With “Darling Grenadine,” composer-lyricist Daniel Zaitchik emerges as a songwriter not only to watch but to enjoy at this very early moment in his career. Two years ago, he won the Kleban Prize for most promising musical theater lyricist, and with this new musical, it’s clear that his music is every bit as wonderful as his sophisticated word play.
That latter literary talent somehow does not extend to his coining a great title for this show: “Darling Grenadine,” which opened Monday at Roundabout’s Off-Off-Broadway space, the Black Box Theatre. But there hasn’t been a new score this unabashedly romantic and soaring since Adam Guettel gave us “The Light in the Piazza,” which hit Broadway back in 2005.
The Roundabout’s Black Box houses well under a 100 seats in its current configuration, with Zaitchik’s musical being performed in the round. The cast of six doesn’t have more than a bed, a bench and a liquor bar to support them. Nevertheless, Michael Berresse’s fluid and low-key direction creates a vivid sense of time and place by surrounding the audience with screens (set design by Tim Mackabee) that drop us into a black-and-white Manhattan fantasy world (projection designs by Edward T. Morris). It all makes for a most unusual in-the-round experience.
Zaitchik also writes the book here, and typically that triple threat is not a good sign. It’s nice that he provides us with an original story, and not one based on a famous movie. The score is so attractive from the get-go that the very ordinary romance of Harry (Adam Kantor) and Louise (Emily Walton) engages even as you wish something highly unusual would happen between them. She’s a featured actor in a Broadway musical titled “Paradise” and he’s a songwriter of TV commercials who has enough money to invest in his step-brother’s bar, where he sometimes performs standards at the piano. At Louise’s insistence, Harry finally consents to perform an original song, “Manhattan,” and she’s duly impressed by his talent.
It says much about Kaitchik’s talent that “Manhattan” and the show’s two other stunning melodies, “Suspended” and “Paradise,” are not woven into the story. “Manhattan” is essentially an audition, and the other two songs are from the musical “Paradise” within the musical that is “Darling Grenadine.” Maybe Zaitchik the songwriter needs to be freed from Zaitchik the book writer? This barroom-sink story doesn’t always give full expression to what are very operatic aspirations.
The simple story told here does have its charms and, ultimately, its dark secrets. I prefer it to the complicated narrative mess that is “Moulin Rouge!” or “Jagged Little Pill” or “Girl From the North Country,” three musicals that tell too much story as if to make up for their lack of original scores.
Eventually, something significant does take place between Harry and Louise. And Kantor is so charmingly headstrong in his pursuit of love that, like his new girlfriend, you might find yourself making excuses for him.
It’s possible that Zaitchik judges Harry more harshly than the character deserves. The book would be stronger if Harry’s enabling step-brother (Jay Armstrong Johnson) shared some of the guilt. Despite Walton’s winning performance and gorgeous vocals, Louise remains a cipher, and her “All About Eve” moment doesn’t resonate.
More successful is the depiction of Harry’s attachment to his dog, Paul. It’s very of-the-moment that many citizens of this city think of their pets as people. Totally enchanting is the way in which the Trumpet Player (Mike Nappi) evokes Paul while also providing musical segues between scenes.
Now, about that title, “Darling Grenadine.” Lose it.
10 Best New York Theater Productions of 2019, From 'The Sound Inside' to 'Halfway Bitches' (Photos)
TheWrap critic Robert Hofler ranks this year's top shows -- and original productions continued to outshine revivals.
10. "Do You Feel Anger?" by Mara Nelson-Greenberg (Off Broadway, Vineyard Theatre)
Female employees of a debt collection agency endure harassment from the boss and other male clowns. The author's hilarious dialogue subverts our expectations at every plot twist, as well as several times in between. Nelson-Greenberg brings a great new voice to the theater. Directed by Margot Bordelon.
9. "Grief Is the Thing With Feathers," by Enda Walsh (Off Broadway, St. Ann's Warehouse)
The playwright adapts Max Porter's novel about a young widower grieving his dead wife. Cillian Murphy took flight through the nightmare of the character's pain in the year's most technically dazzling production, directed by Walsh.
8. "Ain't No Mo," by Jordan E. Cooper (Off Broadway, Public Theater)
The U.S. government makes an offer that black people aren't supposed to refuse in this ultra-sharp and scary satire. Cooper not only wrote the play but delivered one of the year's most unforgettable performances, playing an airline employee from hell. Directed by Stevie Walker-Webb.
7. "The Sound Inside," by Adam Rapp (Broadway)
Mary-Louise Parker writes up a storm in a riveting new drama that explores the creative process. Will Hochman, in his Broadway debut, is equally fine as her troubled creative-writing student. Directed by David Cromer.
6. "Daddy," by Jeremy O. Harris (Off Broadway, Vineyard Theater and the New Group)
Regression and mutual exploitation are the hallmarks of an art-world affair between two men (Alan Cumming and Ronald Peet) of completely different backgrounds. "Daddy" is the play that got the "Slave Play" author into the Yale School of Drama. Directed by the gifted Danya Taymor.
5. "Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus," by Taylor Mac (Broadway)
Nathan Lane cleaned up a big, bloody and inspired mess of a political disaster. Mac's demented comedy manages to improve mightily on Shakespeare's worst play. Directed with total irreverence by George. C. Wolfe.
4. "Marys Seacole," by Jackie Sibblies Drury (Off Broadway, LCT3)
Two Jamaican nurses speak across a century and a half to bring comfort to people who don't care about them. This drama is the arresting follow-up to the author's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Fairview." Directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz with a harrowing battle scene.
3. "Halfway Bitches Go Straight to Heaven," by Stephen Adly Guirgis (Off Broadway, Atlantic Theater Company
This drama set in an all-female homeless shelter is a female "Iceman Cometh" for the 21st century -- and a lot more fun than anything written by Eugene O'Neill. The play is replete with big issues, none of which Guirgis ever turns into a sermon. John Ortiz directs the mammoth, talented cast.
2. "Make Believe," by Bess Wohl (Off Broadway, Second Stage)
Childhood traumas continue to haunt a family in their adult years. Wohl child-proofed her amazing play by making the kids' overacting an asset. Michael Greif directed them with assurance, and their grown-up counterparts were terrific too.
1. "A Strange Loop," by Michael R. Jackson (Off Broadway, Playwrights Horizons)
The writer defies the musical jinx of wearing three hats: book writer, lyricist and composer. Jackson is superb at all three tasks in this musical about writing a musical. In a lousy year for new original tuners, "Loop" is the real thing. Stephen Brackett directed the stream-of-conscious story like a master helmer.
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For the second year in a row, original works instead of revivals were the must-see events of the year
TheWrap critic Robert Hofler ranks this year's top shows -- and original productions continued to outshine revivals.
Robert Hofler, TheWrap's lead theater critic, has worked as an editor at Life, Us Weekly and Variety. His books include "The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson," "Party Animals," and "Sexplosion: From Andy Warhol to A Clockwork Orange, How a Generation of Pop Rebels Broke All the Taboos." His latest book, "Money, Murder, and Dominick Dunne," is now in paperback.