Theatre in Review: A Walk on the Moon (Laura Pels Theatre)

	The company. Photo: Joan Marcus

A Walk on the Moon, the film, is a touching slice of Jewish life circa 1969, the story of a marriage put to an extreme stress test thanks to changing times. A Walk on the Moon, the musical, converts its nuanced, subtle predecessor into a broad, belting entertainment that is surprisingly easy to take, even when borderline ridiculous, thanks to a cast of names you should know better. It is light romantic fiction, machine-tooled for largely female audiences who, statistics show, buy the majority of tickets to musicals. As such, it is the entertainment that the recently shuttered Beaches desperately wanted to be; it's not great, but it's probably good enough to keep the Laura Pels filled for the rest of the summer.

If the original material feels rather stretched out and flattened onstage, blame Pamela Gray, who wrote the screenplay of Tony Goldwyn's 1999 film and here serves as book author and co-lyricist. It's 1969, a couple summers after the Summer of Love: The moon landing is imminent, and so is Woodstock. Protesters are in the streets, denouncing the racism and the Vietnam War. The Stonewall riots have kicked off the gay liberation movement. But such events mean little to Pearl and Marty Kantrowitz, of Flatbush, who, at 31 and 32, respectively, have been married for half their lives. (A first date got out of hand, and Pearl ended up pregnant.) You can't call them unhappy: They have a couple of nice kids, Marty earns a living as a TV repairman, and his mother, Lillian, a whiz with tea leaves and tarot cards, is on hand to help out. And they're looking forward to another summer in their usual Catskills bungalow. What could be bad?

Still, something is missing, as laid out in a rather overwrought ballad for Pearl, "When Did You Know the Moon Was Possible?", a clever idea -- Pearl comparing her humdrum life to Neil Armstrong's -- that doesn't pan out thanks to pedestrian lyrics. This is followed by "Hey Betty," in which Pearl's girlfriends, housewives all, reject The Feminine Mystique, insisting that true happiness is found in canasta and casseroles. (The songs, by AnnMarie Milazzo, a busy Broadway vocal arranger, are of varying quality.) Up to this point, we're in a musical comedy world as artificial as anything in Schmigadoon! But the Blouse Man cometh: Schlumpy Seymour Schlifstein, the usual traveling salesman specializing in ladies' garments, has been replaced by Walker Jerome, a dishy, chiseled hippie. One look at Walker and Pearl suddenly knows what she has been missing; the feeling is mutual.

As they say in musical theatre, they kiss in a shadow and hide from the moon; Pearl and Walker have ample opportunities for adultery, since working-stiff Marty is back in Brooklyn Monday through Friday. Still, Pearl knows from guilt, especially when Walker urges her to run off to San Francisco with him. Meanwhile, Alison, Pearl's rebellious daughter, is trading guitar chords with Ross, her first boyfriend, leading to fears that history is repeating itself. All this tsuris climaxes with an ill-advised trip to Woodstock, where exposure and humiliation await. In a test of the musical's realism, four of the principals attend the famed musical festival, from which they return in record time, untouched by mud or traffic snarls.

Like many musical theatre adaptations, A Walk on the Moon makes blindingly obvious the film's implicit points, especially the use of the moonshot as a symbol of Pearl stepping out of her comfort zone. For long stretches it coasts on the strength of its leads. Talia Suskauer, a veteran of Wicked, never soft-pedals Pearl's selfishness yet manages to keep her sympathetic; her singing is stirring and emotionally detailed. Max Chernin is almost too charming as Marty, who, after all, is supposed to be a bit of a stick. His basic decency and easygoing manner make Pearl's dilemma especially acute -- who would give up this mensch? -- and he makes a genuinely touching thing of "We Made You," in which Marty comforts Alison, who is mortified to learn her mother is running around. Equally impressive is Sam Gravitte, especially because Walker is little more than a flower-power poster boy devoid of interesting detail. He makes the most of his big opportunity, the ballad "I Can't Wait for Now," in which Walker bares his grief over a brother lost in Vietnam. Keeping them on their toes throughout is Andrea Burns as Lillian, casting shade, cracking wise, and scoring with "Life Has a Bigger Say," in which she notes, pointedly, that Pearl isn't the only spouse to surrender her dreams.

This is the sort of romance that flirts with adultery before affirming the primacy of home and hearth, albeit with the strong suggestion that change is in the air for Pearl and Marty, no matter what. (One feels that, at the very least, a Ms. Magazine subscription is in the offing.) It doesn't help that the book's happy resolution blithely overrules the fact that Pearl has unleashed a public scandal that, in real life, could easily destroy her marriage and damage her children.

The director, Sheryl Kaller, has a good eye for casting and a solid sense of pacing; as a bonus, she has the voice of Tovah Feldshuh (who played Lillian in the film) on hand as the bungalow camp proprietor. Tal Yarden's scenic design frames Marty and Pearl's bungalow in arboreal portals; Yarden also provided the video design, which includes evocative images of the events that roiled the 1960s. (One note: A couple of rear-projection sequences shot through the window of the Kantrowitzes' bungalow, result in muddy images and light aimed right at the audience's eyes; the show would be better off without them). Robert Wierzel's lighting effortlessly shifts between naturalistic time-of-day looks and saturated washes that match the more psychedelic video images. Ricky Lurie's costumes, a collection of capri pants, summer shirts, and denim-on-denim ensembles, feel just right. Justin Stasiw's sound design is blessedly clear and strong without being assaultive.

A Walk on the Moon would be a much happier experience if it made up its mind: One minute it sensitively evokes Pearl's awakening, and the next, it gives in to I-shtupped-the-blouse-man jokes. (The latter happens no fewer than seven times.) Still, other summer seasons have produced worse things than this undemanding laugh-and-a-tear exercise. At least the people in it are talented. --David Barbour