Brigadoon Theater review

The village in the Scottish Highlands for which Lerner and Loewe’s 1947 musical is named is, as kindly town leader Mr. Lundie (Roger Mueller) puts it, a miracle: Thanks to the fervent prayers and personal sacrifice of a beloved minister who worried over the bloody clashes of 18th-century Scotland, Brigadoon escaped from time. Now it appears just one day every 100 years; for Brigadoon’s residents, just two days have passed when two American tourists, World War II veterans Tommy Albright (Kevin Earley) and Jeff Douglas (Rod Thomas) stumble upon it in 1946 on a hunting trip. The outsiders are warily welcomed by the townspeople, who are preparing to celebrate the wedding of Jean MacLaren (Olivia Renteria) and Charlie Dalrymple (Jordan Brown). But it’s Jean’s single sister, Fiona (Jennie Sophia), who catches Tommy’s eye—a problem both because he’s about to get married back home to a woman he’s not sure he really loves, and because of the whole existing-one-day-a-century thing. Brigadoon the musical seems to reappear in Chicago more like once a decade (it’s been seen in 1996 at the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse, 2005 at the Marriott Theatre and three years ago at Light Opera Works), but what most distinguishes the Goodman’s new production is its revisions in two key areas. Though Frederick Loewe’s lushly romantic score holds up gorgeously, Alan Jay Lerner’s book—written from scratch, rather than adapted from another source, like Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! or Lerner and Loewe’s later My Fair Lady—is often pegged in modern productions as corny and dated. The Lerner estate encouraged director Rachel Rockwell and writer Brian Hill to freshen up the book. And unlike most revivals which tend to attempt faithful recreations of Agnes de Mille’s original choreography, Rockwell has created entirely new dances.