Opposite can attract, but that doesn’t mean they should. Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were the ultimate they-aren’t-made-for-each-other couple that possessed real chemistry, threw off romantic sparks and usually ended up together at the end of the movie. The same could be said for Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in their one movie together, “The Way We Were,” except for the fact that they split up at the end.
After productions at London’s Kiln Theatre and Cambridge’s American Repertory Theater, the new musical “Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)” opened Thursday at the Longacre Theatre.
It stars Christiani Pitts and Sam Tutty, and these two barely make it passed intermission before it’s time for them to call it quits.
Jim Barne and Kit Buchan wrote the songs and the book for this rom-com two-hander, and they begin “Two Strangers” with real promise. The young man Dougal (Tutty) is newly arrived at JFK from London and eager to meet his American father for the very first time. Dad’s getting married and the bride’s sister, Robin (Pitts), picks him up at the airport. As meet-cutes go, this one turns very problematic in Act 2, if not before.
Even before he has left JFK, Donal falls in love with this wonderful town and sings a song titled “New York.” While the tune doesn’t top “Conquering New York” or “New York, New York,” it gets “Two Strangers” off to a rousing start.
This show may be Barne and Buchan’s first musical, but they’ve done their musical theater homework. After their male lead touts the splendors of the Big Apple, Barne and Buchan provide an element that’s de rigueur for any musical. It’s called the What I Want Song, and they provide not one but two. First, Dougal sings “Dad” because he really wants to meet his dad. And Robin sings “What’ll It Be” because she really wants to leave her behind-the-counter job at a coffee shop. Any young person who came to New York City and ended up in a going-nowhere kind of job can relate. Equally terrific, Barne and Buchan write pop songs with an infectious hook.
“Two Strangers” is one of those rom-coms where the two lovers are wrong for each other. He’s too boyish, she’s too brittle. It’s a new soul/old soul dynamic. That frisson works initially because, in a story too complicated to tell here, he sets her up with another guy on a dating app. Maybe Dougal and Robin will just become very good friends.
Unfortunately, no.
Dougal somehow gets the idea that Robin’s sister marrying his father will make her, Robin, his aunt. Around the second or third time he calls her “Aunt Robin,” it’s clear to the audience that something’s very amiss.
If Robert Morse had been British and blessed with a truly terrific singing voice, he would be Sam Tutty. A real star, Tutty exudes a thoroughly engaging puckish charm. He’s as cuddly, warm and fun-loving as a two-week-old puppy. Of course, one could never use those words to describe any new musical’s leading lady without being called a sexist. Due to problems written into her role, Pitts is somewhat less engaging. Today, female characters in musicals can no longer display any kind of vulnerability. (Lea Michele in “Chess” does a great job of being thoroughly unsympathetic.) This Robin is more caretaker or nanny than she is girlfriend or lover. And, of course, in the second act Pitts must sing the obligatory caterwauling Female Empowerment Ballad, “This Year,” which is less infectious than it is infected with too much (there are no other words) defiance and independence.
A couple of narrative problems in the first act turn into full-blown mistakes in the second. Robin is not invited to her sister’s wedding. So why would she be the one to pick up Dougal at the airport? And ditto: why is she delivering the wedding “cake” of the show’s title to her sister’s apartment?
When the dessert costs over $2,000, the delivery is included.
Tim Jackson directs.
