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New York City Center Encores! Paint Your Wagon
by Joel Benjamin If I were forced at gunpoint (of course!) to provide a one word description of the New York City Center Encores! production of the 1951 Lerner and Loewe musical Paint Your Wagon, it would be: robust. Continuing on that minimalistic path, I would add: sexy, fresh, energetic and magical. Alan Jay Lerner (book and lyrics) and Frederick Loewe (music), a most unlikely urban, urbane duo, fashioned a totally original 19th Century period musical. Encores! has taken Paint Your Wagon and given it a contemporary spin, with much emphasis on the testosterone-tinged sensuality of the book and songs, something not possible back in 1951. Director Marc Bruni has found all the nuances in Lerner’s libretto and Denis Jones has produced hearty dance sequences that are not only entertaining, but keep the momentum flowing. And, of course, the fabulous Rob Berman, conducting the Encores! Orchestra in Ted Royal’s original orchestrations, gave the show a generous, full-bodied sound. Set in various fly-by-night gold rush towns inhabited by colorful characters, Wagon centers around Ben Rumson (a richly layered performance by Keith Carradine), a charismatic, grizzled old-timer with a charming teenage daughter, Jennifer (a vivacious and totally wonderful Alexandra Socha). Jennifer falls for Latin heartthrob Julio Valveras (Justin Guarini in a marvelously suave performance).
Lerner populated the show with a rainbow of ethnic types: Englishman Edgar Crocker (a low-keyed, but slick Adam Monley); energetic Irishman Mike Mooney (a perfect, cliché-free Robert Creighton) was the de facto mascot of the rowdy miners; French showgirl/madam Cherry Jourdel (Robyn Hurder, voluptuous and funny) who, at the urging of Jake Whippany (multi-talented Caleb Damschroder, who sang, danced and played the banjo) brings her girls to the sex-starved miners; and Mormons Jacob Woodling (William Youmans, making this man quite appealing) and his two wives, Sarah (Melissa van der Schyff, properly stuffy, but appealing) and Elizabeth (Jenni Barber, giddily wonderful as she leaves Jacob for Ben and then for Edgar!).
From the propulsive “I’m On My Way” which brought all the characters together in the new town of Rumson to the languid Latin love song, “I Talk to the Trees,” Lerner and Loewe molded their talents to this alien setting. Ms. Socha’s girlish “What’s Goin’ On Here?” enchantingly displayed her naïve confusion at all the males in town avoiding her maturing, but verboten body. Keith Carradine had several bittersweet ballads: “I Still See Elisa,” a lovely homage to his late wife and “Wand’rin’ Star,” his philosophy of an unsettled life. Nathaniel Hackmann, boyishly handsome and sexy, led the men in one of the big hits from the show “They Call the Wind Maria.” There were wistful songs (“Another Autumn”), eccentrically funny songs (“Hand Me Down that Can O’Beans”) and entertaining interludes (“Can-Can”). In other words, a score that should never have been neglected so long.
Anna Louizos’s scenery, including a glorious backdrop of silhouetted pine trees was ingenious. Alejo Vietti’s costumes perfectly suited each character and the period. The regular Encores! season concludes with Zorba! (May 6-10) and continues in the summer with Off-Center which includes A New Brain, Little Shop of Horrors and Andrew Lippa’s The Wild Party. Check the New York City Center website for details. New York City Center Encores! 
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