Perhaps the most important thing I can communicate to you with this review is that, if you know and like Little Women: The Musical in the abstract, I can imagine no reason whatsoever that you would not enjoy it as concretized currently by Musical Theatre West. From director and cast to music and mise en scène, this is a staging without any flaws to speak of.
Far less important to communicate is my difficulty in imagining how adults can really enjoy this material, regardless of how well it’s performed.
Teenage Jo March (Jenna Lea Rosen) is full of fire, ambition, and prone to flights of fancy. Determined to be a famous author and travel the world, for now her ambit barely extends beyond the New England home she shares with her mother (Tami Tappan Damiano) and three sisters (Jordan Cruz, Katie Rosen, and Haven Watts), their father being off fighting for the Union Army. Over the course of the next couple/few years, Jo will find a best friend, move to New York, lose a sister, gain a fiancé, and get published.
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is a prototypical Bildungsroman, a “novel of education/formation.” Over the course of several hundred pages, narrator Jo comes of age before our eyes, going from a precocious but callow girl of 15 to a 30-year-old married schoolmaster with two children of her own.
It is also, if not purely a piece of children’s lit, certainly fit for any college course so named. But despite its relatively juvenile quality (not meant disparagingly here [sidenote: Musical Theatre West is staging five free matinees for kids as young as grade 7, which is great]), Reason #1 I don’t like this material is that Allan Knee’s book actually dumbs down Alcott’s text. Take the humor. Jo uses the exclamation “Christopher Columbus!” just once in the novel, but Knee finds it so funny (I imagine him tee-heeing every time Robin says “Holy cow, Batman!” in the campy ‘60s TV series) that we’re barely out of intermission before he’s got her into double-digits. In terms of dramatic action, the timeline is so compressed/confused that you’re best off ignoring it. Then there’s how two of the three male characters who heavily impact Jo’s life (Laurie and Fritz) are so disemboweled that it’s hard to understand why Jo especially cares about either of them. (The third — her father — has been excised entirely, which undercuts Alcott’s protofeminist move of portraying a Civil War-era family where the father and mother are equals.)
Reason #2 is the music. Not only are there no standout songs, but Jason Howland has managed to cobble together an entire musical more or less devoid of hooks. Several tunes meander so notably that I was reminded of how Howard Stern used to make fun of musical theatre by putting on generic instrumentals and sing extemporaneously about whatever topic was at hand.
Reason #3 is Mindi Dickstein’s lyrics, of which the less said the better, but e.g.: “We were under the Bridge of Sighs—” “—in a gondola” / “She was singing lullabies” / “He said he likes the way I sing” / “The day was ours” / “We talked for hours” / “It was amazing!” / I said, ‘I love fireflies!’” / “I said, ‘So do I!’” / “I told him I hate goodbyes” / “There was something in her eyes” / “I swear that bells began to ring.”
If you don’t subscribe to my Three Reasons Not to Like This Material — and by all indications, I was in the minority on opening night — there’s ample reason to see this show. As Marmee [the girls’ nickname for their mom], Tami Tappan Damiano gives us an early highlight with her powerful “Here Alone”. As a curmudgeonly neighbor whose heart is melted by sweet, sickly Beth (Haven Watts), Martin Kildare does a droll little dance (in a show with minimal choreography) during the cute duet that is “Off to Massachusetts”. And though Jenna Lee Rosen never lacks for energy, her force of voice and personality in “Astonishing” bring Act One to a strong close.
But the moment that most impressed me was the penultimate “Small Umbrella in the Rain”, where Jo and Fritz (Jonathan Von Mering) become betrothed. As stated earlier, not much of Fritz has survived the adaptation, including the building of his & Jo’s love, so add in Reasons #2 & #3 and there really should be no way I (at least) felt any emotion here. Credit Rosen and Von Mering for bringing it home (plus, this is Howland’s best song).
No, I didn’t like Little Women: The Musical, but the only blame I can pin on Musical Theatre West is their choice of material. However, since their target demographic is far wider than merely those with my fairly narrow tastes, I’m not entirely sure you should pay much attention to this review.
Little Women: The Musical at Musical Theatre West
Times: Fri 7pm, Sat 2pm & 7pm, Sun 1pm, plus Nov 12 7pm & Nov 21 6pm
The show runs through November 22.
Cost: $25–$177
Details: (562) 856-1999, musical.org
Venue: Carpenter Performing Arts Center (6200 W. Atherton, Long Beach)
