8 THENEWYORKER,FEBRUARY28, 2022
ILLUSTRATION BY MATTHEW KAM
Walking into the Winter Garden Theatre, where Meredith Willson’s
1957 musical, “The Music Man,” is in revival, is like wandering through
the perfume counters at Bloomingdale’s: prepare to be spritzed with
nostalgia from all sides. Willson’s show takes place in 1912 in the small-
town Iowa of his youth, and this new production, directed by Jerry Zaks,
works hard to convince us that we’ve been transported back to our own
Before Times, when nobody feared contagion and crowds could flock to
Broadway expecting to be pleased. But despite the enduring pleasures of
Willson’s score and the acrobatic efforts of a whopping forty-two perform-
ers, many of them astonishingly accomplished children, the production,
which confuses America with Americana, feels off key. Parts of Willson’s
script and lyrics have been tweaked to appeal to modern sensitivities,
and that sanitizing spirit puts the show’s stars—Hugh Jackman, as the
huckster Professor Harold Hill, and Sutton Foster, as Marian Paroo,
the stern librarian who sees right through him—in a strange position.
Jackman has oodles of charisma and vigor, but he holds himself at arm’s
length from Harold’s sleaziness in a sweet, mostly zestless performance.
It’s Foster, with her spunky toughness and her rich belting voice, who
shines the brightest, particularly when she’s allowed to move past Marian’s
tight-laced primness and let deliciously loose.—Alexandra SchwartzONBROADWAY
extends a long-running conversation about
Black representation in media—a thread
that also includes movies such as Robert
Townsend’s “Hollywood Shuffle” and Spike
Lee’s “Bamboozled,” and, more recently,
Jackie Sibblies Drury’s play “Fairview.”
Harris tugs at that thread. Sometimes his
play verges on insight; more often, it feels
like a half-remembered reboot. Tambo
( W.Tré Davis) and Bones (Tyler Fauntle-
roy) are Black men who find themselves stuck
within a minstrel show. They screw up lan-
guage—“empathy” becomes “Emily”—and
the nervous laughter that this causes among
the largely white audience is, presumably,
part of Harris’s point. Eventually they escape
minstrelsy and end up on a hip-hop stage,
where they feebly attempt both hyper-cap-
italism and conscious treatises on “race in
America.” A futuristic third act—which sets1
DANCE
New York City Ballet
City Ballet is in the throes of a generational
shift. The latest principal dancer to depart
is Gonzalo García, who performs his final
show at the Feb. 27 matinée. The program
features Jerome Robbins’s “Opus 19/The
Dreamer,” which, with its melancholy atmo-
sphere and introspective choreography, has
become one of García’s signatures. Earlier in
the week (Feb. 25-26), the company brings
back “Pavane,” an all too rarely performed
solo, danced by Sterling Hyltin, alongside
theatrically inclined works by Balanchine,
including “Prodigal Son” and “Slaughter on
Tenth Avenue.” A program of new and recent
works (Feb. 22-24) opens with Jamar Rob-
erts’s ballet “Emanon—In Two Movements,”
a vibrant, virtuosic dance set to music by
Wayne Shorter.—Marina Harss (DavidH.
Koch Theatre; through Feb. 27.)A.I.M by Kyle Abraham
Can it be that no choreographer has ever given
in to the seduction of devoting an evening
of dance to the catalogue of the R. & B. god
D’Angelo? Kyle Abraham may be the first,
with his new piece “An Untitled Love.” It’s a
promising fit. Like the singer, the choreogra-
pher is attuned to the emotional vulnerability
and beauty inside swagger, and his gorgeous
dancers know how to find all the crevasses in
a superior groove. To paraphrase D’Angelo’s
own “Untitled,” how will it feel? Probably
pretty good.—Brian Seibert (BAM’s Strong
Harvey Theatre; Feb. 23-26.)Peggy Baker
Inspired by Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Sec-
ond Sex,” the veteran Canadian dance art-
ist Peggy Baker made the film “her body as
words,” which is available to stream for free
on Baryshnikov Arts Center’s Web site. It’s a
collection of nine movement portraits, each
around five minutes long, of female and non-
binary dancers—heartfelt solos in a dark and
crackly space, followed by textual testaments
on the themes of gender, sexuality, disability,
race, motherhood. In Baker’s own haunting
turn, long sticks dangle from her arms like
awkward extra appendages, expressing late-life
confusion.—B.S. (bacnyc.org; Feb. 28-March 14.)L-E-V
The Israeli troupe returns to the Joyce with
Sharon Eyal’s “Chapter 3: The Brutal Jour-
ney of the Heart,” the last in a trilogy on the
subject of love. This time, the company’s
signature bodysuits are decorated with fac-
similes of full-body tattoos, each with a big
red heart at the chest. Eyal’s style—a kind of
club-kid, cultish offshoot of Ohad Naharin’s
dance language, Gaga—tends to emphasize
hyper-flexible brokenness, but this work is
about repair.—B.S. (Joyce Theatre; Feb. 22-27.)and seeking a connection with her distant
aunt, Marcelle (Betsy Aidem), and extended
family; meanwhile, Marcelle’s son, Daniel
(Yair Ben-Dor), has been attacked for wearing
a kippah. The ensuing action is often uneven
and implausible, schmaltzily keyed toward
maximum emotional effect. Still, it’s good to
see theatre that brings huge debates—about
Zionism and nationalism, ethnic togetherness
and what it means to be safe—to the fore.
Francis Benhamou, a recent favorite actor of
mine, plays Elodie, Daniel’s sister—a trou-
bled, funny, argumentative figure who might
remind you of people you know.—V.C. (New
York City Center, Stage I; through March 13.)
Tambo & Bones
This new play by Dave Harris, directed by
Taylor Reynolds for Playwright’s Horizons,
forth a scenario that makes the previously
giggling audience fall dead silent—is the
most intriguing thing on offer, but it doesn’t
quite redeem what comes before.—V.C. (Play-
wrights Horizons; through Feb. 27.)