Beth \u2014 in a deeply felt, richly sung performance by Idina Menzel \u2014 is a bright urban planner, quickly rising to the top in New York\u2019s city planning department while agonizing over her messy non-love life. Liz \u2014 also played, no less potently, by Menzel \u2014 is more successful in love, backing into a full-fledged soul-mate marriage and motherhood with operatic self-doubts and no-less-tragic consequences.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t blame Menzel\u2019s powerhouse performance(s) if you can\u2019t always tell which woman is which in \u201cIf\/Then,\u201d the brilliantly executed but underwhelming musical by Tom Kitt (music) and Brian Yorkey (book and lyrics) that opened Wednesday, Nov. 11, at the Orpheum Theatre. Menzel is playing the same character, Elizabeth, in two sometimes-confusingly intertwined story lines.<\/p>\n
The central conceit of Kitt and Yorkey\u2019s follow-up to their hit \u201cNext to Normal\u201d \u2014 developed with the same director, Michael Greif \u2014 isn\u2019t a \u201cTwo Faces of Elizabeth\u201d exploration of conflicting personalities contained in one body. It\u2019s a look at the different paths her life might take based on a single choice she makes when she arrives back in Manhattan after a failed marriage in Phoenix.<\/p>\n
At 38, Elizabeth\u2019s numbers-crunching, self-doubting, love-scarred personality is pretty much set. It\u2019s a question of how much chance, fate or a momentary whim changes the course of a life. If that perhaps promising premise doesn\u2019t bear much fruit in terms of drama, it\u2019s a pretty good performance vehicle not only for Menzel, for whom the part was written, but also for fellow stars LaChanze and Anthony Rapp. The best thing about the opening show in SHN\u2019s new season is the rare chance to see a national tour featuring virtually the original Broadway leads.<\/p>\n
The beaming, warm-toned LaChanze is a buoyantly upbeat delight as Liz and Beth\u2019s new best friend Kate, lighting up the stage with an \u201cIt\u2019s a Sign\u201d rallying cry for trusting in chance love encounters on the subway. Kate\u2019s passionate romance with Janine DiVita\u2019s thoroughly engaged Anne is a bright subplot.<\/p>\n
Rapp, like Menzel from the original cast of \u201cRent,\u201d has terrific rapport with her onstage as her oldest friend and former lover Lucas, even if his character is an inconsistent hodgepodge of traits. Their voices complement each other gorgeously on a few duets. So do Menzel\u2019s and James Snyder\u2019s, also reprising his Broadway role as Josh, the soldier-doctor Liz falls in love and has children with, to dynamic vocal effect (\u201cHere I Go,\u201d \u201cI Hate You\u201d).<\/p>\n
The songs, handled with verve by music director Carmel Dean\u2019s sharp orchestra, seem mostly indistinguishable but work well in the moment \u2014 to tell key parts of the story and showcase Menzel\u2019s supple, dramatic vocal skills and ability to belt a power ballad with extended notes that seem to grow deeper and expand forever.<\/p>\n
What neither the songs nor the book do, however, is justify the angst or help us understand Elizabeth better. As smooth and engaging as Greif\u2019s production is, energized by Larry Keigwin\u2019s peppy, urban-pop choreography, \u201cIf\/Then\u201d begins to feel too long for what it delivers thematically. But Menzel, LaChanze, Rapp and company keep you invested in almost every moment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beth \u2014 in a deeply felt, richly sung performance by Idina Menzel \u2014 is a bright urban planner, quickly rising to the top in New York\u2019s city planning department while agonizing over her messy non-love life. Liz \u2014 also played, no less potently, by Menzel \u2014 is more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[36,40],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-36","tag-ifthen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Srnq-9I","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":603,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions\/603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.idina-here.com\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}