With The Connector, composer Jason Robert Brown has added yet another bravura score to his incomparable canon. His music draws on a rich palette of influences, and each song stands alone as a world unto itself. He is clearly in his element here, combining nuanced lyrics with an eclectic array of rhythms and melodies that both please the ear and propel the story. And it is a story that strongly resonates in our post fact universe.
“The Connector” is the name of a magazine that was started by a young idealistic journalist just out of college in the 1940’s, after the war. The musical takes place 50 years later, in 1996 at a time when “The Connector” has long enjoyed a reputation as the nation’s unrivaled chronicler of “the whole truth.” Even its fact checker, Muriel (in a standout performance by Jessica Molaskey), is renowned for maintaining absolute veracity. But right from the start, there are clues that there are no absolutes as the opening song recites: “The truth is not about the facts – forgive me./ The facts can always be manipulated, arranged, massaged -/We are not purveyors of facts,/ we are tellers of truths.”
It is that foreboding conundrum, sung by the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Conrad O’Brien, that reveals the impossibility of maintaining ultimate truth. Fresh out of Harvard and Vietnam he joined “The Connector” in the 60’s, and 20 years later became its respected steward. Scott Bakula in the role is terrific as a gonzo journalist, convincingly namedropping the likes of Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese. Revered by the literati, he struggles to keep the magazine relevant, wrestling with the notion that even though the whole world changed, as he sings, everything stayed the same.
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
Enter Ethan Dobson, another hotshot Ivy Leaguer, fresh out of Princeton who’s arrived with unmistakable talent. Speaking of talent, Ben Levi Ross in the role is loaded with it. His exquisitely polished singing voice is matched by phenomenal acting chops in a near perfect performance. Conrad takes Ethan under his wing, and his very first story – a profile of an eccentric West Village Scrabble player (the wonderfully outrageous Max Crumm) – is a big hit. Suddenly circulation increases, and with each successive story featuring the Ethan Dobson byline, “The Connector” gets its mojo back. Even the hypercritical reader Mona Bland (Mylinda Hull in the key role is anything but “bland”), takes notice with gobs of praise.
On the sidelines sits Robin Martinez, an ambitious copy editor at the magazine who’s still waiting to get her first article in the publication. The excellent Hannah Cruz also narrates and she is lovely as the conscience of the story. Robin is at first attracted to Ethan whose star continues to rise by the day as he starts to hobnob with A-listers like George Plimpton and Mary Karr.
Conrad, as Ethan’s mentor, pushes the young writer to find a political angle, and soon enough, Ethan comes up with a massive story taking down the mayor of Jersey City that gets him a nomination for the prestigious National Magazine Award. Fergie Philippe as Ethan’s questionable source, Willis, is sensational in a boffo rap number. Throughout, Muriel, the fact checker, is skeptical and she raises red flags about the article. Robin is suspicious as well but Ethan insists it’s all true.
The musical is loaded with timely issues that individually would warrant a full rendering. Here, the book by Jonathan Marc Sherman ambitiously delves into a myriad of ideas, swirling throughout the production in brief yet compelling fashion. It’s a bit of a tease, though, since none of them is fully developed. Muriel has a beautiful ballad about the immutability of facts, singing: “The facts once they are stated, cannot be negotiated/ Thus my faith is predicated on proof.” But that’s contradicted by Ethan’s solo with the refrain: “We believe what we believe,/ and all we want is someone to confirm it./ We believe what we believe. Surround ourselves with people who believe the way we do”
It’s an ominous ode to those nasty “alternate facts” that have since invaded our political discourse.
The show puts the spotlight on another social wrong: sexism. Robin, thoroughly frustrated by Conrad’s refusal to publish her stories, complains of the magazine’s “slightly tipsy wood-paneled, patriarchal secret-handshake history” which routinely conspires to keep women writers off the rolls. Brown conceived a painfully insightful number for her with the lyrics: “And half the stories of the world/ are left unwritten,/ half the stories of the world are kept unread./ And so the people of the world will never notice/ what disasters unprevented lie ahead./ And so the people in the world will not encounter/ anything but one perspective, one reflection,/ one directive; /male and white and unenlightened, every day.”
And yet another issue raised in this provocative work: the slow death of long-form journalism amid the incursion of the “suits” – profit-hungry money people with their consultants seduced by success. In the prescient number “What Now,” Conrad sings “I see what’s coming./I see it steaming down the track, and I might just be in the way. Know what I mean?/I see what’s coming,/and I say “Hallelujah? Hallelujah?/They can clean up/all the mess we made!”
The entire project was conceived and directed by Daisy Prince. And it is a heady, extremely thought provoking work that’s blessed with a stellar creative team. The action is continuous with the entire company rarely leaving the stage which is flanked by giant piles of paper where the actors are seated between scenes. The set is dominated by an entire backdrop of screens – hundreds of them – featuring projections that are constantly changing. Kudos to veteran set designer Beowulf Boritt who engineered a climactic coup de theatre at the end of the intermissionless production. And more praise to choreographer Karla Puno Garcia whose inventively stylized movements complement the story in ways that traditional dance could never do.
Facts matter, truth matters – important topics that are worth deeper exploration. There’s a sense that the creators bit off a little more than they could chew, yet each morsel is worth savoring. The show runs under two hours and could use more fleshing out. And if it seems that the work is not quite finished and the narrative gets a bit muddled at the end, there is an unequivocal fact here: The Connector is a boldly captivating, musically audacious work that deserves another draft.
The Connector opened February 6, 2024, at the MCC Theater Space and runs through March 17. Tickets and information: mcctheater.org
