Just as Labor Day rolls around every year, another sure thing has accompanied it for the last seven seasons at Central Park’s Delacorte. The Public Theater in association with Public Works introduces a musical that instantly becomes the best musical in town for as long as it runs—Twelfth Night and As You Like It among them. This year’s offering only runs through September 8.
The new let’s-cheer-it-on entry is Hercules, an adaptation of the 1997 Disney cartoon that boasted songs by composer Alan Menken and lyricist David Zippel. The happy 2019 outburst features, as always, a cast of Broadway vets and groups of various sizes representing New York City’s five boroughs.
The lovable upside of the production is that the jollity for the 90 minutes it rolls on is off the charts. The disappointing downside is that due to the cast’s enormity the rousing bundle can’t be transferred elsewhere.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★ review here.]
For that reason, anyone reading this review is encouraged to obtain as quickly as possible one of the evidently few tickets left for an entertainment during which once again Hercules (the lithe, muscle-bound Jelani Alladin) is doing his particular stuff as the son of Zeus who’s been consigned to the life of a mortal but hoping his athletic feats will gain him reentry to Olympus.
The Disney script was composed by Ron Clements, John Musker, Donald McEnery, Bob Shaw and Irene Mecchi (also scenarist for The Lion King), whereas the Public Works version has been tickled by Kristoffer Diaz with an eye and ear for playing up the notion of how heroes come to be.
Indeed, the first words uttered by a chorus in black robes are “What makes a hero?” In other words, it seems apparent from the git-go that Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis and everyone up and down the line there and at Public Works has deliberately tapped Hercules as a way to talk, sing and dance about heroes at a time when anti-heroics look to be ruling the globe, not least in the United States.
Yes, the potent message is delivered but not at all pedantically. This bursting Hercules has fun on its raucous mind, as Hercules, uncertain about his ability to gain hero-hood, is tutored by, most prominently, Philoctetes, or just plain Phil (James Monroe Inglehart). He’s opposed by, most prominently, Hades (Roger Bart), who’s determined to remake Olympus as another Hadestown. He’s further opposed by the self-impressed Megara, or just not so plain Meg (Krysta Rodriguez), who’s so sold on herself that for long periods of time she brushes off Hercules’ entreaties as if they were lint.
Encouraging Hercules are Muses (Ramona Keller, Brianna Cabrera, Rema Webb, Tamika Lawrence, Tieisha Thomas), the fates (Hasaan Bailey, Isabelle Romero, Kelly Campbell) and the occasional marching band, chorus line and invigorated Thebes citizens. Threatening the aspiring weightlifter are marauding puppets, designed with brilliance by James Ortiz (notably Nessus, whom Joel Frost controls).
There’s a way of regarding Hercules simply as just another Hollywood click adapted for the stage. It is that, but thanks to Menken and Zippel—both initially musical comedy pitchmen (think of Menken’s forever revived Little Shop of Horrors, Zippel’s fabulous City of Angels)—this Hercules is a set of spanking-sharp set tunes (some added here). Not the least is the “Go the Distance” anthem that caused Top 40 excitement when Michael Bolton covered it.
Note that Roger Bart sings “Go the Distance” in the animated version, and that here he returns gloriously to the property by conjuring hilarity with “A Cool Day in Hell,” which is drolly choreographed Chase Brock. Brock also easily meets the terpsichore challenges elsewhere with his cast of—is it?—hundreds.
As with all the Public Works musicals, every aspect—surely the acting by those with Equity cards and those without—is top-notch. That includes Dane Laffrey’s set design on which two towers flanked by Doric columns predominate, Tyler Micoleau’s lighting, Kai Harada’s sound, and, especially, Andrea Hood’s often glittering costumes, topped by Cookie Jordan’s wigs.
Good as Hercules is—it’s very, very, very good—there is a missing ingredient, which involves the not surprising Disney requisites. The Hercules myth is much darker than the Disney powers generally like things. And who will argue with their decision to stress the hero-making elements in the story? But what isn’t shown on stage are perhaps the most celebrated facet of Hercules’ accomplishments: the 12 labors demanded of him and successfully met.
Only one appears here, his grappling with the Hydra. That’s to say, he’s threatened by proliferating puppet Hydras before he’s able to vanquish them. It does seem likely that creators as clever as Menken, Zippel, Brock, and certainly hero-in-her-own-right director Lear deBessonet could have concocted a number encompassing the other 11. You know, cleaning out the Augean stables, et cetera.
In their hagiographic version of the boyish Hercules—often depicted as much older—the hotsy-totsy team members haven’t gone that distance. Nevertheless, the distance they do go advances them well into must-see territory, and with, along the merry way, several memorable lines both funny and wise. One goes, “Experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want.” Another is, “You can become a celebrity; that is not the same thing as becoming a hero.” The latter observation gets a big laugh from the audience for its possible allusion to a certain highly ranked Washington DC inhabitant.
Hercules opened August 31, 2019, at the Delacorte and runs through September 8. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
