\n<\/p>\n
Rejoice, ye musical nerds! On the stage of the Eisenhower Theater, off the Hall of States at the Kennedy Center, between the Watergate complex and the Lincoln Memorial, at the heart of America\u2019s temple to high-minded midcentury cultural propriety, your disreputable art form, with its salty predilections and disruptive mores, is on loving display in \u201cSchmigadoon!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n But maybe that\u2019s overselling what is essentially a dandy little spoof of some tuners.<\/p>\n You may recall that \u201cSchmigadoon!\u201d was an Apple TV+ series<\/a> about a contemporary couple who, experiencing relationship problems, find themselves trapped in a world of love-insisting musicals. During its first season, in 2021, that world was highly reminiscent of Broadway shows of the 1940s and \u201950s like \u201cThe Music Man,\u201d \u201cCarousel\u201d and \u201cOklahoma!\u201d but with bits of \u201cThe Sound of Music,\u201d \u201cBrigadoon\u201d and \u201cKiss Me, Kate\u201d tossed in. In the second season, the scene shifted to \u201cSchmicago\u201d and musicals of the \u201970s. (An unproduced third season would have taken the couple \u201cInto the Schmoods.\u201d)<\/p>\n The show being offered through Sunday by the Kennedy Center\u2019s musical theater initiative, called Broadway Center Stage, is essentially the first season\u2019s six-episode arc boiled down to two acts by its author, Cinco Paul. If you loved the television show, you probably know every note. If not, you probably don\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n I say that as someone whose feelings run in the middle. Neither onscreen nor onstage was I ever very interested in the on-the-outs couple, Josh and Melissa, for the simple reason that as characters they are skeletally thin. He\u2019s the repressed, flat-affect guy; she\u2019s in touch with her ambivalence to the point of annoyance. Though very smartly and appealingly performed here, by Alex Brightman and especially Sara Chase, neither would have lasted two scenes as protagonists of any of the musicals \u201cSchmigadoon\u201d models itself on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But, oh, those musicals! They are classics for a reason, whether for pure delight or complex feeling, and never as normative as they appear on the surface. \u201cOklahoma!\u201d asks us to accept the inevitable harshness of life but not buckle under it; \u201cCarousel\u201d questions the possibility of redemption. \u201cThe Music Man\u201d suggests that, in River City as elsewhere, even the truest love is a bit of a scam.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cSchmigadoon\u201d samples these themes, if mostly for mere amusement, but what it really intends to sample are the characters and songs. In the enchanted town where Josh and Melissa are trapped, we meet Betsy McDonough (McKenzie Kurtz), a possibly underage variant on Ado Annie from \u201cOklahoma!\u201d; Danny Bailey (Ryan Vasquez), an absurdly dimpled and dimwitted carnival barker like Billy Bigelow in \u201cCarousel\u201d; a phlegmatic reverend (Kevin Del Aguila) arguably from \u201cGuys and Dolls\u201d; and several citizens of River City, including a clueless mayor (Brad Oscar), a moralistic busybody (Emily Skinner), a prim teacher (Isabelle McCalla) and the lisping little boy (Ayaan Diop) who everyone knows is not really her brother.<\/p>\n For the stage, Paul has added a couple of songs, one (\u201cNot That Kinda Gal\u201d) to give Melissa a bit more substance and another (\u201cI Thought I Was the Only One\u201d) to flesh out the closeted attraction between Mayor Menlove and the reverend. (Wasn\u2019t the mayor\u2019s name enough?) On a very brightly lit, flatly decorated stage (lighting by Jen Schriever, settings by Scott Pask), Christopher Gattelli, the director and choreographer, has created scenes and dances that are more natively theatrical than those he staged for the camera, many sampling the athletic period style of Onna White and Michael Kidd. But it\u2019s mostly the same experience, compacted.<\/p>\n That has its pluses and minuses. It\u2019s certainly great fun to locate the references and laugh at the lapses Paul identifies in the originals. The catchy silliness of \u201cA Real Nice Clambake\u201d is perfectly skewered in \u201cCorn Puddin\u2019.\u201d The glamorous Countess Gabriele Von Blerkom, a take on the Baroness Elsa von Schraeder from \u201cThe Sound of Music,\u201d is deftly pegged as a likely Nazi though \u201cit\u2019s never explicitly stated.\u201d Angel Reda does a great job with her why-does-this-minor-character-have-a-song song, a Cole Porter pastiche.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And though I never quite understood who Doc Lopez (Javier Mu\u00f1oz) and Florence Menlove (Ann Harada) were supposed to resemble, I loved the \u201cCarousel\u201d snark, including a flick at Billy Bigelow\u2019s \u201creally high-waisted\u201d pants. (The hilarious costumes are by Linda Cho.) When Billy, paraphrasing the great \u201cSoliloquy,\u201d sings that he\u2019ll get money for his unborn child even if he must \u201csteal it\u201d or \u201ctake it,\u201d Melissa dryly points out, as many of us have muttered to ourselves over the years, \u201cThose are the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n But there\u2019s only so long an Easter egg hunt remains compelling. Paul, clearly understanding this, often cuts away from his jokes before they grow stale \u2014 but also before we get the full fun of them. The wicked parody of \u201cDo-Re-Mi\u201d from \u201cThe Sound of Music,\u201d in which Melissa, who is an obstetrician, teaches the facts of life to a highly pregnant but deeply na\u00efve young woman, vanishes as soon as you get to the zinger. (It\u2019s called \u201cVa-Gi-Na.\u201d) Unable to compete except in a sprint, other one-note takeoffs take off even faster.<\/p>\n That makes some sense, as Paul\u2019s aim is breadth not depth. But \u2014 not to harsh your satirical high \u2014 there is something dispiriting about the way every number tickles your memory without nourishing it. After an opening phrase essentially lifted from their Golden Age models, the songs veer off in their own copyright-avoiding direction, never as successful as the originals. Only at the end, when the focus returns to Josh and Melissa, does Paul find a sound unlike anyone else\u2019s, serving these characters specifically and not just the memory of their forebears.<\/p>\n Those forebears aren\u2019t going anywhere. And the shows they come from will always be ripe for ribbing. Had they not lasted 80 years, \u201cSchmigadoon!\u201d would have nothing to do. Luckily, and to the joy of many who long for its adoring-needling content, it justifies itself by keeping the line of descent alive and lively. If it\u2019s mostly parasitical, or let\u2019s say symbiotic, that may simply be our era\u2019s expression of love. And, as we\u2019ve learned, even the truest love is a bit of a scam.<\/p>\n Schmigadoon!<\/strong>
Through Feb. 9 at the Kennedy Center, Washington; kennedy-center.org<\/a>. Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n