By LOU HARRY
There are Broadway shows that seem destined for long lives after the New York production folds. I’m willing to bet, for instance, that we will be seeing productions as wide ranging as Come From Away, Monty Python’s “Spamalot” and Into the Woods for a long, long time.
There are others, however, that I don’t expect to be popping up at many regional, community and school theaters. That’s not a judgment of quality at all, but an understanding of the obstacles in their way. Shows such as The Band’s Visit, Passion and Caroline, or Change face challenges in production, talent, marketing and, in some cases, all three. The likelihood of them nudging their way into a regional theater schedule is slim.
Which is why I was thrilled to see that one such show, Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, was being offered at the Arvada Center, just outside of Denver. And why I jumped at the chance to catch it there. (I’ll call it NP for short, to save on my word count.)
Based on a sliver of Leo Tolstoy’s epic “War and Peace,” the plot is fairly simple. While pining for her away-at-war lover, Natasha falls for party boy Anatole, and in the process, makes a mess of her life and reputation.
What about Pierre? Well, he’s on the sidelines through most of the first act wallowing. He’s married to Anatole’s equally insensitive sister and spends more quality time with a bottle than with her. In the second act, though, things change. I’ll try to avoid spoilers.
What makes this musical a challenge is what also makes it special. As in the New York production – although to a different degree – the production here is immersive. Staged in the round in Arvada’s Black Box Theatre, it parks most of the band and some of the audience members in a pit in the center of the stage. Cast members mingle with the audience before the show and acknowledge them throughout, sometimes asking them to hold a mirror, respond to flirtation, or otherwise engage. It’s not just the fourth wall that’s broken, but the entire quartet.
As to the cast, Bella Hathorne has the toughest gig as Natasha but manages to be frustrating without making us give up on her. Jack Wardell is sufficiently swaggering as Anatole with more than a hint of one of the “Into the Woods” princes in his characterization. And, in the second act, Brett Ambler breaks out of a by-the-book Pierre and turns the climactic dramatic scene into a heart-rending bit of beauty.
I love when a show gives a supporting character a strong second act number (see Petra’s “The Miller’s Son” in A Little Night Music and Ned’s “Night Will Come” from Groundhog Day for some outstanding examples). That’s the case here, too, when Natasha’s alienated pal (Aynsley Upton) takes over the keyboard for “Sonya Alone” and creates, in her stillness and glorious voice, a deeply human, unique new angle on the story.
All these elements should add up to outstanding theater. And it almost does. What holds it back, too often, is the refusal of the lyrics to sit comfortably on the music. Or vice versa. The music is varied and fun. The lyrics are often witty and seem at one with Tolstoy. Like Natasha and Pierre, though, they rarely, truly connect.
In a lesser show, that might have been its Waterloo (sorry). But here the ambitious but not quite in sync score is just something that kept a terrific show from being a great one.
P.S. About that comet.
The passage it’s pulled from in “War and Peace” is beautiful and, for some, the core of the book. And it’s quoted fairly directly here if I heard correctly. I get why Dave Malloy, the creator of NP, felt the need to include it at the climax of the show.
But with apologies to both Malloy and Tolstoy, I kinda wish it was cut. The scene before it was so powerfully moving that the show would have left a deeper mark if it ended there. The very literary passage – and the wind-it-all-up song that followed – dissipated rather than enhanced those feelings.
Still, kudos to the Arvada and director Lynne Collins for taking on a show I thought I’d never get to see. And for delivering it so expertly.
A board member of the American Theatre Critics Association, Lou Harry has written for The Sondheim Review, TheatreWeek and many more. His published books include “Kid Culture” and “The Little Book of Misquotations.” He’s also a produced playwright with work staged by American Lives Theatre, Catalyst Rep, the Phoenix Theatre, and others. Find him at www.louharry.com
