Review: THE BAND'S VISIT Brings Broadway Back to Nashville's Tennessee Performing Arts Center

There is a saying, which is at times variously attributed to the somewhat mysterious and pseudo-anonymous artist Banksy or perhaps to some random guy on a network television series that I've never seen before - but which, for the purpose and intent of my consideration of the power and impact of The Band's Visit, the 10-time Tony Award-winning musical now onstage at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center, is rightly credited to a belief long-held by ancient Egyptians.

It is said that ancient Egyptians, the forebears of the members of the visiting, if fictional and fanciful, band in question (the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra), believed that human beings die not once, but twice. There is the first time, when one takes a final breath, the heart beats one last time that signifies the escape from this mortal coil, and a second time, when that same person's name is spoken for the very last time on this earth. While some may find that belief rather morbid, it seems altogether lovely and appropriate and particularly fitting as I consider the emotions felt and which still reverberate in my own heart in the aftermath of seeing The Band's Visit brought to life on the stage of Andrew Jackson Hall with such abiding humanity and fierce authenticity.

Truth be told, maybe my response to the not necessarily unexpected impact of the production (which features music and lyrics by David Yazbek and book by Itamar Moses, after the screenplay of the 2007 Israeli film by Eran Kourin, directed by David Cromer, with choreography by Patrick McCollum and musical supervision by Andrea Grody and Dean Sharenow) is due to the show being the first in some 600 days to play TPAC's expansive Jackson Hall after a pandemic-induced shutdown. Yet during those dark days without musical theater, there has been other art to enthrall and to entertain, though nothing quite as beautiful as The Band's Visit.

On balance, I'm happy to admit that while I - along with the hundreds of others gathered in the darkened auditorium at TPAC eager to be whisked away by the magic of the theater on opening night - am indeed euphoric as a result, I remain clear-eyed in the knowledge that this particular cultural offering is unique in its storytelling and in the characters who will live for many more years to come until the very last person who remembers experiencing the exhilaration of the return of live Broadway-caliber theater to Nashville speaks their names for the very last time.

There is a symmetry in that reckoning that fills my heart beyond measure, just as certainly as the simple story of an Egyptian police band getting on the wrong bus to the wrong village can inspire hope heretofore unexpressed. In a heartfelt coda that recalls brilliantly a thought expressed at the top of the show, Dina (the leading woman in the piece played so expressively by the luminous Janet Dacal) reminds the audience that the story is probably one of which they are unaware because there is nothing important about it (not the least of which is the fact that it is the pure invention of a writer's imagination), yet in that moment everything that one has experienced during The Band's Visit proves incontrovertibly otherwise.

The musicians and their conductor, Tewfiq (Sasson Gabay warmly recreates onstage the role he first played in the film version that inspired the musical) arrive in the village of Bet Hatikva as the result of miscommunication when Haled's (the band's trumpet player brought to vivid life by Joe Joseph) Egyptian accent doesn't sound quite like "Petah Tikva," their destination. With no other bus available until the following morning, the musicians find refuge with townspeople eager for something different to happen in their lives. The resulting confluence of cultures and personalities might, at first blush, seem rather predictable and somewhat mundane, but as the disparate figures get to know one another, something far more consequential transpires and the Egyptians find common ground and friendship with their Israeli hosts, buffeted by a shared sense of loneliness and melancholy that somehow proves hopeful and redemptive.

Deceptively simple and unassuming, The Band's Visit is quite unlike most Broadway musicals one sees these days. It's not a jukebox musical, it's not based on some Hollywood blockbuster (although it is inspired by a rapturously reviewed movie) and it's not filled with special effects, glittery costumes or glitzy production numbers featuring tap-dancing cutlery. But there is a lovely rotating mirrored ball that casts its starry effects on the stage and in the darkness of the theater to create a sense of magic and to transform the desert setting to something more beautiful..

The Band's Visit is filled with small, intimate moments that allow audiences, regardless of where they are or their own personal experiences, to identify with the characters and their stories. One cannot help but be moved, whether to laughter or to tears, by what happens in the scant one-and-one-half hours of playing time, without an intermission.

Yazbek's music is an intriguing blend of plaintive Egyptian melodies and the coolest of jazz-infused themes ("Omar Sharif," "Haled's Song About Love" and "Papi Hears the Ocean"), with lyrics that are at once enormously clever and genuinely heartrending. Moses' book for the musical somehow manages to craft characters that seem multi-dimensional even as we get to know them in brief, episodic scenes that don't necessarily follow a traditional through-line from start to finish. The aforementioned simplicity of the production is expressed in the gorgeously understated production design that features the exquisitely rendered scenic design by Scott Pask, the extraordinarily evocative lighting design of Tyler Micoleau and the pitch-perfect costumes designed by Sarah Laux.

Cromer's top-flight cast is led by the wonderfully paired Dacal and Gabay, with strong support provided by Joseph as the play's charming second male lead, Clay Singer as Itzik, Yoni Avi Battak as Camal, Coby Getzug as Papi, Kendal Hartse as Iris and David Studwell as Avram. Particular notice should be made of Joshua Grosso, who plays a young man who night after night waits by a pay phone waiting for his girlfriend to call, and who expresses his ardor so beautifully in "Answer Me." When Grosso is joined by the other members of the ensemble and the number swells to a gorgeous crescendo of love, loss, hope and remembrance (if there's a lyric more beautiful than "in my dreams, my beloved lies beside me," I am too awestruck at present to recall it), it is as thrilling a moment in the canon of American musical theater that one could ever possibly hope to experience.

The Band's Visit. Music and lyrics by David Yazbek. Book by Itamar Moses. Based on the screenplay by Eran Kourin. Directed by David Cromer. Choreography by Patrick McCollum. Music supervision by Andrea Grody and Dean Sharenow. Presented at Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Andrew Jackson Hall, Nashville. Through Sunday, October 24. For details, go to www.tpac.org or call (615) 782-4040. Running time: 90 minutes, with no intermission. All audience members 12 and older are required to be masked and to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or to present proof of a negative Covid-19 PCR or antigen test administered within 72 hours of the performance date for all indoor performances and events presented at TPAC.

- photos by Evan Zimmerman