Review by Brian Scott Lipton…
After years of reviving (and revising) relatively recent Broadway shows from Jelly’s Last Jam to Titanic, City Center Encores has returned to its original mission of presenting rarely revived shows from an earlier era with its presentation of the 1948 “concept musical” Love Life (which was originally scheduled for March 2020).
If you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone; the show, which marked the only pairing of composer Kurt Weill and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, has rarely been seen or heard anywhere since its original Broadway run. And while director Victoria Clark – working very hard — and co-adapter Joe Keenan don’t make a particularly persuasive case for mounting another revival any time soon, attendees of this five-day production will be treated to an appealing score that’s wisely been put in the hands of the incomparable Brian Stokes Mitchell and Kate Baldwin.
The pair play estranged married couple Samuel and Susan Cooper, who (in this version) are brought onstage by two young magicians – in reality, their children Johnny (the talented Christopher Jordan) and Elizabeth (an adorable Andrea Rosa Guzman) – and left to reexamine how their once-happy union descended into loneliness and bitterness.
No realistic kitchen-sink drama, Love Life has the ageless couple (and their kids) plow through 150 years of American history to chart how this seemingly perfect pair ended up in divorce court, touching on such timely topics (all of which help tear the couple apart) as the introduction of the railroad, the women’s suffragette movement, the Roaring 20s, and, ultimately, the post-World War II era, in which both men and women worked outside the home and had trouble adjusting to this new reality.
These vignettes result in some marvelous songs, including the gorgeous ballads “Here I’ll Stay” and “Is It Him or Is It Me?”, the boisterous “Green-Up Time” and “Women’s Club Blues,” and the booming, bittersweet “This is the Life.” Most unusual of all is the duet “I Remember It Well,” which not only shares a title with a song from Lerner and Loewe’s Gigi, but parallels its lyric structure in which Sam and Susan offer up highly differing memories of the same event.
Still, what makes Love Life extra-unusual is that these vignettes are punctuated by a series of vaudeville-like numbers, some presented in front of a curtain, that comment on the action that we’ve just witnessed, from the lively quartet “Economics,” the beautiful trio “Susan’s Dream,” the outstanding solo “Love Song” (brilliantly performed by John Edwards), and the gorgeously danced “His & Hers: A Divorce Ballet” (a highlight of JoAnn M. Hunter’s choreography).
As always, the Encores on-stage orchestra sounds fantastic, here under the guidance of guest music director Rob Berman, and there’s more to look at than in many of the series’ productions, courtesy of Ryan Howell’s set pieces, Christensen’s ever-changing costumes for some of the players, and a decidedly large ensemble.
Still, it’s the score – admittedly far from either Weill’s or Lerner’s finest work – that will make you glad that Love Life has, at last, found a second life!
Love Life continues at New York City Center (131 West 55th Street) through Sunday, March 30. For tickets and information, visit www.newyorkcitycenter.org.
Photos: Joan Marcus