughs from nearly every syllable and grimace.
Rhonda Rae Busch conjures an Irish Marjorie Main as the widow Paroo, Marian’s mother. Despite his youth, Cole A. Winston persuasively handles Winthrop’s transition from lisping petulance to happily engaged youngster.
Ryan Tutton is all athletic grace as town bad boy Tommy Djilas, and as his love interest, the mayor’s daughter Zaneeta Shinn, Sydney Kirkegaard is all infectious adolescent giggles.
Where Thiesen found so many talented, cherubic and disciplined kids in today’s world is indeed a Christmas miracle.
