There's Nothing Like It

Closer Than Ever at the York Theatre Company

            The revival of Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire’s Closer Than Ever (at the York Theatre Company at 54^th and Lexington through August 25^th) is very, very good.  But then, that simple a description is never enough.  To elaborate, the music is great, the lyrics are fine, and the actors (Jacquelyn Piro Donovan, George Dvorsky, Julia Murney, and Sal Viviano) are pretty good at what they do.  Somehow, though, that combination results in a very, very good revue, reminiscent of the eighties but firmly cemented in the now.

            Let me go further.  David Shire has a nearly unmatched talent for musical composition.  (Mr. Shire actually attended the same performance I did, looking remarkably well for a man of 75.)  He writes for the piano and bass magnificently, and his arcing, pleading tunes are quiet and brooding, while his fast-paced, comedic numbers are equally excellent and appropriate.  His music is impossible not to play well, and the pianist (Andrew Gerle) and bass player (Danny Weller) at Closer Than Ever seem virtuosos thanks to his talent.  He also worked frequently with Sondheim early in his career, and it shows.  His music is deep and introspective and seems always to be setting up for an increasingly complex rhyme scheme.

            Now onto the fabricator of that scheme, Richard Maltby Jr.  When Mr. Maltby is good, he’s brilliant.  Songs like “The Bear, the Tiger, the Hamster and the Mole” (cut from an earlier Maltby and Shire hit, Baby) and “Back on Base” are on-the-mark, speedy and smart, and Maltby can work with smart.  He knows how to manipulate the language to its core, which is why it’s disappointing to be exposed to some of the less engaging numbers, like “Patterns” or “Fathers of Fathers,” because the audience knows he can do so much better.  It’s good, however, to experience less-than-genius work in a revue that includes genius, because it’s such a relief to return to it.  (Why do you hit yourself in the head fifty times with a hammer?  Because it feels so good when you stop!)  That’s all well and good, but when comedy is completely drained from the show halfway through the second act, it can seem an avalanche of melodrama and depression.  The show is meant to represent adult lives, which anyone can tell you are not exactly rosy all the time, but a musical can only lose so much rosiness before it begins to resemble a wilted dandelion.

            The actors veer back and forth between transcendent and confusing.  Sal Viviano is a cartoonish man, full of vim and vigor, who can seem overtly comic even in dramatic numbers, but his eagerness is entirely paid off when he belts by far his best solo number, “What am I Doin’?” and respecting applause is his reward.  Julia Murney is a great singer who played Elphaba in Wicked for a while, and has few flaws but for, in contrast to Viviano, her constant attempts at humor.  Murney often lowers her voice to a pitch far beyond her scale, and after one or two mannish swings, the audience has had enough.  We want to hear her sing, and thankfully we do.  Murney is the one actor who ought to be less comedic on stage, and eventually, along with, unfortunately, the rest of the cast, she drops the charades for the tragedy of the songs leading to the finale.

            Jacquelyn Piro Donovan and George Dvorsky, oddly for actors and singers of their caliber, were actually subject to, respectively, a lyrics blank (for Donovan, during one of the best songs in the show, “Life Story”) and a false start (for Dvorsky, at the beginning of the health freak-targeting “There’s Nothing Like It”).  Otherwise, the two are funny and fun to watch.  They’re the ones who should stay funny, too, but Act II drags them into the dumps along with everyone else.

            Regardless of the slips and slides and nitpicky flaws, when Viviano, Murney, Donovan, and Dvorsky work together along with Maltby’s best lyrics and Shire’s always-great tunes, there is magic on the York’s stage.  During the closing (and title) number, the cast does seem to get “closer than ever” to perfection, as kitschy as actually using that phrase to describe them might seem, and what does it matter if the bricks are a little cracked as long as the house looks beautiful when you’re done?

EDIT: After an extension, Closer Than Ever will now close on September 30^th.
EDIT: Closer Than Ever has been further extended through November 25th.