Hugh Jackman steals ‘The Music Man’ on Broadway
Hugh Jackman is playing one of musical theater’s greatest con men on Broadway these days but he’s not fooling anyone: He’s the real deal.
As Harold Hill in a glorious and exuberant new revival of “The Music Man,” Jackman is like a coiled spring, effortlessly leaping onto desks, two-stepping with kids, tossing books into the air and pounding out a rhythm on his thighs. He’s even magnetic in a romantic clinch.
“That man is a spellbinder,” someone notes and you’ll have no argument here. “I’m in rare form these days,” Jackman’s Hill at one point boasts. Again, no argument.
But Jackman is but just one astonishing part of the subtly reworked Meredith Willson musical that opened Thursday night at the Winter Garden Theatre. It overflows with talent, clever ideas and a hard-working multicultural cast.
Sutton Foster somehow channels her inner Carole Burnett to play Hill’s reluctant love interest, showing a gift for physical humor and comic timing in addition to nifty tap dancing and a gorgeous voice.
This production celebrates the quaint American soul with the simple story about a traveling salesman who in 1912 cons a small Iowa town into forming a band and buying his instruments and uniforms — even though he knows nothing about music. He’s going to fleece them for sure, until he falls for the town librarian.
Director Jerry Zaks is a master at the romantic, comedic romp and moves things along with a seemingly effortless crispness aided by Santo Loquasto’s lush sets, with balloon-like trees and red wood barns. Zaks goes big with tunes like “Shipoopi” and “Seventy-Six Trombones,” of course, but also knows the power of calming everything down and just letting the song shine, as he does with “Gary, Indiana.”
Choreography by Warren Carlyle is complex and witty and especially shimmers in big numbers like the ambitious “Marian the Librarian” and the train-bound opening “Rock Island.”
You wouldn’t expect this 60-plus year-old chestnut to speak to 2022 but it often does. Like the grifter at its heart, who appears on stage the same week we’ve learned our twice-impeached former president allegedly tried to walk away from the White House with boxes of unauthorized stuff.