By Carol Davis
SAN DIEGO—Burt Bacharach and Steven Sater have given San Diego audiences a new holiday show. The jury is still out as to whether it will become an annual happening like, say, How The Grinch Stole Christmas. It is after all based, loosely, I might add on the classic O. Henry tale The Gift of the Magi.
Remember that one? She sells her hair to get her beloved a watch chain for Christmas and he sells his watch to get her some fine combs for her hair? Following that theme, this Bacharach (music)/ Sater (book and lyric) world premiere musical that made its appearance at The Old Globe recently, has a different twist on the same idea.
We first meet up with ‘The Lovers’, Molly (Jenni Barber) and Ben (Andrew Mueller) on a Christmas Eve where she is waiting tables and he is in the piano bar, playing the piano. He is a budding composer and she is a business student and server. They become instantly attracted to one another after she races into the bar asking him to play a special tune for a customer at one of her tables. (“Molly”).
But there is trouble in paradise before he can even begin to compose something when our attention is drawn to an older (fast forward twenty years) version of Ben (Jason Danieley) sitting at another piano with a bottle of whiskey in clear view and a cell phone that is constantly in use while he tries, in vain, to pen another Christmas song for the now older Molly (Michelle Duffy). She is sitting in a room (across town) half packed with her worldly goods just waiting to move out and doesn’t answer, at least for a while.
What we learn throughout the ninety or so minutes and eighteen or so tunes later is that Molly and Ben moved in together after knowing each other for a short while, they spend some Christmas eves at the Plaza reading from The Book Of The Magi, that she spent her inheritance on a piano for him so he could practice uninterrupted, that she worked to support them both, that just as he was on the verge of success she pulled the plug and nudged him to get real a job and that the relationship is on life support and running out of gas.
Back to the present and the now older Ben is still struggling with his music. Molly is on the verge of bankruptcy. Her apartment is up for sale, her photo lab is the latest casualty of the digital world and Ben would love to see her one more time before she moves out of her place. He might even be able to scare up a tune for her, but she wants no part of it.
Director Will Frears and company, with the help of a wonderful eight piece orchestra under the stage (as one of the ushers was quick to point out) and the Bacharach signature (for the most part) musical score with some clever and pertinent lyrics by Sater and with Jonathan Tunik’s orchestrations manage to bring some, but not much interest or cohesiveness to a story that tries to be relevant and basically comes up empty handed.
It’s surely not for lack of trying. Let’s just say that it’s a work in progress and that with a little more definition and interaction that gives a little more information, it might actually hold our attention and maybe we can get to like these folks or at best care for and/or about them. “Some lovers”, as they say, “are dreamers.” That’s all well and good, but doesn’t score high points on the credibility ratio for this young to aging couple.
Frears’ staging is clever. Both couples move about the arena intersecting, bisecting and weaving through time lines but never touching. The older looks in on the younger with nostalgia in their eyes. The younger Ben mutters, often in disbelief, that what they did for love and in the name of love in fact ruined their relationship. Would that we could all look back and change, ‘what we did for love’.
All four are fine and convincing vocalists. Two pianos, a red chair, lamp, table, bed that lifts up from beneath when needed and cell phones make up the scarce props. (Takeshi Kata designed the sets and Ben Staton, the lighting) Mueller and Barber are the more realistic lovers. Their chemistry lights up every now and then. He’s a cutie and she’s appealing and smart. Duffy and Danieley are just plain Danny and Debbie Downers. It’s difficult believing that they were once an item.
Both Bacharach and Sater have racked up enough recognition to last a lifetime and the tradition (along with Christmas) hopes to hold fast. Bacharach’s 1968 Academy and Grammy award winning show Promises Promises was revived on Broadway in 2010 and Sater won two Tony Awards for Best book and Best Musical Score for his 2007 Spring Awakening (which played here in 2010 at The Balboa Theatre downtown).
For yours truly, however, Bacharach and Warwick always seem to go together like hand in glove. Seeing her once at a Vegas Lounge Show (remember those?) was one of the thrills of that year’s trip to the desert.
Both Bacharach and Sater looked pleased with their cast and show on opening night. Bacharach kvelled and Sater took notes. Well? That’s what one does when a new show hits the stages.
Speaking of familiar tunes and Dionne, many of the composer’s ‘new er’ songs had the familiar Bacharach sound. Some that made an impression included, “Love Me For An Hour”, “Hold Me”, “Some Lovers”, “Just Walk Away”, “Welcome To My World” and “Living With a Ghost”.
As a side note, some of the expletive language that came from out of the blue could have been left out. This piece might be about hope, frustrations and disappointments, but emphasizing it with the ‘F’ word for effect just because, doesn’t make sense.
See you at the theatre.
Dates: Through Dec. 31st
Organization: The Old Globe
Phone: 619-234-5623
Production Type: Musical
Where: 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park
Ticket Prices: start at $35.00
Web: theoldglobe.org
Venue: Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre
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Davis is a San Diego-based theatre critic. She may be contacted at carol.davis@sdjewishworld.com