Is there room on Broadway for a folksy, blue grass-tinged melodrama with a dark tale at its heart? The answer will come this spring when new musical “Bright Star” opens, marking the debut of Renaissance man Steve Martin, who has co-written the show as book writer and co-lyricist with Edie Brickell, the Grammy-winning songwriter. This latest addition to the season’s growing roster of new musicals is set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and pivots between post World War II and the 1920s. It is in this earlier period that shocking events take place that affect the characters two decades later.That includes Billy Cane, a soldier returning from the war with literary aspirations who falls under the tutelage of Alice Murphy, the sympathetic editor of a Southern literary journal. As Billy’s star rises, there are flashbacks to a Gothic subplot that involves Alice’s star-crossed romance with the son of a powerful and heinous politician intent of saving the family’s reputation. While the plot was inspired in part by a newspaper article, the songs are repurposed from a 2013 bluegrass album, “Love Has Come For You,” on which Martin and Brickell collaborated. Last year, two songs from the album — “Asheville” and “Sun’s Gonna Shine” — were included in the musical for its world premiere engagement at the Old Globe Theatre.While the critics found Martin’s libretto somewhat problematic, they had nothing but praise for the score. “In an era in which blaring jukebox musicals still dominate the scene, a time warp isn’t unnecessarily unwelcome, “ wrote Charles McNulty in the Los Angeles Times. “And ‘Bright Star,’ proud of its folksiness, wears its old-fashioned heart on its gingham sleeve.”“Darkness and light are blended in even proportions in ‘Bright Star’…. The characters in this musically vibrant if overstuffed show…. endure hardship, heartache and almost melodramatic loss,” wrote Charles Isherwood of the New York Times.The musical, directed by Walter Bobbie and choreographed by Josh Rhodes, stars A.J. Shively as Billy Cane and Carmen Cusack as Alice Murphy. Denver-born Cusack, who earned raves for her performance, makes her Broadway debut after having made a splash in the West End productions of “Phantom of the Opera” and “Les Miserables,” after which she returned stateside to star in “Wicked” in Chicago. “Bright Star” is representative of the increasing appeal of Broadway for artists from other disciplines. Martin is no stranger to the theater, having written the off-Broadway hit “Picasso at the Lapin Agile,” but Brickell, the longtime wife of Paul Simon, is new to the form. This season, others join her from the pop world, including Sarah Bareilles (“Waitress”), Gloria Estefan (“On Your Feet!”), and Duncan Sheik (“American Psycho”). “Bright Star” will play a pre-Broadway engagement at the Kennedy Center from December 2 through January 10.
↧