A sweet and folksy musical that wants to go to Broadway…
Theater review
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON
Two hours and 40 minutes, with one 15-minute intermission. At the Public Theater.
Much as Benjamin Button ages backwards from aged to toddler, the new musical “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” also begins off unrecognizably from the place it finally winds up. From annoying to lovely.
That stark reversal may very well be because its type, folksy and verbose Paul Bunyan-ish exposition in overeager group songs, takes some getting used to. But fact be told, that often complicated and self-satisfied facet never grew on me.
The sweet present from London with a new American solid that opened Wednesday evening at the Public Theater with Broadway aspirations improves, and staggeringly so, in the second half when many of the facet characters and story-theater shtick get the heave-ho and its wealthy romantic leads are allowed to live and breathe more freely and actually.
They’re Benjamin, performed from tomb to womb by Andrew Durand, and his life-long love Elowen, earthily portrayed by Kelsee Kimmel.
Andrew Durand (proper) stars as the title position in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Joan Marcus
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That pair of actors and their earnest ardour, which radiate real love for each other relatively than the hopped-up theatrical suggestion of it, is “Button”’s best asset and sufficient of a purpose to suggest this very honest present.
But it takes a while for the materials and director Jethro Compton’s manufacturing to settle down and discover that focus.
Most will know F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quick story from David Fincher’s film starring Brad Pitt. Composer Darren Clark and e-book author Compton (each co-wrote the lyrics) have moved the action from Baltimore in the US to coastal Cornwall, England, and modified the graduation point from 1860 to 1918.
That’s good. For one, during the First World War, hundreds of thousands of British youngsters misplaced their dads. Kids had to develop up fast — not in contrast to Benjamin. And then there’s the acoustic, sad-happy, pub music of that time, which makes up this lush, Celtic-adjacent score. But most importantly, what may very well be more surreal than Britain reeling from one world struggle that devastated a technology of younger males while being just 20 years away from getting dragged into another one?
Benjamin is born at 70 years outdated and ages backwards. Joan Marcus
Well, how about a child born at 70 years outdated?
He’s Benjamin, who’s already an outdated man with the ability to communicate and read and even arrived full with a pair of glasses. Thankfully, this is the one plot point the musical doesn’t endeavor to clarify.
But it does shortly introduce an undercurrent of darkness. Benjamin’s mom Mary (Sachiko Mae) hates that she gave start to what she believes to be a freak of nature. Doubling down, she sings an almostly laughably moody track evaluating her child to the Kraken, a large squid that drags ships to the watery deep. Ouch! Mary makes Joan Crawford appear like Maria von Trapp. And his father Roger (Brandon J. Ellis) resents his son for what his spouse does to herself.
Elowen (Kelsee Kimmel) and Benjamin fall in love. Joan Marcus
As the years and wrinkles wash away, Benjamin has to discover inspirations to be optimistic, as he spiritedly sings in the musical’s best track, “A Little Life.” The music is always fairly and transportive, if a tad repetitive.
His No. 1 purpose for being turns out to be the local barmaid Elowen. He’s 55 (sorta) and she’s 25. Uh oh! Being that this is 2026, she makes a speech about why the mid-50s is the good age for a person. The Public’s donors can be delighted.
The two fall in love and they plan to depart city — only parental meddling separates them for years.
The Celtic-adjacent score is fairly, however a tad repetitive. Joan Marcus
The other wrestle with Act One, and why there may be a lot narration, is that a complete lot occurs. Benjamin begins at 70 and ends the first half at 44. He goes off to sea for a decade and enlists in the Royal Navy during World War II. Entire exhibits have been about far less than certainly one of those.
The seafaring voyage and oceanside locale is taken benefit of by Compton’s set (this man’s a real Jeth of all trades), resembling a sunken fishing boat. Little buoys floating above the stage light up to turn into celestial our bodies at nighttime. Though more than something it evokes that 2010s development on Broadway of hip little analog exhibits that seem to happen in dank outdated pubs, like “Once” and “Hadestown.”
Similarly, the costumes by Anna Kelsey each nod to the interval and make the solid appear like they work in an moral butcher store in Red Hook.
The solid of “Benjamin Button” are actor-musicians.
That cool ensemble of actor-musicians performs the score nicely and sings splendidly, however I struggled to maintain straight the many, many characters they play in the first 90 minutes.
And then the tide of Act Two rolls in, and the present turns into less of a rattled-off collection of occasions and on-the-nose reference to “time” and a more mature musing on loss and how we willingly waste a lot of our lives.
Durand and Kimmel are sublimely romantic in the second half, and not in that prescribed musical-theater method. Maybe it’s because these are usually not your typical romantic leads. What they’re doing is grounded and palpable.
The musical hits its stride in the lovely second act. Joan Marcus
Unlike Durand, who’s solely Benjamin all evening, Kimmel performs quite a few roles, including a sheep (see, this form of stuff gnaws at me). But I seen that after some particularly emotional numbers, or scenes by which Elowen confronts Benjamin, that she wouldn’t simply snap out of it and fall into line with the remainder of the solid. Those emotions would linger.
Her dedication and chemistry with Durand makes the musical. And so does he. The actor’s profession has been a enjoyable and bizarre one to comply with. Mostly he’s wound up in out-there comedies, such as “The Robber Bridgeroom,” the Go-Gos present “Head Over Heels” and corny “Shucked.” But during last season’s “Dead Outlaw” — by which he was mainly typecast as a corpse — Durand sang a serene track called “Normal” that made me need to see more of his dramatic chops.
Wondrous Durand delivers on that want. He’s acquired an enchanting face that right here permits him to, nicely, play a child and an outdated man without having to overdo it, which may simply occur with a broad and dorky script like this one. He has an ease, lightness and an off-the-cuff knowledge that contrasts with the cacophony throughout him. And the actor is very affecting close to the end as Benjamin has his Emily Webb in “Our Town” realization as a 50-year-old in a younger man’s physique.
“Who knows how much time you have left?,” he tells his son, who’s now the same organic age. “Don’t you waste a second of it.”
And then the unhappy inevitable occurs. Ashes to ashes, us to dwelling.
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