Theater Review: On a Clear Day

Harry Connick, Jr. Photo: Palma Kolansky

On a Clear Day, It's Still Hard to See
By Lauren Yarger
Take one musical with a decent score by Burton Lane that made Broadway stars out of John Cullum and Barbara Harris, shake up the original weak book by lyricist Alan Jay Lerner, add hearthrob crooner Harry Connick, Jr. in the lead and you have a recipe for: well, a good score by Burton Lane.

The attempt to mix things up and "re-imagine" On a Clear Day You Can See Forever pretty much fails to make itself a contender for a long Broadway run because the odd story, involving psychiatrist Mark Bruckner's romance with Melinda Wells (Jessie Mueller), a reincarnated World War II chanteuse brought out through the hypnosis of a patient, still is very weak. The only change is that the patient this time around, David Gamble (David Turner), is a gay guy instead of a woman (Daisy, in the previous version, a role played in the movie by Barbra Stresiand).

So what does this mean? That a doctor having a romance with a woman who lives in the body of a guy is more interesting, hip and modern than a doctor having a romance with a woman living in the body of another woman? The question itself is so bizarre that it gives away the answer -- none of this is an interesting enough plot around which to make a musical. It does pose the question, however, why it is OK for female roles to be played by men? There are plenty of male roles in musicals and plenty of gay guy characters on the stage already. If a black character were "reimagined" as a white one, there probably would be flack. After all, it isn't seen as appropriate to have characters written as black or any particular race played by a white person. Just take a look at the recent flap over Hartford, CT's staging of The Motherf***ker with the Hat at TheaterWorks with white, rather than as-written Latino leads. It didn't go over very well with the playwright and a lot of other folks.

But because Daisy is a woman, like Brian Bedford's turn as Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Ernest last season, or the role of Edna Turnblad always being played by a male in Hairspray for some unexplained reason, no one seems to be offended when a role written for a woman is suddenly re-imagined as a man. Voila! Daisy the flower shop girl becomes David, the flower shop boy. Well, let's say that the men making these decisions (we have few women directors or book writers for musicals) don't apparently see anything offensive about this. The many women actors, who outnumber males looking for acting jobs by quite a bit, probably are quite offended especially since Turner has an adequate, but not super singing voice (and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that any ethical psychiatrist probably has some issues with Bruckner's behavior here too, but I digress).

I'd be willing to go along with the change if it greatly improved the story. It doesn't. Director/reconceiver Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening, American Idiot, Next to Normal, Hair et al) and Peter Parnell, who penned the new book (enhancing the original the musical with tunes from Barton/Lerner movie scores) are the decision makers here. Lawrence Yurman music directs and orchestrations are by Doug Besterman. Here's what they came up with:

Bruckner (Connick) hypnotizes Gamble to help him quit his five-pack-a-day smoking habit, because his boyfriend, Warren (Drew Gehling) doesn't like it. As the patient regresses, however, he slips into another personality -- that of Melinda in the year 1943. It's been three years since Bruckner lost his wife, Claire, and none of the women her best friend and Bruckner's colleague Sharone Stein (Kerry O'Malley) has set him up with have compared, but the psychaitrist suddenly finds himself very attracted to Melinda. He increases the number of therapy sessions with Gamble to continue getting to know Melinda. Gamble doesn't have any knowledge of his other personality, but does have vague memories of the dates/sessions and passionate embraces and comes to believe the doctor has romantic feelings for him. He might also return them (although why, when he doesn't really know the doctor isn't clear).

Bruckner begins to believe in reincarnation and to teach it at the university, which stirs some controversy. Sarah Stiles stands out as one of the students and Gamble's good friend, Muriel Bunson; Hannah (Alex Ellis) is a the class slut -- oh, I get it. Stereotypical women roles are OK....

When Bruckner discovers that Melinda really did exist, he has to decide whether to try to alter her fate or suffer the pain of losing another woman he loves.

If you can see past the really weak plot (and some pretty lame lyrics and dialogue -- why didn't they change them while they were giving Daisy a sex-change operation?), the unexciting choreography (Joann M. Hunter) (with the exception of a clever number where Bruckner dances simultaneously with Gamble and Melinda), maybe it will become clear why Mayer and Parnell set in the '70's (big upgrade from the 1965 original) for some reason other than to give costume designer Catherine Zuber license to use a bunch of loud colors in styles of the period that clash with Christine Jones' annoying checkerboard/psychedelic set design (and those 1940s microphones look like painted Country Curtains rods). We kind of doubt the same-sex relationships would play so easily in 1974 so why not really re-imagine the story for 2011, where there are a lot of great female singers?

Case in point is Meueller, making her Broadway debut here, with a lovely voice singing songs like "You're All the World to Me," "On the S.S Bernard Cohn," the haunting "Melinda,"Go to Sleep," and "Too Late Now." She's a pleasure to listen to and a good actress. I would have loved to see her tackle the full part of Daisy/Melinda. OK, enough said. Connick is awfully pleasant on the ears as well, singing the title song, among others, though he seemed to lose steam vocally as the show progressed.

On a Clear Day plays at the St. James Theatre, 246 West 44th St., NYC. Tickets are available by clicking here.

Christians might also like to know:
--Song about being born again refers to reincarnation
--Comment made that there are 100 realities and some fall on Mecca
--God's name taken in vain
--homosexuality
--homosexual activity