The best and most probably generous way to enjoy this production of Fiorello! is to pretend you are not in New York City at the otherwise resident home of the Classic Stage Company but rather in retreat to Stockbridge, Mass where the Berkshire Theater Group first presented its revival of the wonderful but barely remembered 1959 Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical this past summer. It is this production that has been move lock, stock, and barrel to East 13th Street for those who might like to see what a youthful, talented cast and company has done with it.
What they have done with it is significant because there will now not likely ever be a full scale Broadway revival. And this production, as gleeful and exuberant as it is being performed, is just not up to Broadway or even normal Off-Broadway standards. Fans of the City Center Encore Series have already had the pleasure of two delightful concert stagings in recent times of this musical about the former New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, neither of which prompted a move to Broadway. This is not to suggest that a real powerhouse performer in the title role couldn’t have made the difference.
At any rate, and once you relax and submit to the budgetary and artistic limitations of the production imposed on it by director Bob Moss and to those of the cast members, you can sit back and enjoy the terrific score by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock that is played most earnestly by Alev Gokce Erem on the violin and Robert Frost on the keyboard.
Being topical and timely in this election year is certainly a help for this musical that boasts a rather nifty and fairly accurate book by the revered scribes George Abbott and Jerome Weidman. It’s all about the rise of a head-strong young lawyer as he gains political prestige in congress and onward to become Mayor of NYC even after a blistering defeat to Jimmy Walker in 1929. To the book’s credit, the women in his life are not treated as peripheral entities but rather as commendably and sensitively dramatized personalities.
Filed with the zingiest, singiest music (the kind you don’t hear any more) by Bock and the still-with-us-and-writing composer/lyricist Harnick, it’s virtually impossible to sit still in your seat. If only the cast were able to muster up more of the panache, spunk and sparkle that is already inherent in the material. The ethnic and other dancing created by choreographer is lively but pedestrian.
There is no question that Austin Scott Lombardi is putting his heart and soul in his interpretation of Fiorello, but his physical frame and rigorous posturing is closer to what we might envision about another NYC Mayor - Jimmy Walker. But Lombardi does his best to be a symbol during an epoch period in New York City history. What I did love about his aggressively endearing performance is his making me believe that an honest politician is not a figment of my imagination.
Despite a woefully misguided and inept attempt to give his cronies the realistic sound of New Yawkers, I like the energy expended by them and particularly Ryan Morsbach as Ben, Fiorello’s political cohort, in the two great tough and brilliantly cynical numbers “Politics and Poker” and “Little Tin Box.”
Chelsea Cree Groen as Dora the sweatshop girl Fiorello helps during a strike, nails the hilarious “I Love a Cop” with her kittenish voice. That gorgeous ballad “Til Tomorrow” still manages to bring forth tears, as beautifully sung by a terrific Rebecca Brudner, as Thea the woman whose admiration for Fiorello grows to love as his first wife.
Katie Birenboim, as Fiorello’s secretary who becomes his second wife has a golden moment with another lovely ballad “The Very Next Man.” A hand is also due for the chorus cuties for their razzamatazz number “Gentleman Jimmy.”
Unfortunately, too much awkward and intrusive moving of scenery gives the show a community-theater look. The costumes fulfill their era-invoking duties. I wish I felt moved to cast a yea vote for this revival, but I’m still resigned to abstain until the real new deal comes along.
