Brigadoon is hokey, but has moments of magic
You can dig for a deeper meaning to “Brigadoon” but all it really comes down to is: Wouldn’t you rather be sometime else?
No Fox News. No cellphones. No freakin’ Twitter. A place where those things might as well be witchcraft. Of course, none of them were around when Lerner and Loewe wrote this — their first hit — back in 1947. They were emerging from something much worse, the Second World War, and the thought of a mystical place far removed from everything was idyllic.
It still holds sway. “Brigadoon” is as maudlin and predictable as they come, but its calling card is still irresistible — a Scottish village which only appears in our world every 100 years. Full of people still stuck in the 1700s.
That’s what Second World War vet Tommy (George Krissa) and his friend Jeff (Mike Nadajewski) discover while hunting in the woods. Out of the mist, and nowhere on a map, Brigadoon and its happy-go-lucky denizens emerge. Singing and dancing, naturally. We’re not told the place’s secret at first, but it’s clearly not of our world. They don’t recognize modern currency, the moon is blood red, and people mention some sort of ‘miracle’ for saving them.
This being Lerner and Loewe, the romance doesn’t idle. Tommy is smitten with the fair maiden Fiona (Alexis Gordon), whose younger sister Jean (Madelyn Kriese) is getting married that night. The problem is that Tommy is engaged to a woman he doesn’t really love, waiting for him back in New York. “With your fiancée picking out flatwear as we speak, now is not the time for a highland fling,” his friend reminds him.
In his first Shaw season, Krissa makes a good impression here. His strong singing voice is crucial to the first act’s charm, and there’s plenty of swooning with Gordon in the clever and buoyant standard “Almost Like Being in Love.”
As directed by Glynis Leyshon, back at Shaw after 22 years, the show also gets great moments from Kristi Frank as the village tomcat Meg and Michael Terriault — who has never met a Shaw role he didn’t completely own — as fussy dad Archie, whose brooding son Harry (Travis Seetoo) is angry at losing the bride and threatens to ruin all of Brigadoon in retaliation.
It’s also a very physical show, heavy on dance, with Linda Gorneau’s choreography and John Stead’s fight direction coming together in a whirlwind sequence to close Act One. Genny Sermonia also has a fierce sequence, performing the play’s famous ‘funeral dance’ with a fluid mix of sorrow and rage. It’s a scene unlike anything else Lerner and Loewe ever did.
That moment aside, however, you can check off all the usual stuff: characters that fall in love hours after meeting, the snappy sidekick with all the best lines, and the hokey happy ending when all looks lost.
With these old musicals, you already know which clichés will be trotted out. But “Brigadoon” works best when it goes into the mystic.