Theatre in Review: Bonnie and Clyde (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre)

"They're young...and in love...and they kill people." So goes the ad copy for the 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde. Back then, the words carried a sting of irony; today, you can apply them to the new musical at the Schoenfeld, but their meaning is entirely different. The new Bonnie and Clyde is about a couple of crazy, mixed-up kids who happen to commit robbery for a living; sure, they take out a cop or bank teller now and then, but, hey, they're really, really in love. You'd think such a blood-stained tale of romance would be the stuff of full-barrel melodrama. But, for a pair who rode the rails of their crime spree to the ultimate end of the line, the musical that contains them is oddly inconclusive.

Not that the show doesn't have plenty going for it. As Clyde, Jeremy Jordan has a roughed-up baby face, plenty of pent-up energy, a smile that is sweet and sinister by turns, and a voice that cuts across the stage like a tornado spinning through Kansas on a hot July day. (His first number is titled "The World Will Remember Me," something Jordan will hardly need to worry about in the coming months, I expect.) Laura Osnes shows surprising flashes of temper as Bonnie, here seen a movie-mad hash slinger who loves being referred to as "the ravishing redhead," even if it's in a newspaper story calling for her arrest. The sight of her sitting prettily, one leg crossed over the other to show off a well-turned ankle, while she daintily cleans her pistol, is a perfect picture -- for framing inside the pages of the Police Gazette. Her singing is impeccable as well, whether she's leaning into a bluesy come-hither tune titled "How 'Bout a Dance?" - performed seductively in the light of automobile headlights, or, when the end is near, trying to convince herself that "Dyin' Ain't So Bad."

There are other plus factors as well. Jeff Calhoun, the director, puts his strong visual sense to good use, posing the members of a bread line, in silhouette, against a bleak Texas sky and bracketing the action with a pair of nightmarish shootouts. He creates intriguing tableaux featuring Bonnie and Clyde encountering their younger selves, dreaming of fame. Tobin Obst has turned a barn inside out, using the weather-beaten timber to make an evocatively shabby, Depression-era setting; if John Steinbeck's Joads showed up, they'd feel right at home. The upstage walls open up to reveal everything from getaway vehicles and luridly colored skies. Obst's costumes have a fine period feel -- high-waisted, boyish silhouettes and cloche hats for the ladies, and boxy suits with snap-brim fedoras for the men. Aaron Rhyne covers the walls with clips from Clara Bow's silent vehicles, Hollywood westerns, fingerprints, mug shots, newspaper headlines, and Dorothea Lange's iconic photos of the rural poor. Michael Gilliam's lighting casts prison-like patterns on the stage, and suavely keeps the action moving, using occasional splashes of color to forecast the bloodletting to come. John Shivers' sound design manages a fine balance between vocals and orchestra; he also mixes in a wide array of sound effects, including gunfire, barking dogs, and the slamming of jailhouse doors.

In his previous shows, Frank Wildhorn, the composer, has taken a lot of abuse for chasing after power ballad-style hits, and damn their relevance to the story at hand. Not here; for the first time since The Scarlet Pimpernel, he has honestly striven to create a cohesive and dramatically appropriate score and, by and large, he has succeeded. Don Black's lyrics are clear, to the point, and generally in character.

And yet, for all the good work done, nobody has made a solid case for a musical about Bonnie and Clyde. A score filled with titles like "Raise a Little Hell," "When I Drive," and "Too Late to Turn Back Now," should seemingly propel the narrative, suggesting the pure adrenalin rush of passionate youngbloods literally getting away with murder. Instead, the action too often grinds to a halt for yet another ballad about dreams or the latest report on the Bonnie and Clyde romance. (That romance, by the way, is a hot one; not for Wildhorn and company the sexually confused, impotent Clyde of Arthur Penn's film. This Bonnie and Clyde know how to get those colored lights going.) Because the creators are so busy fitting numbers in and around the action, a show filled with gunplay and getaways comes off as careful, even plodding. It may well be that the solid craftsmanship displayed by Wildhorn and Black aren't right for this thorny, unpleasant subject; Bonnie and Clyde probably needs an approach as reckless as its title characters.

Then again, the larcenous duo probably require something other than the too-careful treatment they get in Ivan Menchell's book. Throughout a first act that somehow never catches fire -- dealing, in slightly lumbering fashion, with the run-up to the pair's criminal career -- it becomes apparent that Menchell book can't decide if Bonnie and Clyde are downtrodden Depression babies, acting out in desperation against a rigged social system, or cold-hearted killers who encounter their true selves while on the lam from lawful, decent lives. The more the librettist carefully balances things out, matching a scene of violence with a tender moment or a touch of vulnerability, the less vivid Bonnie and Clyde seem as characters.

The rest of the cast is strong, especially Claybourne Elder as Buck, Clyde's brother, who yearns to get into the criminal game, and Melissa Van Der Schyff as Blanche, his disapproving, Bible-toting wife. Their troubled marriage is the show's most touching feature. Joe Hart is a solid presence as the sheriff who vows to nail Bonnie and Clyde, and Louis Hobson works wonders with the thankless role of the cop of who pines for Bonnie while hunting her down. (He has a nice ballad titled "You Can Do Better Than Him.")

There's plenty of intelligence and taste on offer, and maybe that's the problem. Bonnie and Clyde were about sex and greed and the thrill of the road. They were a pair of appetites unleashed -- potentially grimly fascinating as subject matter but maybe not suitable for romantic leads in a conventional book musical. Despite the shootouts and spurts of blood, and despite a final tableau showing the handsome young couple framed by grisly photos of their corpses, this Bonnie and Clyde remains the story of a pair of ingénues on the lam.--David Barbour