At the Princess of Wales Theatre, Toronto, Ont.
Music by Tom Kitt
Book and Lyrics by Brian Yorkey
Directed by Michael Greif
Choreographed by Larry Keigwin
Set by Mark Wendland
Costumes by Emily Rebholz
Lighting by Kenneth Posner
Sound by Brian Ronan
Projection Design by Peter Nigrini and Dan Scully
Cast: Jackie Burns
Mark Delacruz
Janine DiVita
Tamyra Gray
Daren A. Herbert
Matthew Hydzik
Anthony Rapp
A musical for our times about thirty-somethings who are busy, concerned, insecure and self-absorbed that is loud and relentless.
Elizabeth frets about everything. She looks at things that happen to her from all sides and wonders and ponders and imagines, what if…..she just happens to meet a soldier in the park, home on leave. They form a friendship. Then a love affair and it goes from there. But then she thinks, what if….she was an hour later to the park, then something else would have happened and she wonders about that too.
In fact there are three men in Elizabeth’s life: Josh, the soldier, Lucas an old friend from college and Stephen and up and coming bureaucrat in the Mayor’s office in New York. She goes through every story in every iteration using the phrase if/then (If this happens then that is the result). So each variation on a relationship and happening is repeated three times.
All the characters are well-meaning and want to do good. They are conflicted by relationships and love. They fret. They worry that they are not shaping up. They sing about it in every conceivable way.
It’s a musical for our times in that every feeling is dissected, examined, explained, revealed and repeated in the clever lyrics by Brian Yorkey and a score by Tom Kitt that is relentless in its throbbing, pulsing sameness. And why is it so loud? It’s so over-amplified that you can hardly make out the lyrics—I heard that more than once from patrons at my performance. Yorkey worked hard writing the lyrics; shouldn’t we actually be able to make them out without having our ears burst?
Michael Greif’s staging is a swirl of constant movement, whether it’s Mark Wendland’s set, or the characters rushing from one crisis to another, or a chorus who flip and dance in the background.
The cast is made up of a group of accomplished New York/Broadway actors/singers. Jackie Burns as Elizabeth has pipes like a steel rod and nails those high notes with confidence. She sings with ease and anguish as Elizabeth and has good acting chops. Anthony Rapp as Lucas has a lock on that insecure, shy, awkward character who is always the girl’s best friend but that’s it. And when he meets the man of his dreams, he’s still unsure. Matthew Hydzik is strong-voiced and charming as Josh. He is sensitive, decisive and patient.
If/Then a musical that wants to be about something serious. Frankly its relentlessness and loudness gave me a headache.
Full review on CIUT FRIDAY MORNING, 89.5 fm from 9 am to 10 am Friday, April 22, 2016.