In the classic musical “Brigadoon,” the Scottish townspeople who inhabit the mysterious town of the title keep referring to “the miracle,” which confounds the two American travelers who stumble across it one dark and shroudy night. Our two Yank interlopers spend some time puzzling over what that supernatural secret might be, before all is revealed in a burst of fantastical exposition toward the end of Act 1.
At Pasadena Playhouse, where a revival of the 1947 musical is occurring, some of the audience may already have a different miracle in mind, unrelated to any mystical Scottish hokum coming up in the plot. That would be the miracle of how work this wonderful is continually being done in humble Pasadena, on a Broadway scale. (And “at popular prices!,” to borrow a phrase once used for cinematic road shows back in the ’50s, when the “Brigadoon” movie came out.) If some version of this should make it to Broadway — and it ought to — you’d be paying several times as much, in an auditorium at least a couple of times as large, to see what’s currently being realized as a perfectly intimate epic on the outskirts of L.A. The M-word doesn’t seem like so great an exaggeration.
The funny thing is that it was starting to look like the town of Brigadoon might actually pop up again sooner than anyone would see a Broadway revival happen. All right, so it’s not threatening to be a once-every-100-years pop-up just yet, but it has been 46 years since the Lerner-Loewe classic last got a big New York production, so we’re kind of bordering on a half-Brigadoon having ensued there. It’s easy to tick down some reasons for that. For one thing, nobody truly loves the 1954 movie, which is frequently recapped with the summary: “It just doesn’t work.” (I would also argue that it’s not actually terrible, but “not terrible” is not the recommendation you want for a Vincente Minnelli film starring Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse.) But the Hollywood adapters couldn’t be blamed for everything that seemed inherently clunky or, by now, dated about the musical’s book, parts of which were bound to leave a contemporary audience grimacing a little between all the grins the score provokes.
Enter “Brigadoon’s” saviors in the present moment: script adapter Alexandra Silber, who sought and got permission from the Lerner-Loewe estate to substantially freshen up the book, and director-choreographerKatie Spelman, who gives a hell of a good name to theatrical multi-hyphenates. The good news is, they’ve treated “Brigadoon” like a new musical, in a lot of ways. The even better news is, it doesn’t feel like a new musical. That compliment is intended just in terms of how, if you come in as a novice to the show, nothing sticks out that shouts “contemporary rethink.” Of course faithful musical buffs will hyper-focus on what’s been change… and honestly, that’s part of the fun, right? But a single reference to modern technology might be the only obvious tip-off to newbies that this isn’t strictly a 1940s text. You could debate some of the individual tweaks. But the upshot is, this update gets a few things right that might have been difficult to nail 80 years ago, without betraying any of the things that were already indisputably on-point.
Anyway, there’s no tweak like the perennial tweak of casting, and boy, does this production put a pin in that. The support cast is delightful to the last chorus member, including the biggest marquee name, Tyne Daly, who has the smallish but pivotal role of the town’s de facto overseer and explainer, Widow Lundie (a character that, for the previous 79 years, was Mr. Lundie, i.e., a man). But if you’re going to leave this production “humming the actors” as well as the score, that’s primarily down to its romantic leads, Betsy Morgan as Fiona and Max von Essen as Tommy. To say that they create a rooting interest in love transcending time warps is an understatement: They very much take the “almost” out of “Almost Like Being in Love.”
Even if you never had a chance to catch up with the show in summer stock (or on TCM), you may well have a loose sense of the plot basics, given its former ubiquity in popular culture. (Which maybe isn’t altogether in the past, if the presence of a comedy called “Schmigadoon” on Broadway right now is any indication.) More than 90% of the action takes place in the Scottish Highlands — or its intersection with the Twilight Zone — starting with the very first scene, where von Essen’s Tommy and his hiking sidekick, Happy Anderson as Jeff, are on a middle-of-the-night walkabout. Tommy is sober; Jeff’s a wisecracking alcoholic who seems to have twice emptied out a flask before the first scene is over. But it’s no boozy vision when they both hear a chorus in the distance and follow it to find a waking township that is preparing for a wedding, ready to party like it’s 1729.
Daniel Yearwood is hoisted up by the ensemble of Alexandra Silber’s revision of Brigadoon, directed and choreographed by Katie Spelman, at Pasadena Playhouse.
Jeff Lorch
It’s when Tommy and Jeff finally get a gander at some birthdays and wedding dates inscribed in a Bible that get a glimmer of the crazy truth: that their respective romantic interests are serious cougars, being 300 years older than they are. (That’s an upgrade from the mere two-century age difference in the original text.) These townspeople are so welcoming, they seem almost cheerfully eager to give up their secret, but they put off the task of explaining the backstory to the Widow Lundie. She informs them that the village’s late minister made a deal with God to isolate it from encroachment from the outside world by basicaly putting everyone into a deep sleep in the ether, destined to reappear only once every hundred years.
There is not too much discussion of how nutty a pastor would have to be to propose that deal, or how much crazier a God might be to accept it. Better not to dwell on that, since the only character who does is the ostensible villain, Harry (Spencer Milford), who has reacted the way most of us would if we were told that trying to visit the big city would result in the demise of everyone and everything we know. Harry’s also got an insane passion for an ingenue he can never have, in a plot device that seems a little bit borrowed from “Oklahoma!” and its maladjusted Curly.
In the end, you don’t have to worry too much about the stalker subplot (although Milford does a terrific job of humanizing Harry, to where you hope Brigadoon won’t have to build a one-man psych ward). The only conflict “Brigadoon” is interested in is the one between cynicism and romaticism. That’s hardly a fair fight, once Tommy and Fiona start getting moony over one another, which is right away. In this production, we can’t get to “The Heather on the Hill’ fast enough; for as long as they’re picking flowers, we really are in the company of bliss. Although you wouldn’t guess it from the masterful way the romance plays out here, it wasn’t always so easy to get invested in these two. Tommy used to start off as a more callow twentysomething before he fell for Fiona, but in this adaptation the principals are apparently in their 40s, and von Essen seems softer and slightly wiser from the start. There’s an even greater benefit to aging Fiona up a little it, so that she’s no longer the ingenue who seemed so less knowing than her big-city suitor, singing “Waitin’ for My Dearie.” Morgan gives off the mature aura of someone who’ll be fine with or without a dearie, the rather finite nature of the town’s marriage material would suggest she’s already realized that won’t be happening, which is OK. Watching Morgan’s smile grow increasingly warm under von Essen’s gaze is about as heartmelting a thing as you could see on a stage.
And what eventually emerges from these two actors’ mouths, as they get their big, balladic moments, is mind-blowing. It’s good that Morgan and von Essen start off a bit more reserved in volume than they eventually become; the arrangements allow the audience to experience them as human for a little bit before they quickly turn out to be superheroes, vocally speaking.
Max von Essen plays Tommy, and Betsy Morgan plays Fiona Alexandra Silber’s revision of Brigadoon, directed and choreographed by Katie Spelman, at Pasadena Playhouse.
Jeff Lorch
The biggest amount of fixing that Silber has done to the book has been to redeem what were by far the two most annoying characters in the show, Jeff and Meg (Donna Vivino), who were pitted previously in a comedic secondary romance. That might be stretching it, actually; at worst, Meg could be played as a nymphomaniac who refused to take no for an answer from an American who could never get drunk enough to kiss rather than insult her. Meg is now the proprietess of the only tavern in town (or in the universe, actually, by the plot’s rules), and she runs it well — just as Vivino turns “The Love of My Life” into an action-packed, first-act rave-up that would be an overshadowing show-stopper in a less sturdy vehicle. However much you might have seen “Brigadoon” before, you’ve probably never seen a version that made you wish Lerner & Loewe had built a whole separate sequel just around Meg.
Given that it was a pair of talented women doing the major retooling here, it shouldn’t be a complete surprise that this is a “Brigadoon” whose attitude toward women doesn’t seem 200 or 300 years old. And so beyond giving Fiona some maturity, and giving Meg a huge measure of agency that outstrips her lust, they’ve added an additional woman character, with the town historian and sage now played by Daly. Of course an actress of her stature has been given more to do than the actors who previously played
“Mr.” Lundie did; Daly appears, singing, at the very top of the show, before she delivers all that storytelling in the middle and offers the final words of sagacity in the end. Daly is expert at knowing how a little bit of gravitas and a lot of good will can go hand in hand. And it’s good to hear her in a musical, too, even if this part offers less than a twentieth of the singing she had to do when she won her Tony for “Gypsy” back in 1990.
On the surface, there’s not really that much accomplished by making that character a man, other than having a good excuse to squeeze a marquee actress into the production. But although there’s never anything hamfisted about this, you may start to notice how, now that the Widow Lundie and Meg are the most accomplished or assertive figures in town, Brigadoon might actually be surviving the centuries so well because it’s a little bit of a… matriarchy. (Sssh, don’t tell the anti-woke brigade.)
Kylie Victoria Edwards and Daniel Yearwood in ‘Brigadoon’ at the Pasadena Playhouse
Jeff Lorch
We haven’t even gotten to the Briga-dancing. The choreography, created by Spelman (with a nod in the credits to the inspiration of ’40s originator Agnes DeMille), includes two full-on mini-ballets, both involving minor characters who get a major, extended dance moment. Both of these non-sung time-outs are astonishingly good. The first involves the two betrothed lovers who are to be wed that night, Charlie (Daniel Yearwood) and Jean (Kylie Victoria Edwards). He is chivalrously determined to honor the tradition of not seeing the bride on their wedding day, but also, the heart wants what it wants, and so he blindfolds himself to participate in a gorgeous pas de deux with his fiancée. It doesn’t seem possible that any couple will take our minds or hearts off Fiona and Tommy, but through his singing of “Come to Me, Bend to Me” and the instrumental passage that follows, “Brigadoon” gets to be their story.
Things get darker with “The Funeral Dance,” a solo piece in the second act performed (and choreographed) by Jessica Lee Keller. Her character of Maggie is described here as already made mute from personal loss before she experiences yet another one, but she lets the grief all hang out in a dance performance that seems nearly as feral as it is balletic. As originally conceived by DeMille, it was nearly a dream ballet number, in the tradition of the ones she’d just done in “Oklahoma!” and “Carousel,” even if the other characters are standing around to wakingly witness it. Keller and Spelman do real honor to that here, even if any production of “Brigadoon” isn’t going to go grim for long.
The other two big dance numbers follow a more traditional Broadway route toward full-case rabble-rousing, but with what feels like at least a partly authentically Scottish twist — the big Meg-led production number in the pub early on, and then a group swords dance that gives the troubled Harry a chance to be remarkably nimble before he breaks bad.
Some of the text’s biggest departures come to the fore in the penultimate scene. (Warning: minor spoilers ahead.) The action shifts to New York for just one extended sequence, set in a bar, where Tommy and Jeff reunite to discuss their more mundane lives in the months since their day in Brigadoon. In previous versions, Tommy had a fiancée he finally calls it quits with at this point, but in this rendering, that other woman doesn’t even exist; he’s just a wandering soul without any female ties. That simplifies things — so we don’t have to worry about the fiancée being portrayed as a shrew — but it also makes it slightly more puzzling why Tommy is so torn about whether to stay in Brigadoon or leave, if he doesn’t have anyone waiting back home. The really radicalized piece here is the Jeff of late Act 2, who is now a completely sober voice of conscience, with a backstory that explains his cynicism. Having Jeff not just be an obnoxious drunk is a refreshing switch, but his final big scene plays on too long; he’s kind of like the new AA convert who shows up at a kegger and can’t stop lecturing about the 12 steps. It’s hardly fatal, though — and the NYC scene really benefits from a bit of additional stunt casting that it would be a shame to spoil.
There is a lot of heavy machinery at work behind the magic, from Brad Gardner leading an actual 20-piece orchestra (unseen till the end at the rear of the stage, presumably being too big for the pit) to Jason Sherwood’s scenic design to Raquel Adorno’s costumes. But this is a “Brigadoon” that never lets you see anyone sweat, in front of or behind those Highlands.
No doubt there will be some who come to this show and walk away feeling like pre-sobriety Jeff, wondering what all the sentiment and woo-woo is about. The mist won’t get in everyone’s eyes. But Lerner & Loewe bore twin messages with this show, one being about the power of sacrifice and the other being a pure testament to true love. Whichever aspect of those themes you may latch onto, the final moments can add up to a transporting experience. And you don’t even have to make a weird deal with God; you just have to show up at California’s 100-year-old state theater. It’s definitely like being in luck.
