Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – Doing what Encores! does best: Dusting off all-but-forgotten musical relics like Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner’s LOVE LIFE

• By drediman
• April 1, 2025
• No Comments

This past weekend, I was also able to catch the final performance of the limited run of the Encores! revival of Love Life at New York City Center. Originally set to open during the spring of 2020, the production was supposed to have been included in Jack Viertel’s final season as Encores! Artistic Director, but we all know what happened to that whole slate of planned openings. Better late than never, this rare revival of the Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner musical finally made its way to the City Center stage last week headlined by A-listers Brian Stokes Mitchell and Kate Baldwin as husband and wife whose marriage unfolds over the course of two centuries of American History.

To be sure, the musical is audacious and is widely considered to be the prototype for the “concept” musical, a sub-genre of musical theater that the likes of Stephen Sondheim (Company, Pacific Overtures), Kander and Ebb would (Chicago, Cabaret), and Stephen Schwartz (Pippin) would later perfect and further evolve the form with. Although there are stretches of Love Life that are admittedly self-indulgent and naively cartoonish, it’s use of songs — often of the vaudevillian variety — to comment on the action as oppose to strictly moving the story forward indicates that its creators were determined to present a musical that pushed the boundaries of the status quo (one can also can also see influences of groundbreaking plays like Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth on the musical). Thankfully, Victoria Clark’s staging — despite being a tad disjointed — stays on the breezy side, focusing instead on putting Weill and Lerner’s richly melodic score in the best possible light.

Suffice to say, it was a huge treat to hear Love Life‘s fantastic music — songs like “Mr. Right” and “Here I’ll Stay” have become cabaret standards in their own right — given the divine Encores! treatment, thanks largely to former music director Rob Berman’s pristine work on the podium. This is Encores! doing what it does best. As the married couple at the center of the show, Mitchell and Baldwin are a dream team, delivering performances of great heart and personality in the classic mold. Not only do they sing terrifically — few things are as satisfying as hearing Mitchell wrap his rich baritone around a song — they’re also tremendously charismatic, both individually and as a couple. Other standouts included Sara Jean Ford and Clarke Thorell in inspired supporting comic turns that lit up the stage.

RECOMMENDED

LOVE LIFE
Off-Broadway, Musical
New York City Center
2 hours, 40 minutes (with one intermission)
Closed