Winner of the 1989 Tony Award for Best Musical, “City of Angels” has never been revived on Broadway, despite having a devoted cult following (that also includes this reviewer.) A sparkling new production at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine continues to make the case for bringing the show back to the Great White Way.
The Ogunquit is no ordinary summer stock theater. It is known for its top-notch Broadway talent and high end production values, and “City of Angels” delivers much of the polish and quality the venue is known for.
Cy Coleman’s glorious score and David Zippel’s famously clever lyrics are the show’s calling cards, and the film-within-the-play setup is an inspired vehicle for the stylized, larger-than-life glamour and comedy that musical theater often traffics in. “City of Angels” is a notoriously tricky show to stage, splitting its focus between a Hollywood writer’s daily grind and the film noir detective story in his imagination. Scenic designer Nate Bertone and video and projection designer Bryce Cutler rise to the challenge, giving each part of the story its own distinct visual identity while maintaining consistency across both worlds.
The dual-world conceit extends to the plot: Stine, a novelist adapting his story for the screen, watches his creation, private eye Stone, take on a case for the sultry Alaura, who hires him to track down her missing stepdaughter. Meanwhile, in “real” Hollywood, studio chief Buddy Fidler keeps changing and mangling Stine’s script to suit his own ego, while Stine’s wife, Gabby, an accomplished book editor, grows frustrated watching her husband compromise his art one rewrite at a time. The audience gets to watch the script changes in real time.
Ben Jacoby is a revelation as the beleaguered Stine, capturing the writer’s erosion of principle with real specificity, while Tony Yazbeck is note-perfect as Stone, all world-weary swagger masking a wounded past. Lili Thomas brings plenty of sex appeal to the conniving Alaura, and Stephen DeRosa is a comic force as Buddy Fidler. Alysha Umphress stuns in the dual parts of Gabby/Bobbi, and her showstopping rendition of “With Every Breath I Take” is a gorgeous, jazzy highlight of the evening. Danielle Wade is a treat as Oolie/Donna, nailing the period cadence of the piece.
Zippel’s lyrics are a marvel, dense with wit, internal rhyme, and double entendre, and they hold up decades after the original production. The standout numbers land beautifully: the classic “You’re Nothing Without Me,” is a delightfully ingenious and surprising duet; “The Tennis Song,” is a comic romp dripping with innuendo; and Buddy’s gleefully self-serving “The Buddy System” wows the crowd.
Hunter Foster’s seamless direction keeps the show’s dual plots and tonal shifts moving with the right amount of theatrical flair. But the real highlight is the talented, sublime cast performing at Broadway levels. For a show this rarely produced, the Ogunquit Playhouse has delivered a “City of Angels” worth traveling for.
