While the title number is an imperfect fit for Connick’s Sinatra-esque stylings, his honey-toned vocals are a constant pleasure, particularly when they acquire a brooding quality in the more introspective songs. Song after song, including such standards as “Come Back to Me” and “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have?” delivers. Under music director Lawrence Yurman, Doug Besterman’s full-bodied orchestrations sound glorious. What the production does have unequivocally in its favor is the melodious score. While the famously bloated production numbers of the original Broadway run have been excised, the go-go cutesiness of songs like “Wait ‘Til We’re Sixty-Five” and “When I’m Being Born Again” is a little cringe-inducing.
An amusing nod from Turner to Cher’s trademark hair-toss during one number reinforces that reference.
#ONE CLEAR DAY HOW TO#
After recent revivals of Bye Bye Birdie, Promises, Promises and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, this stylized retro look has become an exhausted cliché for mid-century American musicals.Ĭostumer Catherine Zuber appears to have trawled the vaults of The Sonny and Cher Show for inspiration, supplying additional distraction. Taking their cue from the mind-warping hypnosis theme, the garish sets mix op-art patterns with bold stripes, doused in shifting colors by Kevin Adams’ lighting. After their brilliant collaborations on Spring Awakening and American Idiot, Mayer and set designer Christine Jones’ concept here is a miss. One obstacle in their way is the over-designed show’s suffocating visuals, which all but swallow the characters. But they somehow never knit together into an engaging trio. All three leads are appealing and handle the wonderful songs with ease.
#ONE CLEAR DAY FULL#
Only in the first-act closing number, “Melinda,” when Mark and Melinda dance a steamy cheek-to-cheek and Davy rises from the couch to join in is the full comic potential of this unwitting threeway exploited.īy physically splitting David and Melinda into two performers, the show effectively reduces them to half a character apiece, which compromises the chemistry of both of them with Mark. Why shouldn’t we have what everyone else has?” The bigger problem is that the show doesn’t have enough fun with the romantic confusion. But it treads a little too obviously into contemporary gay issues when Warren says of Davy: “I would marry him if I could. Parnell’s new script is not short on humor, and clearer than it’s convoluted plotting might suggest. At the same time, Mark inadvertently casts a spell over David, who was born on the day Melinda died and remains clueless as to what’s going on when he’s under hypnosis. She yanks widowed Mark out of his extended grief funk, opening him up to love again. As their sessions multiply from once a week to every night, Melinda’s brief blaze of glory unfolds. During therapy, the calendar flips back to 1943 and out pops aspiring big-band singer Melinda ( Jessie Mueller), fully equipped with the confidence and drive that Davy lacks. Moved forward from the ‘60s to 1974 and framed as the doc’s keynote address at an American Psychoanalytic Association conference, the story now charts the bumpy treatment of David Gamble ( David Turner).Ī gay Greenwich Village florist unusually susceptible to hypnosis, Davy seeks treatment from Mark, who suspects that his inability to quit smoking may be linked to his reluctance to fully commit to his perfect boyfriend Warren ( Drew Gehling). back to Broadway for his first musical comedy role since The Pajama Game in 2006.
Mark Bruckner has become the central figure and the major marquee muscle, drawing Harry Connick Jr. In Mayer and Parnell’s radical overhaul, Dr. The shrink fell in love with Melinda while Daisy fell in love with the shrink. Attempting to cure her nicotine addiction, she underwent hypnosis, regressing to a previous incarnation as tragic 18th century English beauty Melinda Wells. Their role, as originally conceived, was Daisy Gamble, a chain-smoking New York kook with ESP, low self-esteem and a miraculous green thumb. Kristen Chenoweth starred in a 2000 concert staging that reconfirmed its strengths and weaknesses. The show was a vehicle on Broadway for Barbara Harris, and in the uneven 1970 Vincente Minnelli film, for Barbra Streisand. Bob LuPone, Actor Who Helped Found and Lead Off-Broadway's MCC Theater, Dies at 76
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