You’d be hard-pressed to find a couple more patently mismatched than the one at the center of the Stephen Sondheim/John Weidman musical Road Show. Addison is as sensitive and pragmatic as Wilson is manipulative and irresponsible, yet they are bound together by forces that would seem even more powerful than love—though that clearly has something to do with it.
Addison and Wilson Mizner are brothers, based loosely on the real-life, larger-than-life siblings who made waves about a century ago. Addison was an architect who channeled his aspirational zeal into grand residences for the conspicuously wealthy; Wilson was a dreamer and schemer whose various ventures ranged from restaurant management to playwriting to coining the adage, “Be nice to people on your way up because you’ll meet them on your way down.”
Indeed, if Road Show isn’t one of Sondheim’s better-known or loved efforts—the show went through several different iterations, and titles, before premiering at the Public Theater in 2008—it offers a forever timely account of the elusiveness of American dreams, as well as a score that deftly juggles tart and tender qualities. Both assets are served to richly entertaining effect in the concert staging of the musical that closes Encores! Off-Center’s summer season, featuring a stellar cast led by Raúl Esparza and Brandon Uranowitz.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★ review here.]
Rising director and choreographer Will Davis and his ace design team have crafted a model of inspired minimalism, in which a whole era is captured between and behind music stands positioned in front of the stage and an orchestra seated in back. Esparza’s Wilson and Uranowitz’s Addison first face off from opposite sides, staring each other down like competing prizefighters; moving toward each other with an ominous intensity, they finally break into a hug, though Esparza lingers an extra moment before following his co-star off, his expression (in character) tinged with something in between mischief and scorn.
After a prologue zooming ahead to Addison’s death, the predictably, pleasingly acerbic “What A Waste,” the actors reappear as squabbling youngsters at the deathbed of their father, who is given a folksy gravity by the estimable Chuck Cooper. “Now, with the dawning of a new century, your work begins,” Papa Mizner tells his sons. “Make me proud,” he adds, in song, Cooper’s frayed but mighty baritone hovering in the air like a ghost that has no intention of leaving them.
And linger that ghost does, as the brothers proceed to make their way, alternately together and alone. They first land in Alaska, with Mark Barton’s lighting shifting to cool blue tones as the shivering young men search for gold. When Wilson’s careless, selfish short-sightedness drives Addison away for the first time, the latter embarks on a string of ill-fated journeys to far-off lands, all of which will inform his artistic sensibility—a mix of the exotic and the quixotic later summed up in a sprawling production number, “You,” that flaunts Sondheim’s enduring semantic prowess. Wooing a client, Addison sings, “You’re a hacienda, a happy fusion/Of Indonesian and Anadalusian/I see gingerbread/I see Chinese red/And a huge Victorian potting shed.” (He adds, after the patron mentions a ridiculous deadline, “And a pond where you can go soak your head.”)
Scenic designer Donyale Werle provides the ensemble with miniature model houses they hold giddily aloft like children showing off toy castles. In another number, “Boca Raton,” tracing a far less successful real estate outing that reunites the brothers for a spell, company members toss and carry beach balls that seem to grow with the size of Wilson’s lies and Addison’s anxiety. Throughout, an “On Air” sign looms above the stage, as if to remind them they’re being watched—by Papa, by society, by history.
The leads both deliver beautifully shaded, robustly sung performances, Esparza summoning the full force of his wit and charisma to evince Wilson’s charm while also suggesting the sense of emptiness that gnaws at him, leading to unnerving bursts of anger and desperation. Uranowitz’s Addison proves similarly haunting as his character’s sweet, quietly righteous nature is challenged—particularly after Wilson intrudes on the professional and romantic partnership Addison has forged with a idealistic young man, named Hollis Bessemer.
Hollis is played by Jin Ha, who made a riveting Broadway debut in Julie Taymor’s 2017 revival of M. Butterfly. In Road Show, Ha gets to reveal a bright, keening tenor, while exuding an unforced affability and decency. Mary Beth Peil also has a memorable turn as Mama Mizner, who relies on Addison but proves as susceptible as anyone else to Wilson’s powers of seduction and his sheer lust for life, the subject of the moving, shimmering ballad “Isn’t He Something?”
Perhaps the real Addison was in some way drawn to these traits, and Wilson nourished by his older brother’s relative steadfastness. We can only speculate, but in this fictional representation, as revived by two of our most appealing musical actors, their conflicts and their bond make tasty food for thought, and for fun.
Road Show opened July 24, 2019, at City Center and runs through July 27. Tickets and information: nycitycenter.org
