Is “Anastasia” for real?
The new Broadway-bound musical, at Hartford Stage through June 19 had a legacy of legends, rumors, political upheavals and cartoon villains from which to fashion a tale of love and adventure that takes place in St. Petersburg and Paris in the exciting decades between the two world wars.
It’s opted for a calm, sweet, realism, which, even within the warm environment of Hartford Stage, comes off as cold and distant and unnervingly old-fashioned.
“Anastasia” is based on one of the great romantic myths of the 20th century: That a daughter of the Russian royal family escaped execution, found her way to Paris and became a Jazz Age celebrity. It’s also based on a couple of movies that had their own original takes on the Anastasia story.
“Anastasia” the musical trims the extremes of both these cinematic predecessors. It doesn’t have the smoldering love-triangle intrigue of the 1956 film (which had Ingrid Bergman wooed by both Yul Brynner and Ivan Desny). It doesn’t have the mischievous talking bat and floppy-eared puppy from Don Bluth’s 1997 animated feature. It also doesn’t have Rasputin, the major villain in the Bluth version. It reduces supernatural curses to bad dreams.
The musical does maintain the basic premise of both the films: Some likable con artists groom a young woman to impersonate the presumably deceased Grand Duchess Anastasia. They declare her to be alive and ready to claim her fortune. Amusingly, they don’t realize that they may have stumbled across the actual Anastasia.
Clearly, a few contrivances, amnesia among them, remain in order to make such a plot even slightly coherent. But with less high drama and less sugar-coating, this “Anastasia” has a more down-to-earth message about self-knowledge, self-worth and honesty.
Unfortunately, it also has less fun.
Terrence McNally is renowned for his ability to take smart literary and/or cinematic works (“Kiss of the Spider Woman,” “A Man of No Importance,” “Ragtime,” “Dead Man Walking”) and turn them into equally engrossing and intelligent works of musical theater. Here, the playwright tries to square the modern fairy-tale princess legend with real-world history. The new post-Tsarist Russia has relevance throughout the show, as a loyal Bolshevik named Gleb follows Anastasia and her charlatan companions Dmitry and Vlad to Paris.
McNally creates a dramatic showdown between old-world monarchical romanticism and Socialist uprising. It’s not a clean, good-versus-evil conflict, nor should it be. In “Anastasia,” there are poor Russians who’ll happily hawk priceless treasures on the black market, and there are imperious royal emigres denigrated as “dyed-hair, powdered-face and vodka breath … Count Mincing Manners.”
Cultural stereotypes abound, but they are largely in service of a message about following one’s heart and not falling prey to greed, elitism or social pressure.
The musical uses nearly all of the Lynn Ahrens/Stephen Flaherty songs from the animated movie (“In the Dark of the Night” being the most notable omission) and none of the same film’s David Newman-composed instrumental score. Around two dozen new songs have been added. Ahrens’ lyrics are clever and sharp, though she can’t resist some silly rhymes like “Romanov” and “Stroganoff.” Flaherty’s melodies are memorable, especially as played by a 16-piece theater orchestra with soaring strings and resonant brass.
There is no extended overture, but a lavishly staged “Prologue” sweeps through 20 years of Russian history with no lyrics other than “Aaaah!” As the key characters are introduced and the main stories take hold (Anastasia searches for home; Dmitry searches for meaning in life; everyone searches for happiness), the songs get more specific and suspenseful. Most of them involve missing a former life and wondering what the future holds.
In the title role (or is it really her?!), Christy Altomare is charming and accessible, not royal and remote. These qualities allow her to nail such wistful songs as “In My Dreams” and “Crossing the Bridge.” As her swindler-with-a-heart-of-gold love interest Dmitry, Derek Klena demonstrates a “Newsies”-esque rugged boyishness. Bona fide Broadway goddess Mary Beth Peil radiates authority as the Dowager Empress who is the final judge of Anastasia’s authenticity. Peil conveys every iota of class the role requires. Manoel Felciano brings a dour humorlessness to Gleb, and seems like he’s wandered in from a production of “Evita.” The much-needed comic-relief characters are the elderly scoundrel Vlad Popov (John Bolton, pompous and preening without pushing for all-out buffoon) and the sharp-tongued emigré Countess Lily Malevsky-Malevitch (Caroline O’Connor, who doesn’t arrive until the second act, when she propels the crowd-pleasing ensemble number “Land of Yesterday”). The nearly 20 other members of the cast all play multiple roles, including an adorable child named Nicole Scimeca who plays not just Anastasia at age 6 but her brother Prince Alexei as well.
Director Darko Tresnjak has a firm command of the style and pacing that this less fantastical, more rooted “Anastasia” now has. Tresnjak treats the show like an operetta, letting the songs (over half of which are intimate solo numbers or duets) flow gracefully on their own melodic terms rather than get distracted by spectacle or over-the-top performances. The tone is reminiscent of the lush, mannered production of “A Little Night Music” that Tresnjak did at the Goodspeed Opera House in 2001 and has little in common with the audacious music hall theatricality he brought to “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder.”
The evenness of the staging teeters toward tediousness, which is alarming since the action in “Anastasia” features blizzards, explosions and leaps from a speeding train. But since these exploits are staged using giant projection screens, the effects seem flat and unexciting. The actors basically jump up and down in front of big pictures. Converting Hartford Stage’s circular thrust stage to a proscenium-like rectangle (plus orchestra pit) compounds the problem. “Anastasia” simply lacks dimension.
There is a conventional full-cast song-and-dance number with high kicks, boisterous vocals and even celebrity impersonations, extolling the virtues of Paris, staged around a tacky 20-foot-tall Eiffel Tower. But “Paris Holds the Key to Your Heart” pales in comparison to a similar routine in that other Broadway-hopeful musical which played in Connecticut this season, “My Paris” at the Long Wharf Theatre.
I’m glad they didn’t go with the talking cartoon bat, but this musical desperately needs some magic. For a show about self-determination and revolution, it succumbs to unwanted traditions of melodrama and concert performance. This “Anastasia” is ultimately unconvincing.
ANASTASIA, book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, directed by Darko Tresnjak, runs through June 19 at Hartford Stage, 50 Church St., Hartford. Tickets are $25 to $95, $20 for students. Performances are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m., with added 2 p.m. Wednesday matinees on June 1 and 15 and an added 7:30 p.m. Sunday performance on June 12. Information: 860-527-5151, hartfordstage.org.
