Wonderful Town is quite the perennial at New York City Center Encores! The lusciously scored Leonard Bernstein musical has been revived there five times since it first opened on Broadway in 1953. This time it features a multi-cultural cast starring Anika Noni Rose and Aisha Jackson as the two wide-eyed sisters from Ohio seeking to make their mark in New York. I was thrilled to revisit the show after raving about the last Encores! revival starring Donna Murphy which went on to a very successful Broadway run in 2003. But what a difference a production makes! While the music is still as glorious as ever and there’s plenty of talent to spare, this time around, it ain’t so wonderful.
It’s always a crapshoot attending Encores! productions, given the limited rehearsal schedules. Sometimes the rushed collaborations yield theatrical magic and other times they fall flat. When Joseph Fields and Jerome Chodorov wrote the book in 1953, it was meant to be a jaunty celebration of Greenwich Village, the “Bohemian cradle” of the city in 1935 and it featured a parade of artists lovingly doing their thing – dancing, painting, writing, singing, which Lorin Latarro and Ayodele Casel nicely choreographed in the opening number “Christopher Street”. So far so good, but as the story progresses, the musical’s charms are upstaged by holes in the book and directorial missteps. Perhaps it’s the lack of rehearsal time but it seemed like the supporting players were on their own with little character motivation and some even miscast.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★☆☆☆ review here.]
It’s worth taking note that the previous Broadway outing featured an adapted script by David Ives. No such adaptation here. And at close to three hours, the show drags. It felt like a jukebox musical in which a very thin story is wrapped around a bunch of terrific if disparate songs that hang together in the silliest of ways. And without a strong stylistic vision, what’s supposed to be a fun musical comedy just feels like an old, dated chestnut recalling a time when women were “dames” and “broads”. Even Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s lyrics, clever as they are, stand out for their sexism. After aspiring writer Ruth Sherwood (Anika Noni-Rose) laments in “One Hundred Easy Ways To Lose A Man” that she’s too smart and outspoken to get a guy, her love interest Robert Baker (Javier Muñoz) sings of wanting “A Quiet Girl” soft as snow.
Happily, the music is center stage and that’s a huge plus, thanks to the 28 piece Encores! Orchestra led by Music Director Mary-Mitchell Campbell. When the curtain rises revealing the full complement of musicians stretching the width of the stage, it’s an absolute joy. The musical numbers for the most part are the highlights of the show.
Also on the plus side, it’s well acted and well sung for the most part by the two leads. Rose and Aisha Jackson as her flirty sister Eileen show off their versatile skills. Even under-rehearsed, they manage to craft engaging characters as they strive to stake out their careers as writer and actress respectively. They harmonize beautifully singing “Ohio” and the catchy “Wrong Note Rag.” And Ruth’s jazzy turn scatting like Louis Armstrong in “Swing” is sublime. It’s also a pleasure to see the very gifted ensemble of “villagers” manage the fluidly choreographed numbers featuring quite the gamut from tap and modern to Irish jig, and of course, the conga.
That raucous “Conga” number never fails to disappoint as Ruth frantically tries to interview a group of Brazilian sailors who just want to dance the Conga. It’s the Act One closer and yet I couldn’t help but notice several people seated around me didn’t return for Act Two. The last Broadway revival of Wonderful Town stemmed from a highly lauded Encores! production in 2000. How, I wonder, could the same show yield such different results? Hard to say but I bet if only the creatives had decided to stage it as a concert version this time around, we’d all be singing its praises.
Wonderful Town opened April 30, 2025, at City Center and runs through May 11. Tickets and information: nycitycenter.org
