From left: Sean Bell, Barrett Riggins, Eric Peters, Danny Kornfeld, Ana Hoffman, Matthew Mucha, Steven Telsey, Shayne Kennon, Blake Roman and Zal Owen harmonize to Barry Manilow music in Harmony.
It is a quirk of American theater that some of its most beloved musicals involve the specter of tyranny overseas. Fiddler on the Roof, Cabaret and The Sound of Music each serve up friendship and love in the face of vanishing personal freedoms. There are echoes of all three shows in Harmony, a musical by Barry Manilow, with book and lyrics by Bruce Sussman, receiving a beautifully staged New York premiere by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, after some 25 years of revision, delays and productions in La Jolla, Calif., Los Angeles and Atlanta.
Mary (Sierra Boggess) and the rabbi (Kornfeld) share a tender moment.
Time will tell if Harmony will gain the stature of its forebears. If it fails to do so, it won’t be for lack of trying. This story about six Berlin-based performers finding fame and romance under the rise of Nazism is aided by a personable cast, clever choreography by Warren Carlyle, who also directs masterfully, and a handful of knockout songs. That it is based on actual people and events is both a blessing and a curse. Real-life endings are rarely as satisfying as those in fables, and heroic characters must be judged for their wrong choices and missed chances. But it also means that unlikely encounters and unusual camaraderies are validated. For Sussman, truth sometimes works out to be more convenient than fiction.
Thus it is that “a Bulgarian singing waiter, a doctor, a bass from the Comic Opera, a musical prodigy, a whorehouse pianist and a Polish rabbi” join forces in 1927 to become the Comedian Harmonists. Their musical skills and gag routines would lead them to great success and international tours. Then came 1934 and the realization that not only was the group being manipulated to serve as “ambassadors of good will” for the Third Reich, but also that, for the three Jewish members of the team, their days of safe existence were over.
The shadow of Nazism haunts the rabbi (Chip Zien). Photographs by Julieta Cervante.
Act I covers the years 1927 through 1933, from the group’s formation to its U.S. debut at Carnegie Hall. The tale is primarily told through the eyes of the Polish rabbi, portrayed as a young man by the dynamic Danny Kornfeld and as an elderly but spry survivor by the fine Chip Zien in full mensch mode. Joined by composer Harry (Zal Owen), the pianist nicknamed Chopin (Blake Roman), Lesh (Steven Telsey), bass singer Bobby (Sean Bell) and the well-connected former medical student Erich (Eric Peters), the Harmonists do indeed make beautiful music together, both in a comic number, “How Can I Serve You, Madame?” where they are costumed as pantless waiters, and as backup singers for an up-and-comer by the name of Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich, shockingly, is portrayed by Zien, dressed in fishnet stockings, and—even more shockingly—he has the legs to pull it off.
By 1929, Chopin has fallen in love with the rebellious Ruth (Jessie Davidson, in a stirring Off-Broadway debut) and the rabbi has fallen head over heels for a seamstress, Mary (a captivating Sierra Boggess). In a moving, foreshadow-filled duet, “This Is Our Time,” Mary laments, “I look out at a world that’s tearing apart,” and the rabbi counters, “What else is new? Where I grew up the people threw a pogrom every month or two.” A short time later he pledges his loyalty to her in the romantic “Every Single Day.” Kornfeld’s excellent rendition is one of the night’s highlights.
Zak Edwards, Steven Telsey, Eddie Grey, Elise Frances Daniells, Kate Wesler, Ana Hoffman as Josephine Baker, Sean Bell, and Eric Peters.
The act comes to a close in 1933, backstage at Carnegie Hall, with the sextet at odds over whether they should stay in America or return to a Germany that may no longer resemble the home they remember. Albert Einstein (Zien again, in requisite wig) drops in as a voice of reason, delivering a famous quote and one of the play’s many moments that powerfully resonate with the current war in Ukraine. “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil,” he instructs, “but by those who watch them and do nothing.”
Act II recounts the repercussions of their decision to return to Europe and is jam-packed with killer numbers. The Harmonists perform the darkly funny “Come to the Fatherland '' dressed as the propagandist puppets they have become. Mary and Ruth, in roles that deserved more stage time, grasp their destiny in the haunting “Where You Go,” and Zien, now as the aged rabbi, delivers a stunning soliloquy, blaming himself and his god for failing to stop the Nazi atrocities. Living in harmony, it turns out, is for those who can live with themselves.
Harmony plays at the Edmond J. Safra Hall theater at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (36 Battery Place) through May 8. Evening performances are Sunday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.; Tuesday and Thursday at 7 p.m., Saturday, April, 30 at 8:45 p.m. and May 7 at 9 p.m.; matinees are Sunday and Wednesday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call (855) 449-4658 or visit visit nytf.org.
