Review: THE MUSIC MAN at Moorestown Theater Company

Marian Paroo:  No, please, not tonight.  Maybe tomorrow.

Harold Hill:  Oh, my dear little librarian.  You pile up enough tomorrows, and you'll find you've collected nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.  I don't know about you, but I'd like to make today worth remembering.

Having reviewed many fine shows from the award-winning Moorestown Theater Company over the years, I must confess that this production of Meredith Wilson’s The Music Man has marched and high-stepped and baton-twirled to the top of my favorites heap.  Directed by Mark Morgan, the Producing Artistic Director of MTC, it involves confidence man Harold Hill who, disguised as a traveling salesman, arrives in River City, Iowa in 1912 and prepares its citizens to join and buy into a nonexistent band.  He plans to skip town without giving any of them music lessons until his foot “gets caught in the door” by librarian and part-time piano teacher Marian Paroo who had his number all along.  Composer, lyricist and playwright Meredith Wilson used memories and characters from his boyhood in Mason City, Iowa, as inspiration for the musical which became a Broadway hit in 1957 that won five Tonys, including Best Musical.  It also became a popular 1962 film starring the great Robert Preston (who reprised the title role from the stage version), Shirley Jones, Hermione Gingold, and Ronny Howard.

Showcased in MTC’s new venue at the First Methodist Church, River City comes alive with a digital backdrop and minimal sets that effectively give the illusion of more.  The cast is divided between a Black and Gold Cast with different actors in the primary roles.  (The Gold Cast performed on the night I attended.)  The period costumes by Carol Ann Murray are particularly splendid and colorful, my favorite being an ornate yellow ensemble worn by and befitting the mayor’s snooty, larger-than-life wife Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn (Renee Walsh in the Gold Cast).  As is characteristic of MTC, there is a high level of professionalism and creativity from top to bottom, from the excellent orchestra which does a full overture (something that has sadly become extinct in current musicals) to the large-scale cast of all ages, including 93-year-old Mary Lee of Las Vegas who is featured unmistakably in the second act and whose family is represented in the show with four generations.  (There are some delightful surprises here and I don’t want to spoil them.)

The con man at the turn of the century, as embodied by Harold Hill, is an intriguing nostalgic figure like mind readers and medicine men.  As one critic put it, Hill is conning the audience almost immediately, hiding in plain sight in the opening scene on a railway car.  He is so adept at charming the pants off his marks, in fact, that he almost gets the mayor to buy a trombone for his son when the mayor doesn’t have a son.  He meets his old friend and former swindler Marcellus Washburn who has “gone legit” and learns that the one person who might see through him is librarian and piano teacher Marian Paroo.  He therefore sets his sights on wooing her to pull the wool over her eyes.  Meanwhile Marian’s shy little brother Winthrop, who barely speaks because of a lisp, is approached to become part of the band with lots of flattery.  Other members of the town are wooed into purchasing phantom music lessons and instruments as well, causing a stir of excitement among the town folk.  In order to hide his musical illiteracy, Hill claims to use the “think” system where if you “think” the note, you don’t have to learn it.  

The Music Man brims with turn-of-the century charm and style, recalling the gentle small-town America of such films as The Ghost and Mr. Chicken and Meet Me in St. Louis.  For an Independence Day tableau, Eulalie dressed as Columbia holds a torch and children wear Indian costumes.  Many of the characters have antagonists.  Traveling salesman Charlie Cowell is determined to expose Harold Hill as an impostor.  Local teen troublemaker Tommy Djilas is secretly seeing the mayor’s daughter against the mayor’s wishes and Hill intercedes on his behalf to get the town’s youth on his side.  The town gossips, slangily known as “gossip hens” and characterized here as “Pickalittle Ladies” (“Pick-A-Little, Talk-A-Little”), spread rumors about Marian.  The mayor wants the school board to get Hills’ credentials but Hill turns it around by refashioning the quarrelsome board into a Barbershop Quartet.  Hill seems to be working his magic with the citizens, but will Charlie Cowell expose him and run him out of town?

As Harold Hill, Tom McHale has the patter, exuberance and confidence of a con man.  With his tall frame clad suitably in a plaid suit, he embodies all the right qualities of Hill, including a twinkle in the eye and raffish likeability.  Often perched atop tables, he clearly is leading the pack like the Pied Piper.  Martha Mercantini as Marian has the right blend of demure softness and quiet strength and makes the audience fall in love with her.  Channel 6 news anchor and reporter Rick Williams shines in every scene he’s in as Marcellus, at this point an alumnus of over 25 MTC productions with bags of character onstage.  The “Barbershop Quartet” (Gary Williams, Randy Weiner, Ken Ambs, Mark Pinzur) and Haley Caruso as Amaryllis are all adorable.  Also notable are Noah Breitenfeld as Winthrop Paroo who slays the number “Gary, Indiana” like a seasoned pro and the aforementioned Renee Walsh as the overbearing Eulalie.  Walsh has possibly the show’s best comedic moments and does them justice, recalling not only Hermione Gingold, but Glynis Johns and character actress Reta Shaw. 

The great score includes high-spirited favorites like “76 Trombones” and the lovely “Till There Was You.”

The Music Man is a feel-good musical for people of all ages and leaves one humming and almost convinced that believing can work miracles.  Who doesn’t want to be sold that bill of goods?

The Music Man is playing July 19, 20 & 21 at 7 PM, July 22 & 23 at 2PM, and July 25, 26 & 27 at 7 PM at the First Methodist Church of Moorestown, 446 E. Camden Avenue, Moorestown, NJ 08057.

Photo credits:  Mark Morgan

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