Is it a renewed trend? Will it pass? For the second time in three days—Copperfield! previously—a musical opens during which the cast not only acts and sings but plays all the instruments as the onstage band. More than that, this is the second musical in three days that earns don’t-walk-run recommendation.
The entertaining, urgent, psychologically complex, moving highlighter is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, book and lyrics by Jethro Compton, music and lyrics by Darren Clark, choreography by Chi-San Howard, direction by Compton (who also designed the capacious set). Even above and beyond that, it arrives from London (completely recast) as winner of the 2025 Olivier Award for, of course, best musical.
If the title is familiar, there’s a good reason. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is originally an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story that appeared initially in Collier’s and, later in 1922, was included in a Fitzgerald story collection. (Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, in a weird truncated production, also is still Broadway ensconced.)
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
Patrons are advised, however, that when planning an enthusiastic jaunt to see the Compton-Clark Benjamin Button adaptation—and reading or even rereading the basis for what’s on display here—they mustn’t expect a faithful treatment of the source. (Also, don’t expect any version of the 2008 movie version, starring Brad Pitt as the title character, who when born is a man in his eighties.)
For those catching up with Fitzgerald’s sad, enheartening premise: This now 70-year-old Benjamin Button youthens (is there such a word?) throughout his life until he’s an infant with no memory whatsoever of the life he’s now ending.
(If the shocking Fitzgerald backwards-aging twist also stands as a Fitzgerald metaphor, perhaps it’s a statement about everyone’s life being challenging in a two-steps-forward-one-step-back way, or vice-versa.)
The immediate thing to know about this Benjamin Button is that the tall tale now takes place in a small fishing harbor in southern England’s Cornwall region. To help legitimize the locale, the Cornish dialect is spoken, though very infrequently. (David Jarzen is the dialect coach.)
The more commanding element is that Fitzgerald’s reworked story is delivered (and regularly danced) as if it’s a fable, perhaps a parable the fishing town denizens wish to pass along with community pride.
Moreover, these homesteaders make a point of emphasizing that, proud of their village as they are, they want to emphasize that the moral of the story they’re out to circulate widely is the importance of every man or woman eventually finding his or her home. (Curiously, Copperfield! angles Dickens in the same direction. It’s an ancient theme, isn’t it? Check out Homer’s Odyssey, and he has the name for it.)
As a result, this Benjamin Button (Andrew Durand, continuing his whirligig rise from Dead Outlaw), isn’t only backward aging, he is on a hunt to find his rightful home-and-family as he travels on his reverse slope.
Although he meets true love Elowen (Kelsee Keene) when he’s fifty-five and is in time the same age as she and then younger—the same happenstance for soon son Locryn (Chris Saint-Louis)—Benjamin’s search isn’t entirely confined to reconciling himself to his unique predicament. He’s meant to understand that the family he acquires is his true goal.
It’s important to know that as the Compton and Clark two parts flow, the phrase “time and tide” recurs. Time becomes a significant focus, as do tides. This, not only in terms of Benjamin Button’s clock reversal dilemma. The song “Matter of Time I” is sung in act one, and “Matter of Time II” is reprised in act two.
The tide’s activities are dealt with in the irresistible first-act threnody “The Moon and the Sea.” Indeed, the entire score maintains an enthralling pull. (Mark Aspinall and Clark are credited with the consistently engrossing orchestrations and arrangements.)
As the creators unfurl the continuing enchantments of Anna Kelsey’s locale-substantiating costumes, Zoe Spurr’s lighting and Luke Swaffield for Autograph Sound’s sound design, the cast—doubling both in their roles and on the instruments (even Durand as the introductory narrator and on guitar)—prove themselves ensemble-prize worthy.
For one prominent instance, Roger Button, Benjamin’s father (Brandon J. Ellis) expecting a son and getting a 70-year old man—all the while playing cello, bass guitar, and tambourine—certainly makes the man’s specific plight sorrowfully touching. That’s until at 101-years-old he finally gets the son he’s longed for.
Then, of course, there’s Durand handed the challenge of a man going back in time at odds with everyone else in his fishing village. Whether he ever applies or wipes away make-up to delineate his steadily growing younger is hardly apparent. The answer is he doesn’t. It’s all in the acting, which is as it should be. (Convincing fact: No make-up staffer is credited.)
Therefore, unalloyed kudos to all involved here. As the saying has it, time and tide wait for no man, but The Curious Case of Benjamin Button can eagerly await a tidal wave of long-run audiences.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button opened October 21, 2026, at the Public Theater and runs through December 6. Tickets and information: publictheater.org
