What Goes Around

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 17^th 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 5^th 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.