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It may be the closest thing the 20th century gave us toA Christmas Caroland the myth of Sisyphus.
Now, the seemingly simple tale has been given yet another wrinkle of interpretation (Singing!
Credit: Joan Marcus
An Actor in a Giant Marmot Costume!)
with the wonderfully inventiveGroundhog Day: The Musical, a giddy highlight of the current Broadway season.
Where Murray was rumpled, Karl is pressed and blow-dried.
), but he conjures his own breed of jerky egomaniac.
His energy is oily cool whereas Murrays was prickly hot.
Its easy to see how he earned back-to-back Tony nominations for 2014sRocky The Musicaland 2015sOn the Twentieth Century.
The curtain immediately dropped.
The house managers call of Is there a doctor in the house?
came over the PA system.
But when he returned that Friday evening, with a pronounced limp, the audience roared.
Karl had proven himself to be a total pro, a play-through-pain gamer.
At the end of the show, when taking his bow, he was choking back tears.
It was emotional for the crowd as well.
A rousing testament to the live part of live theater.]
Its the universes comeuppance, punishing him with an endless loop of do-overs until he can get life right.
Why would anyone bother?
Its jeweler precise after all.
Instead, it gooses up the familiar with dazzling energy, creativity, wit, and heart.
At times,Groundhog Dayfeels more like a plate-spinning magic trick than a Broadway musical.
Its likeAvenue QmeetsThe Fast and the Furious.
Spectacle is fine, but none of it much matters if the basics of the show dont work.
Thankfully, they do.
), adds some three-hankie sentimentality to a story that previously never had much use for it.
Theater, of course, is all about repetition.
During a shows run, every performance can take on a same-iness with only minor nightly variations.
),Groundhog Day: The Musicalsoars.
Its a show about deja vu that I suspect will feel totally fresh and new every night.A-
