I Hear a Bouzouki

Zorba at City Center Encores!

John Turturro (center) as Alexis Zorba in Zorba.

            In the years between Cabaret and Chicago, the two best musicals written since 1960, composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb wrote three musicals, none of which ran longer than ten months on Broadway.  The second of these, Zorba, based on the 1952 novel Zorba the Greek and the subsequent 1964 film of the same name starring Anthony Quinn, is now playing at City Center as part of an Encores! production through May 10^th.  It is in many ways perfect fare for the series, revived only once in 1983 and an example of a stellar composing team struggling to make sense of a task that was never fully going to come together.  The ambitious plan to musicalize one of the darker novels of the period with an orchestra consisting mostly of Greek instruments could be seen as parallel to Lerner and Loewe’s attempt to reinvigorate the Western musical with Paint Your Wagon, an earlier production at Encores! this season.  Both are great fun if you know where to look, and they have enormous potential.  But Paint Your Wagon is not My Fair Lady, as unfair as that comparison may seem.  And Zorba is nowhere close to Chicago, though its theatrical experimentation earns it favorable comparisons with that musical.

            For example--Harold Prince approached Kander and Ebb with the idea to adapt Zorba (the story of an older, gregarious Greek ladies’ man who develops a relationship with a young American English teacher on Crete which is touched by tragedy), and suggested the idea of a Greek chorus of sorts to narrate the proceedings.  The chorus is either under- or over-utilized depending on how you look at it, and definitely unnecessary.  But it makes for some fascinating choral arrangements led by Marin Mazzie as the Leader, including the opening number, “Life Is,” whose bleak lyrics contrast splendidly with its near-celebratory tune.

            But the ensemble is almost comically large, and the choreography, by Josh Rhodes (2011’s Company) is uncontrolled and slightly awkward.  So the show doesn’t come alive during the opening number, and only spreads its wings upon the entrance of John Turturro as Zorba himself. 

Mr. Turturro is so ebullient and endearing that you can forgive him for not being much of a singer, or a dancer either (dancing is meant to be Zorba’s strong suit, but on Mr. Turturro it never seems anything less than effortful).  The best number in the score, far and away, is Zorba’s introductory song, “The First Time,” which features some of the most creative structural work ever done by Kander as a composer and marvelously expressive lyrics by Ebb.  Mr. Turturro has a limited range (this is his first musical theater performance), but he performs the number so well, inhabits the lovable, hedonistic character so deeply, it’s practically a showstopper.  This is an accurate descriptor of Mr. Turturro’s performance throughout.  He isn’t entirely right for the part, but there is something hypnotizing about him as an actor that keeps the show watchable.  Aside from a lyric flub near the end of the performance I saw that was so hard to watch I’m almost loath to mention it, he seems at home on stage.  It also helps that the book, written by Joseph Stein (who also wrote the libretto to Fiddler on the Roof, whose influence is evident here) seems to match perfectly with Mr. Turturro’s sensibility as a performer.  Much like Turturro himself, it’s sweet, but never cloyingly so, and often very funny.

            There are numerous other famous names in the production (like Adam Chanler-Berat, Santino Fontana, and Zoe Wanamaker—who can’t sing either but is lots of fun).  Musical director Rob Berman is still at the top of his game, bringing out the mysterious beauty in Kander’s brilliant orchestral music—the high point of the show is a purely musical interlude at the beginning of act two.  But there’s no throughline of achievement to touch on in this show, maybe because Encores! this season hasn’t touched, as it has in past seasons, on shows that are unjustly un-revived, but rather shows that are un-revived, period. 

            Though the production is absolutely enjoyable and Mr. Turturro’s turn is memorable, it’s very difficult to describe the way I enjoyed this show because it’s objectively not a great show; it scrambles a little with the darker material, and let’s just say not all the numbers can match up to “The First Time.”  Much like many of the musicals unseen on Broadway for a long time (perhaps for a good reason), the best one can say about Zorba the musical is that it’s perfectly good enough.  And that certainly wouldn’t be enough for Zorba the character.