If you think musicals are all alike, go see "Once". At the Fox through April 20, it manages to refresh our thinking about their format and music. It's loosely based on a true story about a Dublin musician and a Czech woman he met – the story became a movie in 2006. The show's music, which was written by the man, Glen Hansard, and the woman, Marketa Irglova, is remarkable, a hybrid of traditional Irish harmonies and modern popular style. But it's the format that's equally notable. There's no orchestra. Everyone on stage plays an instrument, everyone dances and almost everyone has a speaking part.
Stuart Ward plays the main character, identified only as Guy, and Girl is Dani de Waal. They work well together, the chemistry apparent even without a great deal of physical contact, and his voice, in particular, owns the music. But it's hard not to let the eye wander to the rest of the crew, a collection of distinctive faces and physical types, enhanced by costumes.
Raymond Bokhour, playing Da and the mandolin, looks like someone out of The Godfather – and that's not being derisive, it really works here. Reza, Claire Wellin, a violinist who does a mean turn as a club dancer, is again perfect, between face, hair, and clothing (and great musicianship). But it's Baruska, Girl's mother, who mostly plays a concertina, that I kept watching. Face, hair – perfect – but knitters take note: I'm sure it's not a sweater she's wearing, too hot onstage for that, but it looks like one, and the pattern is mesmerizing.
Not all these folks are dancers, it's clear, but the movement, changing the stage around, hopping on the bar of the primary set (O'Connell's, anyone?), is beautifully done, not described as choreography but from movement director Steven Hoggett.
And since it's a bar, the bar is open on stage before the play begins and during intermission, or the interval, as they'd call it in Dublin. Audience members can go up some stairs to the stage, have a drink, hang about a little, and head for their seats, each stairway monitored by Fox staff. This makes things considerably more informal than usual during those times; music begins about ten minutes before the show actually starts, making it even more pub-like, to the point where some of the audience almost had to be dragged into their seats. (And kudos to an usher who politely put the kibosh on cell phone usage at that point.)
No wonder this show won a Tony. It's darn near hair-standing-up-on-the-back-of-the-neck good.
Once
through April 20
Fox Theatre