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Theatre in Review: If/Then (Richard Rodgers Theatre)

Idina Menzel. Photo: Joan Marcus

Elizabeth, the heroine of If/Then, is ambivalent about everything in her life -- her divorce, her career, the men who would like to woo her -- so much so that it's hard not to be a little ambivalent about her. When we meet her at the beginning of this contemplative new musical, she has recently returned to New York after several unhappy years in Phoenix, where she had moved to be with her husband. She is 38, single again, and hoping to restart her career in urban planning. Yet even as she makes her first entrance, on a sunny day in Madison Square Park, she is feeling torn: Should she go with her old friend, Lucas, a housing activist, to a demonstration protesting the expansion of the Brooklyn Waterfront Redevelopment Zone or pop off with her new neighbor, Kate, for an evening of sexy guitar music?

In fact, she does both. The conceit of Brian Yorkey's libretto is that even the most trivial choices have major consequences, and he employs a kind of double vision to show the outcomes of each decision. Adopting the nickname Beth, she goes to the demonstration; she also takes a crucial phone call that leads to a top job in the city's planning division. It also leads to a solitary life, complicated by a failed flirtation with her married boss and a not-quite romance with Lucas, who has pined for her since their undergraduate days. As Liz, she opts for the girl's night out; she also connects with a handsome young doctor recently returned from military duty in Iraq. In both narratives, she gets pregnant, forcing her to make more life-altering choices. In one case, tragedy strikes; in the other, a near-disaster acts as a wake-up call. No matter what happens, happy endings are elusive.

As so much care has gone into the creation of If/Then, it is sad to have to report that is frequently more ingenious than engaging. It's always interesting to see how Yorkey rearranges the same set of characters into contrasting patterns, and, with plot points focusing on gentrification, same-sex marriage, and the long-aborning renovation of Penn Station, the show couldn't be more up-to-date. But watching Beth/Liz forever reviewing her options about nearly everything becomes a little wearing, and Yorkey gets so entangled in his double-woven narrative tapestry that he never gets around to providing those breakout moments that make a musical so memorable. For at least the first act, If/Then is all exposition, all the time, conscientiously filing reports about Elizabeth and her extended family of friends without really making us care about what happens to them. Similarly, Tom Kitt's music seems infected by If/Then's state of perpetual indecisiveness, only occasionally providing the haunting melodies that are his specialty.

The role of Elizabeth has been expressly tailored to the talents of Idina Menzel, and, regarding her return to Broadway after nearly a decade, the pleasure is all ours. Whether she is recoiling from a proffered soft ice cream cone, which, she is informed, is a veritable petri dish of germs; cracking wise about an unsuitable blind date (When he tells her to call him, she replies, "Not even to repopulate the earth."); or informing another beau, "You can't put a calm face on everything; it's your worst quality," she is a fine, funny, frazzled heroine. Her singing has never been better, and as always, her vocals are informed by a probing intelligence, especially in her powerful eleven o'clock number, "Always Starting Over," in which she ruefully acknowledges the curveballs that life has in store for us all.

At the same time, the questions that vex her -- marriage vs. career, motherhood vs. independence, romance vs. friendship -- are the sort that plague heroines of Lifetime television films, and they don't get the detailed consideration that might lift them out of the generic category. The second act, in which Beth and Liz each confront the life she has made, is often genuinely moving, but there's no getting around the fact that each is more a concept than a character, and doubling down on her story doesn't make her any more vivid or interesting.

Michael Greif's production moves smoothly between Liz and Beth's story lines, aided by Mark Wendland's clever, handsome set in which a mirrored wall acts as both a ceiling and canopy, a series of square and rectangular frames can be configured to create various locations, and a bridge flies in to provide a second level. The canopy's reflective properties are especially well used when revealing lighting effects built into the deck -- a drawing of the subway system in the number "A Map of New York" and a starry-night look for certain nighttime scenes. Kenneth Posner's lighting design is one of his sleekest, using mix-and-match saturated color washes on the upstage wall to create a variety of moods and carving the cast out of the set with his usual expertise. Emily Rebholz's costumes make subtle use of details to reveal changes in the characters' lives. Brian Ronan's sound design, aided by Michael Starobin's excellent orchestrations, is, as usual, a model of clarity, even in the chorus numbers, and his sound effects include a laugh-provoking version of one of those unintelligible subway announcements.

Greif has also surrounded his star with a blue-chip supporting cast. More than once, LaChanze nearly steals the show as Kate, the obstreperous kindergarten teacher who enjoys stage-managing her friends' lives. She is especially amusing when explaining to her kids, in her best Mister Rogers manner, "Phoenix is a city in Arizona that you should never, ever visit," and when taking over an entire subway car for a number, "It's a Sign," in which she urges Liz not to overthink her choices. Anthony Rapp, as the bisexual Lucas, is more believable filling the role of Liz's gay best friend than he is as one of Beth's unrequited suitors, but he is an affably cranky presence throughout. (Twenty years on from Rent, it's a little peculiar to find him still playing an urban homesteader, this time "on a godforsaken street where Bushwick turns to Queens," as the lyrics have it, but that is a matter for him and his agent.) James Snyder, who doesn't turn up on Broadway nearly as often as his talents merit, adds warmth and his golden voice to the role of Josh, the soldier who is convinced that he and Liz are meant to be together.

There is also fine work from Jerry Dixon as Beth's unhappily married boss; Jenn Colella, as Kate's wife, whose tomcatting ways threaten their marriage; Jason Tam as the nice young doctor who thinks he and Lucas should marry and raise a family; and Tamika Lawrence, as Beth's assistant, who is determined not to repeat her boss' choices.

And cheers to the entire creative team for risking an entirely original concept on a Broadway besieged by jukebox musicals and by-the-numbers movie adaptations. In If/Then's very finest moments, Menzel's character suggests a 21st-century female counterpart to Bobby, the similarly fence-sitting protagonist of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's Company, a show that in its time was also accused of being all concept and no heart. But Company's astringently satirical attitude tends to focus the mind. If If/Then leaves us feeling sorry-grateful, it's because it too often seems as confused and wishy-washy as the woman at its center. --David Barbour


(7 April 2014)

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