'Reunions' Off-Broadway review — two mini-musicals, one charming evening
Read our review of Reunions off Broadway, a new musical at New York City Center written by Jeffrey Scharf and Jimmy Calire, adapted from two one-act plays.
Summary
- Reunions is a chamber musical adaptation of two plays about former lovers reuniting
- The charming show features strong performances by Chilina Kennedy; Chip Zien; and Joanna Glushak and Chip Zien
- The show is recommended as a date-night event and fans of marriage stories
Don’t underestimate the charms of a chamber musical like Reunions. Adapting two short plays about reunited former lovers into one show, bookwriter/lyricist Jeffrey Scharf and composer Jimmy Calire have an instinct for their selected material: one a tale of a woman’s emancipation and the other of septuagenarians recollecting love in their twilight years. Both crowd-pleasers are directed and choreographed on New York City Center’s intimate Stage II by Gabriel Barre, with incisive gestures, subtle and grand, and intimate staging.
In the first segment, the The Twelve-Pound Look, self-made wealthy Londoner Henry Sims (Bryan Fenkart, a man licking his social wounds) is astonished when a hired typist turns out to be his first wife, Kate (a consummate Chilina Kennedy). Through flashbacks, Kate reveals why she left the marriage, and her courage — a feminist one — beats as the heart of The Twelve-Pound Look. She stares daggers back at her husband who can only flaunt his possessions, which include his bejeweled second wife, Lady Emmy Sims (Courtney Reed). Raised with a noble pedigree, Reed hints at Emmy’s bottled yearnings in her practiced smile (one bouncy song “While We’re Young,” conveys her longing for adventure with her husband, which she is denied). Emmy’s budding consciousness makes the final lines all the more satisfying.
Though Calire’s quaint score is pleasing, The Twelve-Pound Look can feel like a puzzle to musicalize, with a string of songs deflating before a build or bridge. One other hurdle is Fenkart’s tipping into cartoonishness, detracting from conveying Henry’s qualities that had made it difficult for Kate to relinquish their marriage (they were once “jigsaw puzzles matching up,” she laments). However, Kennedy’s sturdy song “I Had To Give Us Up” more than compensates for this plot deficit.
What sings is the second installment: the Madrid-set A Sunny Morning, where Laura (Joanna Glushak) encounters her former lover, Don Gonzalo (Chip Zien), at a park, where they are unable to reveal themselves to each other. From the lush title song at its opening, A Sunny Morning shows the characters’ delicate progression from strangers disdainful about sharing a park bench, until their conversations bittersweetly reveal their long-ago romantic history. Much of the comedy of irony is in them playing acquaintances of their true identities (for Gonzalo, he pretends to be a “cousin of Gonzalo”; for Laura, a “friend”) and embellishing their own deaths.
Zien and Glushak match each other in virtuoso grimaces and smirks, comic sneezes over shared snuff, cantankerous comments, waves of a cane or umbrella, and mischievous determination to outdo the other in their fabricated drama. Its hopeful ending, which was not in the source material, doesn’t shy away from the physical reality of aging when love is rekindled.
The production’s lyrics can sometimes get lost amid in the swirl of movement and sound, but the score sways with textures and stirs (orchestral arrangements by Sonny Paladino), especially in the romantic guitar and accordion of A Sunny Morning. Benefitted by the black-box thrust space, Reunions is rife with intense gazes and micro-gestures, such as an annoyed Laura rustling her bag of bread crumbs, Emmy observing Kate’s typewriting machine in awe, and Kate glancing at her ringless hand with a pride that escapes her ex-husband’s notice.
Reunions summary
Reunions is a musical adaptation of two 20th-century short plays: first, J.M. Barrie’s The Twelve-Pound Look, set in Mayfair, London. Harry Sims is about to be knighted, an honor witnessed by his subservient wife, Emmy. But his jubilation is interrupted when his former wife, Kate, winds up in his home that day as a hired typist. He’s shocked by her chosen life of labor and her lack of remorse over her departure, while she lays out her reasons for discovering her independence.
The second half, A Sunny Morning, adapts the play by Serafín Álvarez Quintero and Joaquín Álvarez Quintero, known as the Quintero Brothers. Two 70somethings have a reunion of fate: Dona Laura is at a Madrid park, where a grouchy Don Gonzalo happens to sit next to her. As they converse, both realize they had once been lovers in their youth but do not give away that they remember the other.
What to expect at Reunions
Performed without an intermission for 100 minutes, the two short musicals within Reunions are not treated as divorced entities. The “Prologue” introduces the first story, a mid-show transitional “Entr’acte” underscores the setting shift from London to Madrid, and a final “Epilogue” thematically wraps up the two stories.
With the players clad in striking period apparel by costume designer Jen Caprio (with great hair and wig design by J. Jared Janas), Reunions crafts a sweeping tableau. Edward Pierce’s scenic design includes a painting that doubles as drawing-room art as well as a park in Madrid, when the floor is sprinkled with bread crumbs and autumn leaves. Barre makes use of Ken Billington and Mitchell Fenton’s warm lighting design and a turntable, dressed as an opulent round rug, to punctuate moments of intense staring, either of opposition (between Kate and Henry) or longing (between Laura and Gonzalo).
What audiences are saying about Reunions
As of publication, Reunions has a 76% audience approval rating on the review aggregator Show-Score based on 14 reviews.
- “The score is nice... the cast is good. The set is fine. Overall a nice show.” - Show-Score user Chris_
- “It's very well acted & sung, cleverly staged, beautifully costumed, but not a lot to get excited about. The first of the 2 unrelated acts is the more interesting and has some bite to it. The second act was a charming trifle, though it's always a pleasure to see Chip Zien.” - Show-Score user Stephen 18
- “A romantic and wistful evening of theater with some incredible talent gracing the stage and a gorgeous set and costume design to boot.” - Show-Score user Toni Perry
Read more audience reviews of Reunions on Show-Score.
Who should see Reunions
- The Twelve-Pound Look adapts its namesake play that explores a woman’s emancipation from a suffocating marriage, making it of interest to fans of plays like Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House.
- The first segment is an ode to the talents of Courtney Reed (Jasmine in Aladdin) and Chilina Kennedy (Carole King in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), much to the pleasures of their fans. They share one key duet “The Usual Thing,” set to the industrial churn of a typewriter, that underlines their contrasting classes as well as their latent unity of consciousness.
- Into the Woods fans will appreciate Chip Zien, that show's original Baker, for his comic talents as he plays off the accomplished Joanna Glushak (A Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder and Sunday in the Park with George).
- The stories of former lovers reuniting makes Reunions a great date night for couples. Bring tissues for the end of A Sunny Morning.
Learn more about Reunions off Broadway
Two period chamber musicals in one, Reunions make for an enchanting evening at the theatre.
Photo credit: Reunions off Broadway. (Photos by Jeremy Daniel Photography)
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