Their combined appeal has made the musical the toast of Broadway’s box office, with the production being the hottest ticket in town and its orchestra seats selling at outrageous prices. In the first two weeks since the industry Broadway League has begun making theater revenues public again after the pandemic, The Music Man has sold a combined $6.7 million, outpacing even Hamilton.
This is perhaps remarkable given the decidedly mixed reviews the production received from theater critics. While there were some genuinely positive notices, others like The New York Times and The New Yorker have shuddered at a production so nostalgic for an idealized version of turn of the 20th century, small town American life.
Personally though, it seems the reasons audiences appear to be wowed night after night, even at exorbitant prices, is precisely because it is not the revisionist deconstruction of a beloved and allegedly problematic text like, say, director Daniel Fish’s bleak 2019 revival of Oklahoma! Rather audiences seem to beam at director Jerry Zaks’ unapologetically mirthful reinvention that embraces the winking absurdity of Meredith’s music, and the fairytale style of 1950s musicals, as opposed to searching for a Trumpian underbelly to Jackman’s Hill: a character who is quite clearly a romanticized grifter who comes to town selling himself as a music teacher for band instruments he can’t play, and for uniforms he doesn’t plan to be around for when the town gets wise that he’s essentially charged them twice.
One of the few modern innovations about the new revival that does work though is the subtle shift in grifter Hill and intellectual Marian’s romance, which now is something more of a screwball battle of equals, with both becoming the bandleader by the end of the show with a new tap dance number that leaves audiences as giddy as they appear in the above video. The finale is infectiously ebullient—and certainly a much savvier update than an actual misguided attempt to rewrite the “Shipoopi!” showstopper into something less problematic, but also fairly toothless.
In fact, at the one performance this writer did attend of The Music Man—from way up in the mezzanine, mind you—we had an excellent view of Jackman going viral again when he surprised Foster with a “Happy Birthday” celebration, which you can see below.
As Jackman previously told Den of Geek, the role of Wolverine is something diehard fans will never let go. But given Harold Hill is the part he’s wanted ever since appearing in the ensemble of his high school production of The Music Man over 30 years ago, it seems he’s already living in his favorite corner of the multiverse.
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