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    ‘Walk on Through’ Review: Dispatches, in Song, From a Museum Novice

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    In his new show, Gavin Creel sings about the wonders of visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but sticks too close to the surface.The Broadway star Gavin Creel had been a New Yorker for 20 years before he first visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in 2019.He realizes this is embarrassing information. In “Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice,” his new show at MCC Theater, he gets that admission out of the way in the opening number.“I feel ashamed, like I should just go and hide,” he sings. “How have I never been here? Well, I think, it’s anyone’s guess, but it is on the Upper East Side.”It’s a cute joke, and ingratiating in a particularly Manhattanite way — because who among us hasn’t let the prospect of a simple crosstown trip keep us from some cultural treasure that people from all over the world flock here to experience? It’s glib, too, though: the flash of vulnerability swiftly obscured with charm.Superficiality is a bane of this uncertain show, for which Creel wrote the book, lyrics and soft-pop music. Commissioned by the Met’s Live Arts Department, and performed at the museum in 2021, it has the dispiriting feel of an advertisement for the Met’s collections — and despite the dozens of artworks projected upstage, not a persuasive one.Try though Creel does to convince us that he eventually succumbed to the museum’s magic, little of “Walk on Through” seems heartfelt. A lot of it seems forced, as if he is trying to deliver what he thinks is expected in response to the art: profundity, epiphany.“Oh,” he says, after gazing at the idealized lovers in Pierre-Auguste Cot’s oil painting “The Storm,” from 1880, “I am in it now — just swept up in the fantasy of this place.”That bit of dialogue follows one of the better songs, the wistful “What Is This?,” sung principally by the band members Madeline Benson (the show’s music director) and Chris Peters, but it rings hollow.The band, which also includes Scott Wasserman and Corey Rawls (a gorgeous soft touch on the drums), contributes fine work on generally anodyne songs. The two supporting actors are also strong: Ryan Vasquez, mainly as an almost spectral ex; and Sasha Allen with a solo — inspired by Lucas Cranach the Elder’s 16th-century “Judith With the Head of Holofernes” — that feels ripped from a musical-theater epic, and which Creel deflates with a flippant last line.On a set by I. Javier Ameijeiras that suggests the Met’s architecture, with projections by David Bengali and lighting by Jiyoun Chang, it is an odd duck of a show. Directed by Linda Goodrich, it avoids being a lecture, but also identifies little of the art we see. (A wall of images and text just outside the auditorium helps with that.) It casts exploring the collection as a search for self, yet never goes deep.During one number, “Hands on You,” Creel leaps into the aisles to lead the audience in clapping rhythmically along — though at the performance I attended, participation seemed more indulgent than enthusiastic. The song tries hard to be a cheeky celebration of gay male sexuality, but its topic is jejune: vigorous lust for a bevy of ancient marble nudes.Still, “Hands on You” is meant as a riposte to the bountiful Christian imagery in the Met’s galleries — or, rather, to the rejection it connotes for Creel as a gay man. Albrecht Dürer’s “Salvator Mundi” (circa 1505) is the icon of that tension, and the catalyst for the show’s final and best song, “Unfinished World.” Lovely and emotion-filled, it is a prayer of self-acceptance in the face of hostile tradition.Then the projections of artworks start up again, killing the moment, and the show ends as it began: as an advertisement.Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum NoviceThrough Jan. 7 at MCC Theater, Manhattan; mcctheater.org. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. More

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      ‘Into the Woods’ Review: Do You Believe in Magic?

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      The Encores! revival of this fairy-tale musical, with songs by Stephen Sondheim, arrives on Broadway with its humor, wonder and humanity intact.After the woods and the wolf and the dark and the knife, Little Red Riding Hood has learned a thing or two. In the first act of “Into the Woods,” while modeling a cloak made from the wolf’s pelt, she shares her wisdom. Be prepared, she advises in “I Know Things Now.” Watch out for strangers. Stephen Sondheim’s bone-dry lyrics supply one more maxim: “Nice,” Little Red concludes, “is different than good.”True. But isn’t it splendid when a work of musical theater is absolutely both?Lear deBessonet’s superb production of the Sondheim and James Lapine modern classic “Into the Woods,” which originated at Encores! in May, has made the journey west and south to Broadway. Despite some cast changes, its humor, wonder and humanity have arrived intact. Indeed, they may glimmer even more brightly at the St. James Theater than they did at City Center. So if you saw that recent staging, should you go into the woods again? Unless your budget doesn’t run to Broadway prices, of course you should. To put it another way: Wishes come true, not free.A pastiche of a half-dozen Perrault and Brothers Grimm fairy tales, “Into the Woods” debuted at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego in 1986 and on Broadway the following year. It had a respectful Broadway revival, directed by Lapine, in 2002, and a misbegotten stint at Shakespeare in the Park in 2012. Disney adapted it into a pretty, somewhat empty live action film in 2014. For decades it has remained a favorite among high school drama clubs though many of those clubs stage only the first act, when happily ever after seems possible.As Sondheim and Lapine knew, a happy ending depends on where you stop the story. Turn enough pages and death puts in an appearance, disillusion, too. Perhaps this seems like a grim lesson from a show with Cinderella (Phillipa Soo), Jack the Giant Killer (Cole Thompson) and Little Red Riding Hood (Julia Lester) among its central characters. But if you reread those original tales, they skew pretty dark. Of Sondheim’s work, only “Sweeney Todd” has a comparable body count. Yet somehow its tone is hopeful.The cast of “Into the Woods,” includes, from left: Kennedy Kanagawa (with Milky White), Cole Thompson, Brian d’Arcy James, Joshua Henry, Patina Miller, Phillipa Soo, David Patrick Kelly, Sara Bareilles and Lester.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesA work of giddy playfulness and moral seriousness, “Into the Woods” forges a path from innocence into experience. It asks its characters (the surviving ones, anyway) to exchange the narcissism of childhood — the wishing, the wanting — for a more nuanced ethical framework that emphasizes interdependence. This is the message of the show’s heartbreaker ballad, “No One Is Alone,” which Sondheim articulated even more directly in a 1991 PBS interview. “We are all responsible for each other,” he said.The mood at the St. James on a recent evening did not, however, suggest deep moral inquiry. And judging by the hats worn indoors, the masks not worn at all and at least one surreptitious phone camera, everyone was handling responsibility a little differently. So what were the vibes? Pleasure, anticipation, celebration. When the lights came up, the crowd screamed and screamed and screamed. I expected panties — or given the source material, the occasional dancing slipper — to be thrown at the stage.DeBessonet’s staging, refined but little altered from the Encores! outing, uses only a wide set of stairs and a downstage strip in front of them. The set, designed by David Rockwell, with storybook lighting by Tyler Micoleau, sketches a forest in the simplest terms — descending birch trunks, a rising moon. Behind the actors, sit the musicians, conducted by the invaluable Rob Berman. If your eye should stray from the actors — a big if — you can watch them implement the chiming score, magic made visible.If the production’s style is minimal, it is never austere and on this mostly blank canvas, deBessonet, aided by Lorin Latarro’s playful choreography, paints in rich and plentiful tones. Kindness is a watchword of deBessonet’s work, as seen in her many Public Works productions. A recognition of shared humanity, too. Here it seems to extend everywhere, to actors and audience both. I have rarely seen a show in which the cast had this much fun. In the case of Gavin Creel, who went up on the second verse of “Any Moment” and covered — sort of — by kissing his co-star Sara Bareilles, arguably too much fun. Throughout there is a feeling of largess that only occasionally shades into indulgence. And honestly, some of that indulgence (as in “Agony,” sung to pieces by Creel and his co-prince, Joshua Henry) is a joy, too.Bareilles as the Baker’s Wife and James as the Baker. “Together they find some fine rhythms in the roles of a married couple only beginning to know each other,” our critic writes.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBareilles’s performance as the Baker’s Wife has only grown, beanstalk-like, since the Encores! production. Best known as a singer-songwriter and the composer of “Waitress,” she has more recently established herself as a comic actor on “Girls5Eva.” Here, her comedy has both broadened and deepened. While she and Neil Patrick Harris had a wild, nervy chemistry at Encores!, she is now partnered by the mellower Brian d’Arcy James. Together they find some fine rhythms in the roles of a married couple only beginning to know each other.Soo, a shimmering soprano who can make each emotion as legible as skywriting, gracefully replaces Denée Benton. (Benton replaced her in “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” when it moved to Broadway; fair’s fair.) And Patina Miller, replacing Heather Headley, renders the Witch with a fierce, dangerous glamour, trading Headley’s initial restraint for more ardent shadings. On this recent evening, the puppeteer Kennedy Kanagawa was out sick, but his understudy, Cameron Johnson, was an able herdsman for Jack’s pal, Milky White. That cow still kills. And the children’s chorus is gone. Thank God.During the second act, I worried — though worry is too strong a word — that maybe this production had become too funny, too lightsome. The devastations of the second act didn’t flatten me the way they had two months ago. But really, who wants flattening right now? Instead this show values resilience, connection.At the end, once Soo had trilled the final ambivalent syllables, the audience leaped to its collective feet. The actors bowed and curtsied and smiled. The rest of us clapped and clapped.No one was alone.Into the WoodsThrough Aug. 21 at the St. James Theater, Manhattan; intothewoodsbway.com. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes. More

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      ‘Into the Woods’ Review: Some Enchanted Evening

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      Sara Bareilles and Neil Patrick Harris lead a starry Encores! revival of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s sweet-sour musical.For nearly three decades, the Encores! concert series at New York City Center has upheld a specific mission — excavating the hidden gems of American musical theater, burnishing them to a fully orchestrated shine. Which makes the fractured fairy tales of “Into the Woods,” Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s sweet-sour 1986 musical, a peculiar choice. (Let’s just say that when Rob Marshall has directed a star-crammed film version of a show within the last decade, it is no longer a hidden gem.)But that mission has expanded, unearthing something as glorious as Lear deBessonet’s revival. Her “Into the Woods” runs through May 15; only a few tickets remain. So if you know a spell to charm the secondary market, cast it now.The show, as ever, collides characters drawn from a half-dozen tales in the European folk tradition — Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack the Giant Killer, a prince or two. At its whirling center are a humble baker (Neil Patrick Harris, with down-to-the-millisecond comic timing) and his wife (the Grammy-winning singer and songwriter and recent Broadway baby Sara Bareilles, no slouch). Desperate for a child, they heed the witch next door (Heather Headley, a diva in a frowzy wig and claws) and head into the forest — here, a bare stage ornamented with the set designer David Rockwell’s elegant birch trunks. Within three nights they must obtain a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn and a slipper as pure as gold.This color-blocked quest overlaps with those of Little Red (Julia Lester, pert and twinkling), waylaid by a seductive wolf (Gavin Creel, sleazy and flawless), and the moony Jack (Cole Thompson, sweet and dreamy), forced by his mother (the comic genius Ann Harada) to sell the cow that he loves too much. Separated in the woods, the baker and his wife have other encounters. The baker meets a mysterious man (the downtown stalwart David Patrick Kelly, who doubles as the narrator). His wife befriends Cinderella (Denée Benton, luminous, with a crystalline soprano), on the run from a pursuing prince (Creel again).From left, Gavin Creel, David Turner, Ann Harada, Bareilles and Harris in Lear deBessonet’s revival of the Sondheim-Lapine musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWhen tales have circulated since the premodern era, it’s no spoiler to say that they all end happily. Cinderella gets her prince. Rapunzel (Shereen Pimentel, mellow in an underwritten role) gets hers (Jason Forbach, in for Jordan Donica). Little Red and her grandmother (Annie Golden) are released from the wolf’s stomach. Jack, now rich, reunites with his cow (expertly puppeteered by Kennedy Kanagawa). But that only brings us to intermission. And unease already glimmers, firefly-like, among the trees.In “Maybe They’re Magic,” the baker’s wife interrogates the ethics of ambition. Characters weigh personal desire against the needs of the greater community. And as in Sondheim shows like “Merrily We Roll Along,” “Gypsy” and “Sweeney Todd,” they wrestle with the question of whether getting what you want is actually good for you. What if you get what you wish and you still want more? What if the wish come true isn’t really worth what it cost you?The second act darkens and destabilizes these tales. It’s a truism that a happy ending depends on stopping a story at just the right moment. “Into the Woods” insists on continuing straight past happily ever after, exploring the repercussions of those Act I choices and offering new and somewhat more abstract conflicts. The priority shifts from the individual to the collective as characters band together to save the kingdom and themselves. That should feel at least as propulsive as gathering potion ingredients. Instead it feels theoretical, a filigreed representation of the classic trolley problem. Should the characters deliberately sacrifice one person — Jack — or do nothing and allow many others to die?This more philosophical turn has bothered many critics. If I’m honest, it bothers me. But I can still remember myself 30 years ago, wearing out the VHS tape of the original Broadway version, which PBS aired as part of its “American Playhouse” series. The conflicts didn’t feel abstract to me then. Keying into the emotional force underlying them — the wanting, the regret — I understood the musical’s questions of right and wrong, and the very murky moral territory in between, the way children do: intuitively and very personally.From left, Heather Headley, Julia Lester, Cole Thompson, Denée Benton and Harris in the show’s second act, which darkens and destabilizes the fairy tales.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesNow I understand them differently: as conjectures and hypotheticals. But that doesn’t make them any less urgent. The last two years, maybe the last six years, maybe more, have emphasized the stark divisions in American life, isolating us in our individual experiences of suffering and perceived injustice. But these same years have offered galvanizing examples of mutual care and aid, a mode echoed in the ballad “No One Is Alone,” which argues for support and understanding despite differences.If I were a betting woman, I would hazard that’s the aspect of “Into the Woods” that appealed to deBessonet, the artistic director of Encores! and an artist with a long history of community engagement and activism. Unlike the other Encores! shows of the season — “The Tap Dance Kid” and “The Life,” both of which received contested updates — “Into the Woods” arrives largely unchanged. And no longueur or flubbed cue breaks the spell of her compassionate, witty production. She has cast wonderful comedians, many of whom are also wonderful singers, and has encouraged them to deliver rich and very human performances, accented by Lorin Lattaro’s friendly, organic choreography and Rob Berman’s splendid music direction.The show ends with a musical combo punch — “No One Is Alone,” “Children Will Listen” — an absolute T.K.O. to anyone who argues that Sondheim’s pleasures are intellectual alone. (It’s a deeper cut, but the preceding song, “No More,” an existential body blow, prepares the way, too.) For “Children Will Listen,” led by Headley, with superb, sinuous phrasing, deBessonet suddenly swells the cast with 70 or so supernumeraries, children and seniors singing along.The night I saw it, not all of that singing was precisely on key, and the child nearest me overacted wretchedly. But I found myself crying without really knowing why. For the child I was, I suppose. And the child I am. And the mother now, also. I listened. I am still listening. You should, too.Into the WoodsThrough May 15 at New York City Center, Manhattan; nycitycenter.org. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes. More

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      Gavin Creel Lets His Imagination Run Wild With Gay Stories and House Music

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      The actor, singer and songwriter, whose new show is inspired by the Met, talks about finding clarity with Yung Pueblo and the spiritual aspects of Grape-Nuts.Gavin Creel was about to come clean, despite his agent’s worry that it might make him sound like an idiot: Until January 2019, after living in New York for 20 years, he had never set foot inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art.“But I’m not an idiot, and it is also the truth,” countered Creel, who won a Tony Award for “Hello, Dolly!” on Broadway and an Olivier for “The Book of Mormon” on London’s West End.That truth is the basis for “Walk on Through,” a program of 16 original songs inspired by hours of meandering through the museum on a quest for art that spoke to him, and the opener of the MetLiveArts season on Oct. 25.In only a few visits, Creel discovered that color, light, sex and story captivated him. “If it doesn’t have something or all of those things, I usually just kind of walk by,” he said. “I started finding myself having a dialogue of, ‘What do you have to say to me, Edward Hopper? What do you have to say to me, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux or Jules Breton or Jan Steen?’”“It’s basically letting myself have a relationship with them and remembering that I don’t have to react in a certain way,” he said of the preconceptions about class, wealth and education that had kept him away. “Maybe that sounds obvious, but it wasn’t obvious to me.”Creel had just attended the opening of “Six” on Broadway and momentarily questioned where or even if he might fit into the post-Covid-19 landscape before suddenly changing tack. “If you want to know what I’m doing, I will be doing a summer workshop of this piece, and then I will be workshopping it off Broadway and then bringing it to Broadway spring of 2023,” he said with the conviction of someone who wills their aspirations into existence. “That’s literally what this is about. It’s like, ‘Have the courage to dream.’”In a video interview from his Upper West Side apartment, Creel spoke about a few of the things instrumental in turning those dreams into reality, including Yung Pueblo’s books, Jacob Collier’s music and the morning pages with which he begins each day. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. “Clarity & Connection” by Yung Pueblo Jo Lampert, who’s an amazing singer, exposed me to “Inward,” which was Yung Pueblo’s first book. It’s all about meditative thinking and affirmation and doing the healing. His big thing — it’s not a new thought, but the way he says it is so powerful — is to change the world, you have to change yourself. “Clarity & Connection” is his new book, and I found it even more helpful because it’s a lot about coming into, sustaining and going out of a relationship. He says: “I took fear by the hand. I acknowledged its existence. And then I thanked it for showing me that my happiness does not lie within its walls.” And I was like, “OK, Yung Pueblo, you better break it down.”2. The “Don’t Think. Just Eat.” menu at Sugarfish It is the greatest sushi I have ever had. It’s not cheap, but they bring the most tender, flavorful, beautifully made, artfully presented fresh fish and warm rice. It’s annoying because they don’t take reservations. One of the silver linings of the pandemic is that when they opened back up, there was never a line. And now I go and they have an hour and 45-minute wait, and I’m like, “All right, put me on the list.” It’s worth the wait.3. Grape-Nuts Every day. It’s almost spiritual for me. During the pandemic, they stopped making them. There was a manufacturing shortage. I panicked. So I got on Amazon, and I bought 12 boxes of Grape-Nuts. I spent a ridiculous amount of money. It’s simplicity. It’s substance.4. “Sex and the City” I’ve done this like three times before, but I recently watched “Sex and the City” from start to finish. Something about this time hit me in such a powerful way. I think it’s because I’m 45. I’m in the middle of a midlife crisis. I don’t call it a crisis — it’s like a midlife awakening — but I’m here. There’s some complicated stuff in there that’s dated, that they absolutely would not do now. But what they say about love and owning sex positivity and owning emotion — and frankly communicate it in a way that men can never do — I just found so empowering.5. Jacob Collier’s “Djesse Vol. 3” I offered a class to the graduating class of 2020 at the University of Michigan, which is my alma mater, and in the beginning, I asked them, “What are you listening to?” A bunch of them were listening to Jacob Collier, who I’d never heard of. The music he writes is not instantly palatable in a lot of ways. His mind has a million words, a million things. But hearing him really gave me permission to allow any instinct to exist.6. Morning Pages I did “The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path To Higher Creativity” this year with my friends Benj Pasek, who wrote “Dear Evan Hansen” and “The Greatest Showman,” and Shoshana Bean, who is a brilliant songwriter and actress. The morning pages are what Julia Cameron says you must do. I do it every day, three pages, longhand, stream-of-consciousness. It’s like the brain dump in the morning.7. Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s “Ugolino and His Sons” at The Met Sculptors to me are like ballet dancers are to dance. It’s like, “How do you do that? That’s magic.” One of the sons’ hands is resting, and it is completely relaxed yet it is solid marble. There’s sexuality and sensuality in the smoothness of their skin, their musculature, the veining in their arms, the panic as [another son] is pressing his father’s leg. There’s so much emotion in the stone.8. Thé Noir 29 by Le Labo Every time I write, I try to light a candle and have it sitting next to me, not just for the energy of an element but because the smell helps me get into a space of magic or wonder. I was in Nordstrom’s and I smelled this Thé Noir, and it was so specific and beautiful to me. It’s really expensive for a little water to spray on your skin. But this is more a statement to treat myself to something that I wouldn’t normally buy and to carry with me something that can set my brain free.9. “Beat Like This” by Bleu Clair and OOTORO I love listening to electronica and dance music in my free time because it makes my imagination go in a million directions. I was doing my workout in the morning, listening to the house channel on Apple Music, and this song came on. And it is the best beat drop I have ever heard. It accelerates up to where you think it’s going to drop in, which is an amazing thing for the dance floor, but it comes in four beats later. If you listen with headphones on to this track, it’s like the fattest, thickest — it almost sucks the sound out of your ears. It is so hot.10. Bob Smith’s “Selfish & Perverse” Bob Smith, I’m proud to say, was a friend of mine. He was the first out gay comic on “The Tonight Show.” He fought ALS for more than 10 years and was so courageous and kept his sense of humor and wrote books when he lost the ability to talk and use his hands. This was his first novel, about this gay guy who goes to Alaska after a breakup to study salmon fishing because he’s going to write a TV show. And while he’s there, the really hot guy who’s going to play the lead in the show comes up, and it’s so sexy. It was the first time I felt like I read a novel that was for me because I always have to code switch and imagine what love would look like based on the movies that I watch. It’s so rare that our stories are told, given time, given money. And I say it’s imperative that gay stories are told, and told well. More