Groundhog Day at
the August Wilson and Present Laughter at
the St. James.
Andy Karl (center) as Phil Connors in Groundhog Day: The Musical.
Groundhog Day, the superb new musical
opening April 17th at the August Wilson Theatre, is based on the 1994
film of the same name, and has a book written by its screenwriter, Danny
Rubin. Those two facts alone suggest one
of two things: that this is a musical money grab, a cynical attempt to
capitalize on one of the greatest films of all time, or that the show will
settle uncomfortably in the long, long shadow of that film and its star, the
estimable Bill Murray, and never fully escape.
Neither of these things proves remotely true.
The synopsis,
yes, is the same – arrogant weatherman Phil Connors (the remarkable Andy Karl)
is caught in a cosmic time loop while covering the emergence of the title
groundhog in provincial Punxsutawney, PA – but similarly to the film, this
dilemma is never, as it is to Phil, maddening.
That’s because the one element of the film that seems most impossible to
replicate on stage – the pure, unadulterated, tightly plotted magic of it – is the same, too.
That’s thanks in equal part to
Rubin, who lifts most of the best parts of his script while adding new, smart
material that fits in perfectly with the piece, composer/lyricist Tim Minchin (Matilda), whose highly professional if
not always hummable score melds perfectly with the book, and especially
director Matthew Warchus (also of Matilda),
who, along with set designer Rob Howell, achieves a level of stagecraft that’s
never ostentatious but constantly wondrous.
He establishes here definitively that the theater is capable of anything
film is.
The show is not dramatically
perfect – there are weak points in the second act, usually stemming from
divergence from the film or from the Connors character – but it’s pretty damn close. It’s poignant and beautiful as a sunset, and
knows its strengths. Karl’s Connors,
energetic and brilliant and masterful and never, never a Bill Murray impression, eventually begins to get the hang
of what increasingly seems to be a personal superpower, and the feeling is
infectious. This is a beautiful, special
show, equal parts delightfully cynical and joyfully optimistic, and it’s fun, which is something few modern
musicals are anymore. When it ends, you
may want to go around again, which, I suppose, is kind of the point.
In contrast to Groundhog Day, which is shiny as a new-minted penny, there’s Present Laughter at the St. James, opening
April 5th and starring Kevin Kline in a much-hyped Broadway
return. It’s a 1943 play set in 1939,
and the crisp, sophisticated diction and slamming doors associated with its
author, Noël Coward, make clear it’s a fully old-fashioned affair. It’s a thoroughly entertaining but not
particularly special production, in the vein of other recent revivals from the
period like last fall’s The Front Page. It’s a new tradition, it seems, carried out
by directors like The Front Page’s
Jack O’Brien and this show’s Moritz von Stuelpnagel (Hand to God) – loyalty to the intent of the original production –
that is to say, shows staged as they were originally staged, with few
directorial twists. Seeing Present Laughter in 2017 probably feels
much like seeing it in 1943. Make of
that what you will.
Kline, who has always thrown himself
unreservedly into farce (see: A Fish
Called Wanda), doesn’t disappoint here.
He plays an actor with an attitude problem, and one particular
hyperverbal tantrum can’t help but leave the audience in stitches. Kristine Nielsen, who arguably outshines him
as his long-suffering secretary, gets a role much more worthy of her than her
lauded performance in Vanya and Sonia and
Masha and Spike four years ago. She’s
really, deeply assured in a way only a great actress can be in a light farce
like this one. And David Zinn’s set
design, gorgeous as anything his contemporary David Rockwell has ever designed
but much more sensible, proves an excellent playground for these selfish
sinners.
Though Present Laughter is not Coward’s best play, and this is not an
essential revival by any means (not even as a star vehicle, really), one of the
lessons of the farce, which at its heart is about close friendships and the
methods by which one can accidentally unravel them, is not to overthink things
that really are fairly simple when one looks at them objectively. So maybe the title is more of a command –
laugh now, go home and remember a pleasant experience for a maximum of twelve
hours, rinse, repeat.
