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It's all here. Everything you can imagine and plenty more you can't—so much, in fact, that it makes the Music Hall's vaunted Radio City Christmas Spectacular look conservative enough to chair the Ted Cruz presidential campaign. Grand Central Terminal. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Central Park! The TKTS Booth! Fashion week!! Football, baseball, basketball, and hockey!! The Public Library!!! The top of the Empire State Building!!! The Statue of Liberty!!!! The Easter parade!!!! And, how could one possibly forget, the Rockettes!!!!! Ahem, sorry. But direct exposure to the Spring Spectacular severs all bonds of restraint, even on things as seemingly mundane as punctuation, with regards to anything and everything endemic to New York City. It really is that excited, that unconstrained, that infectious about the subject. So try as you might to resist it, you probably won't be able to. Just sit back and let it all come, and you'll have a glorious, marvelously mindless time. Producer Harvey Weinstein and creative directors Diane Paulus and Randy Weiner knew exactly—exactly—what they were doing with this. What, if anything, that is in dramatic terms, I'm admittedly not sure, even though the book was written by Joshua Harmon, the gifted playwright responsible for the acerbic and insightful Off-Broadway play Bad Jews, and it's been directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, who has plenty of major Broadway musicals to his credit (most recently After Midnight, for which he also performed both roles, and Roundabout's now-running On the Twentieth Century, for which he designed the dances). And though we'll get into more specifics, one suspects it's best to not dwell on such things.
No expense has been spared, no detail overlooked, no budget let bleed into the black. In every way, the evening has been made to live up to its name, even with respect to the guest-star voices (Whoopi Goldberg, Bella Thorne, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler), the on-screen guest star appearances (Donald Trump foremost among them), and the use of film montages. And, how could one possibly forget, the Rockettes, who runway model; splash through a light-footed update of "Singing in the Rain" (which uses more than 500 gallons of water dripping from the flies); embody several ancient cultures that tilt in terpsichorean fashion in the Met; hit the rinks, courts, and fields of the area's sports teams; and kick well above their heads whenever they're given the chance. But unlike with the Christmas Spectacular, those 36 sprightly ladies aren't the stars here (final curtain call aside). For there is an actual (gasp) plot that ties all this together, and it's with those at its center that you'll be spending most of your time. Jack is angel who's sent back to Earth to earn his wings—I know, I know, just bear with me—by helping the aging tour guide Bernie keep his job after his company is bought by the shark-like entrepreneur Jenna, who just can't see past the raw figures that just don't add up. If Jack can convince her that Bernie is of particular worth above and beyond what the spreadsheets say, he'll keep his job and Jack will fly off to happiness. If not... well, best not to think of such things. It ain't Long Day's Journey Into Night, that's for sure. But it doesn't have to be, and it's more than sufficient for uniting all the set-piece performances. And the roles have all been expertly—not boringly—filled. Laura Benanti is luminous and piercingly funny as Jenna, transforming her from buttoned-up woman to effervescent girl with dazzling ease, and being captivating enough in both roles to let us see the merits of both sides of her argument. Her shimmering voice and accomplished dancing make her a rock-solid focal point around whom the entire show is convincingly built, and the humanity and theatricality she brings to it are essential components of the success it enjoys. Lenny Wolpe is a delight, commanding the gigantic stage while keeping grip on the stakes that are supposed to make us care about Bernie (and, against the odds, we sure do). Playing Jenna's number-crunching sidekick is Jared Grimes, who gets just enough in front of his role to make it feel like a comfortable addition to the company. And Hough, a Dancing With the Stars veteran, is silky smooth as Jack, plowing through some of the more challenging choreography and supplying an appealing rough edge to a character who could otherwise be pure saccharine. Needless to say, Hough fits right in. Making something sharp out of something cloying while never totally abandoning that tooth-aching quality is exactly what the Spring Spectacular does—and why it ultimately works despite its piercing one-dimensionality. Like the city it celebrates, it's a show that knows what it is, and makes no excuses or apologies for it. And if it goes overboard, so be it. Whoever said love this passionate was—or even should be—rational?
New York Spring Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall
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