REVIEW ROUND UP: Lost in the Stars

Lost in the Stars, the second Encores! production of the New York City Center season, running February 3 - 6 at City Center, will be directed by Gary Griffin and choreographed by Chase Brock, with music direction by Rob Berman. 

Lost in the Stars, the second and final collaboration between Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, was billed as a "musical tragedy" when it opened on Broadway in 1949. Based on Alan Paton's novel Cry, the Beloved Country, the show provides an uncompromising social indictment of apartheid South Africa through the story of two aging men, one black, one white, brought together by a shared grief. The score, one of Weill's most polystylistic, contains operatic arias, chorales, blues, folk music, and pop tunes, and makes abundant use of the chorus (representing the blacks and whites of Johannesburg) to comment upon the action and propel the story forward. It includes "Stay Well", "Trouble Man," and the haunting title song.

The cast of Lost in the Stars features: Sherry Boone, Daniel Breaker, Kieran Campion, Chuck Cooper, Quentin Earl Darrington, Clifton Duncan, Daniel Gerroll, Jeremy Gumbs, Chike Johnson,Stephen Kunken, Patina Miller, James Rebhorn, Ted Sutherland, John Douglas Thompson andSharon Washington, with Adam Alexander, Sumayya Ali, Alvin Crawford, Andre Garner, Rosena Hill, Mary Illes, Emily Jenda, Amy Justman, Joy Lynn Matthews, Amy McClendon, Andrew McRae,Patricia Phillips, Justin Prescott, Devin Richards, Lindsay Roberts, Nathaniel Stampley, Eric van Hoven, Kevin Vortmann, J.D. Webster, Christian Dante White and Jorell Williams.

Tickets for Lost in the Stars are available at the New York City Center Box Office (West 55th Street between 6th and 7th avenues), through CityTix® at 212-581-1212, or online at www.NYCityCenter.org. Tickets for the Orchestra, Grand Tier and Mid-Mezzanine are $100; tickets for the Rear Mezzanine and Front Gallery are $50; tickets for the Rear Gallery are $25.

Michael Sommers, NJ News Room: "Staged swiftly by Gary Griffin in an animated oratorio-type format upon steps surrounding musical director Rob Berman's keen 12-member orchestra (Weill orchestrated his score for that number), this production keeps the music foremost. Garbed in South African street clothes by Paul Tazewell and led by a dynamic Quentin Earl Darrington, the chorus members blend their voices into powerful resonance."

Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News: "Every Encores! has an MVP. That honor belongs to Jeremy Gumbs ("The Scottsboro Boys"), who plays Stephen's whip-smart nephew, Alex. He turns "Big Mole," a tune about pluck and persistence, into a pure delight. He's a kid with a big voice and a big personality - a winning combo. 

Steven Suskin, Variety: "The mixed results are borne out by the artful but slow-moving production mounted by NY City Center Encores! The score -- half of which is sung by the characters, the rest consisting of numbers by the Greek chorus-like ensemble -- sounds wonderful as performed by Rob Berman's 12-piece orchestra. But the first act, which follows a country preacher's journey to Johannesburg to find his errant son, meanders as he wanders through Shantytown. (During intermission, more than a few theatergoers wandered right out onto 55th Street.)"

Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press: "Weill's songs have an inconsistency of tone as he careens from lush and snappy tunes to stark staccato songs delivered by a Greek-like chorus. The inconsistency is partly because Weill and Anderson appropriated some of this musical's songs from a previous, unfinished collaboration."

Elisabeth Vincentelli, NY Post: "Yet compared to many of today's musicals, "Lost in the Stars" is a masterpiece of articulate eloquence and solid structure that actually sidesteps obvious clichés. The black kid ("Passing Strange" star Daniel Breaker) did kill his white friend, for instance, and his guilt is never in question. The point of the show isn't to question individual faults, but how apartheid poisoned people."

Charles Isherwood, The NY Times: "The majestic beauty of the novel, deriving from Paton's lyrical, impressionistic writing, but more powerfully from the clarity and objectivity of his observation, was sentimentalized and sanitized by Anderson in the musical version. Both the black and white characters have been flattened into two dimensions."

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus