Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman’s moving and sturdily constructed musical HARMONY makes its long-awaited New York debut

• By drediman
• April 28, 2022
• No Comments

Last night at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, I attended the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene’s Off-Broadway production of Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman’s “new” musical Harmony. The musical has been under development for quite some time now, having premiered at La Jolla Playhouse more than 25 years ago way back in 1997, and is now finally making its long-awaited New York debut. The show tells the story of the Comedian Harmonists, a historically-based sextet comprised of Jews and gentiles that performed during the years leading up to World War II. Largely set in Weimar Germany, the singing group navigates the rise of Nazism, an endeavor that gets increasingly dire as the musical unfolds. Ultimately, the musical ends up being a cautionary tale about the consequences of inaction.

Although the show bears obvious comparisons to the Tony-winning classics Jersey Boys and Cabaret, the piece that Harmony most similarly resembles is the short-lived Bandstand. Like that vastly underrated musical, Manilow and Sussman’s sturdily constructed work is in essence a bio-musical with original songs written specifically for it. Manilow’s music, which is written in the vein of the Great American Songbook, is the show’s key asset. Time and time again, the thoughtfully crafted songs re-center the musical with straightforward, tuneful integrity. Sussman’s book has been tweaked significantly over the years. A recently implemented improvement was to increase the focus on the show’s narrator (the one surviving member of the original sextet). Indeed, some of the most moving scenes of the show’s current iteration are those in which he elegantly and plaintively weaves his commentary into his flashbacks, injecting pointed gravitas to the proceedings. As it stands, a number of the characters could use some further fleshing out, but I’m confident that that will come as the musical continues to be developed. A heartening sign that Harmony is on the right track is that it boasts a particularly strong second act, something that eludes many a musical making their way to Broadway.

Warren Carlyle’s production (which relies heavily on video projections to establish each scene’s time and place) has been effectively mounted, resourcefully fitting the musical’s panoramic story on the relatively small stage of the Museum of Jewish Heritage. The staging is ideally paced, never rushing key scenes, while generally moving the eventful plot along efficiently. Among the performances, coming off most affectingly (unsurprisingly) are Broadway veterans Chip Zien as the narrator and the lovely, golden-voiced Sierra Boggess as an underwritten love interest. Mr. Zien, whose narrator is now the musical’s emotional nexus, also amusingly plays the show’s miscellaneous characters (e.g., Albert Einstein, even Marlene Dietrich!). In summary, based on my encouraging experience last night, I’m happy to report that the tenacious Harmony is well on its way Uptown.

REDOMMENDED

HARMONY
Off-Broadway, Musical
National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene at the Museum of Jewish Heritage
2 hours, 30 minutes (with one intermission)
Through May 15