And here's Ken Mandelbaum's review of the New York production of Skip's musical of Time and Again:
http://www.broadway.com/gen/Buzz_Story.aspx?ci=4675Brantley in the Times was even more negative then Mandelbaum, so I hope no one has the bad taste to post Brantley's review here!
But here's Mandelbaum's discussion of the differences between San Diego and NYC:
Time Tries Again
by Ken Mandelbaum
Review: TIME AND AGAIN
For those like myself who can't resist staring at old photographs of New York and longing to actually be back there, Jack Finney's novel Time and Again is pretty much irresistible.
But there's a catch to adapting it to another medium. The novel has a nifty plot, involving advertising illustrator Si Morley, who, both out of a fascination for sights and styles of earlier times and a desire to solve a mystery in his girlfriend's family, joins an experimental government project on time travel that sends him back to Manhattan in 1882. But just as important as the plot is the book's vivid evocation of New York in that era, the lengthily detailed descriptions bolstered by photo illustrations. The latter third of the novel is action-packed suspense and boasts a tour-de-force section describing a conflagration and its aftermath.
Because of this, the novel is perhaps a more natural property for film than the stage; a movie might be able to recreate the period in a way no theatrical production could. But even a film couldn't capture the first-person voice of the novel, which allows us to see things in both eras through Si's viewpoint and perceptive commentary.
The stage life of the musical version by Jack Viertel (book) and Walter Edgar Kennon (music and lyrics) extends back to readings in 1993, but the show had its official premiere in 1996 at San Diego's Old Globe, directed by Jack O'Brien (The Full Monty), starring Howard McGillin and Rebecca Luker, and announced for an opening at the Martin Beck Theatre. The Old Globe version made a number of significant alterations to its source. To cite just a couple: While the mystery that provokes Si's journey belonged in the novel to Kate, at the Old Globe it involved Si's grandfather. In the San Diego show, villain Jake Pickering dies in the fire, while in the novel he lives to assume the identity of the man he was blackmailing.
But for the most part, the Old Globe version was faithful to the novel's action, and the result was, if not disastrous, plodding and overloaded with plot. The reason why the musical didn't vanish at that point was that, in addition to the appeal of its source, the show came to life on a number of occasions thanks to some ravishing songs, most notably a duet for the two women in Si's life, "Who Are You Anyway?," and the near-title song ("Time and Time Again"), the kind of soaring love duet for which one searches in vain in contemporary opera.
After further development in workshop, Time and Again is at last having its New York premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club's intimate City Center Stage II, and that's part of the problem with the current production. Kennon's score is old-fashioned, lush, and full-bodied, the sort of thing that demands what it had at the Old Globe, an orchestra boasting 20 musicians. While the music has for the MTC version been attractively arranged for two pianos, it's a score that cries out for the full orchestration that would match the kind of operatic singing required of several of the principals.
Ten of the songs heard at the Old Globe have been retained, with three or four new ones introduced. But the score has undergone far less alteration than the book: While the new Time and Again retains the central time travel theme, the blackmail plot, and other elements from the novel, it features what is in many respects a new story that deviates sharply from the source. Si is now a partner with Kate in an ad agency, his recent promotion owed to the campaign he created for a new fragrance, its logo the haunting face of a 19th century woman. Where Si once agreed to his journey in order to uncover the story behind a mysterious letter, he's now persuaded to journey back when government scientist Dr. Danziger produces a portrait of the same woman's face, drawn a century ago by none other than Si himself. The face in the portrait will, of course, come to life as heroine Julia, the woman he meets and falls in love with during his trip to the past.
With more echoes of Brigadoon and Portrait of Jennie than before, the new version is also much more interested in the social conditions of the earlier era, with Julia, demure at the Old Globe, now more complex and assertive, a fighter for civil rights and women's suffrage, a believer in democracy as symbolized by the Statue of Liberty, but pragmatic about her economic status and the choices she must make because of it. (One charming Old Globe song, "Fairy-Tale Life," is gone, as it wouldn't have fit the new Julia.) Wholly new characters include the operetta soubrette who is Dr. Danziger's grandmother, thus explaining his possession of the old portrait. (Note that the program credits James Hart with "additional story material," although Hart gets no program bio.)
Some of this is for the better; it's nice that Si now has a more romantic motivation for his journey. But the show remains overplotted, the first half hour still discouraging. As at the Old Globe, the experiment is set up too hastily; where the novel had the luxury of expending many pages describing its modus operandi, it must be taken care of in minutes here, so we never fully buy into it.
In addition to depriving the score of its richness, the new production--with a cast of 15 in a small playing area with the audience on three sides--can't compete with the Old Globe version, much less the novel, in terms of conveying the reality of the past. While director Susan H. Schulman supplies a fairly intricate staging for such a limited space and the sets (Derek McLane) and costumes (Catherine Zuber) are attractive given the budget, one isn't transported the first time Si manages the trick of leaving the present, or when Si brings Julia with him into the modern world.
But no show with as many lovely songs can be a washout, and in addition to the duets noted above, there are big, aria-like outbursts ("Who Would Have Thought It?") and quieter things ("She Dies") for Si; fine numbers for the heroine ("What of Love?," "I Know This House"); a creepy musical scene ("Carrara Marble") for the villain and his victim; and some adept pastiche for the musical show in which the actress is appearing.
With Joseph Kolinski the only holdover from the Old Globe, the cast works hard, with a fair amount of doubling. Laura Benanti is an enchanting singing actress; if the role of Julia doesn't allow her to cut loose and have fun as she did in The Sound of Music or Wonderful Town, she's a pleasure to watch, a leading lady here to stay. In the demanding role of Si, Lewis Cleale is at times stiff or nerdy, but is mostly appealing and in good voice.
I can't seem to get enough of Julia Murney's singing. If her third consecutive Manhattan Theatre Club musical doesn't give her nearly as much to sing as The Wild Party (what show ever will?), it offers more than she had in A Class Act, and her duet with Benanti on "Who Are You Anyway?" is the evening's high point. As Kate, Murney shines in her good solo ("The Right Look") and demonstrates a flair for delivering a droll remark, winning exit applause for her final one.
Lauren Ward is at her most aggressive, but it's appropriate for the role of the actress. As Pickering, it's nice to see Christopher Innvar (Floyd Collins) in good voice again after a bad patch that saw him depart prematurely from A New Brain. David McCallum does about as well as possible in the dual role of Danziger and Ward's father, and the veteran actor can even sing a little.
Time and Again is a worthy attempt at a traditional book musical with a score often unashamedly in the operetta mode. I wish I could say that, after so many years of development, it has now found satisfying form. But it's a musical that really requires a sizable production, rather than this chamber mounting. If the result is respectable and worth seeing just for the best of the musical numbers, the piece remains uncomfortable and unfulfilled. Time and Again is in something of its own time warp, between the fuller but unnecessarily dutiful Old Globe version and the more original but undernourished MTC one. Perhaps Finney's novel should have been a movie.
