Bright Star

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Bright Star

Cort Theatre, NYC, March 23, 2016

Reviewed by Elizabeth Ahlfors for Cabaret Scenes

Carmen Cusack & Paul Alexander Nolan Photo: Nick Stokes
Carmen Cusack & Paul Alexander Nolan
Photo: Nick Stokes

Bluegrass is the music of Broadway this season with fiddles, banjos and mandolin as the bright spots in Bright Star at the Cort Theatre. Beautifully arranged by August Eriksmoen, the twangy span of music, delivered by an onstage band in a wooden shack, drives a heartwarming, if problematic plot.

Bright Star is Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s first theater musical with singer/songwriter Brickell supplying lyrics and actor/banjo devotee Martin providing the  libretto. Both collaborated on the music and developed their script from a horrific true story of an abandoned baby thrown from a train over a river.

Set in North Carolina, the daytime serial melodramatic plot shifts back and forth between 1923 and 1946, tracing the events in the life of two characters, Alice Murphy (Carmen Cusack) and Billy Cane (A.J. Shively). Alice is a sprightly 16-year-old who falls in love with Jimmy Ray (Paul Alexander Nolan), the Major’s son, a romance doomed to fail. Eventually she becomes a literary editor at the Asheville Southern Journal. Young veteran Billy Cane returns from World War II to follow his “own bright star” through a literary career; first stop is the Asheville Southern Journal. A lengthy meander to a small town, its rural folks, and long-held secrets, it’s not hard to guess how the pieces will fit, even with sudden twists. The story is prodded by the many homespun songs spinning the emotion and spirit into a whimsical, Gothic and often poignant production.

In ubiquitous songs like, “Bright Star” (“Bright star, keep shining for me”  and “You never know what life will bring, only what you bring to life”), you hear lyrics truthful enough, but repetitious, bringing a hokey tone to the sketchy plot. Martin and Brickell treat their small-town characters with respect, but without much sharp humor, aside from Alice’s office assistants played by Jeff Blumenkrantz and Emily Padgett. Check out the toy train that runs across a trestle above the stage, a reminder of passing time.

Directed by Walter Bobbie, Cusack as Alice is charming both as the freewheeling teenager and the sophisticated career woman in Asheville who has grown disappointed with her life. Yet, she still retains enough of young Alice’s small-town impetuosity to let her take a chance with Billy Cane’s short stories. Cusack sings with heart and enthusiasm, delivering the essence of the young romantic girl. A.J. Shively is dedicated and enthusiastic as Cane and Hannah Elless does her best to galvanize his steadfast small-town girlfriend, Margo Crawford. As Alice’s teenage boyfriend, Jimmy Ray, Nolan delivers an excellent portrait of an eager teenage boy in love and lust, maturing into a resolve to do the right thing.

Eugene Lee created movable sets centered around the wooden shack that slides fluidly across the stage. The colorful staging is fluid and choreography by Josh Rhodes is animated with foot-stomping rhythms under the music direction of Rob Berman. Jane Greenwood’s costumes point smartly to the two decades with simple country dress and 1940s city styles.      

Unfortunately, Steve Martin and Edie Brickell’s high-spirited harmonic score and moments of drama are not enough for this Bright Star to keep shining brightly for over two hours of timeworn predictability.

Elizabeth Ahlfors

Born and raised in New York, Elizabeth graduated from NYU with a degree in Journalism. She has lived in various cities and countries and now is back in NYC. She has written magazine articles and published three books: A Housewife’s Guide to Women’s Liberation, Twelve American Women, and Heroines of ’76 (for children). A great love was always music and theater—in the audience, not performing. A Philadelphia correspondent for Theatre.com and InTheatre Magazine, she has reviewed theater and cabaret for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia City News. She writes for Cabaret Scenes and other cabaret/theater sites. She is a judge for Nightlife Awards and a voting member of Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle.