She Loves Me
Opening Night: March 17, 2016
Closing: July 10, 2016
Theater: Studio 54
“She Loves Me” follows Georg and Amalia, two parfumerie clerks who aren’t quite the best of friends. Constantly bumping heads while on the job, the sparring coworkers can’t seem to find common ground. But little do they know, the anonymous romantic pen pals they have both been falling for happen to be each other! Will love continue to blossom once their identities are finally revealed?
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March 17, 2016
Sometimes vanilla ice cream can taste like sweet deliverance. Such is the discovery made by one Amalia Balash in the 1963 musical “She Loves Me” — which has been rapturously revived in a new production by the Roundabout Theater Company — when she receives a gift of this frozen confection from an unlikely suitor. As Amalia trills her delight in a song that flies toward heaven on ascending high notes, audiences for Scott Ellis’s production, which opened on Thursday night at Studio 54, are likely to know exactly how she feels. That’s partly because “Vanilla Ice Cream” (for that is the number’s title, of course) is performed by Laura Benanti, an actress whose joyful soprano is a conduit for instant empathy. But it’s also because, from the moment the show begins, with a salutation to the working day by the employees of a perfume shop in 1930s Budapest, “She Loves Me” is a sustained reminder of the pleasures of exalted ordinariness. Written by Joe Masteroff (book), Jerry Bock (music) and Sheldon Harnick (lyrics), this tasty tale of love lost and found at the workplace is the great vanilla ice cream musical.
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March 17, 2016
Unless you’re a fanatic with money to burn, you’ve most likely heard your favorite musicals more than you’ve seen them. Many a “Cats” fancier never made it to the Winter Garden to pet the kitties, and at about $20, the original cast album of “Hamilton” goes for a fiftieth of the price of a typical resale ticket. The disparity between live and recorded experience is even greater for cult shows and succès d’estime. I’ve seen “She Loves Me,” that nearly perfect 1963 jewel box, only four times — it’s not often done professionally — but have listened to the sublime OCR over and over for years. In some ways I know its voice better than I know my own, having learned to hear the world, in part, through its witty, melancholy, and whipped-cream accents. There’s a danger, though, in absorbing a show that way: It can seem to exist most vividly in the inches between your ears. Watching it onstage may thus come to feel like watching home movies, never quite as immediate as what you remembered or wanted. But there’s a boon as well. When a production has enough outstanding elements working in its favor — as the Roundabout’s revival of “She Loves Me” starring Laura Benanti and Zachary Levi certainly does — your mind can fill in the rest, and more.
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March 17, 2016
It’s one month late for Valentine’s Day, but Roundabout Theatre Company’s enchanting staging of “She Loves Me” sends a message straight to the heart of romantic musical comedy lovers. Designed as a pastel-colored, art nouveau jewel box, the 1963 show has been directed by Scott Ellis with effortless buoyancy and sophistication. It’s also ideally cast, with an ensemble led by Laura Benanti, whose silvery soprano was born to sing this role. Add in Zachary Levi, projecting throwback charm with winning confidence, and Jane Krakowski in top form and you have a revival that will delight admirers of this musical favorite while providing a perfect introduction to those encountering it for the first time. The production follows “Fiddler on the Roof” as the second revival this season of a show with a justifiably cherished score by composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick. But “She Loves Me,” which features a book full of warmth and wit by Joe Masteroff (“Cabaret”), could hardly be more different. This is not a musical built around powerhouse production numbers or emphatic themes. It’s a modestly scaled vehicle notable for its intimacy and sweetness.
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March 17, 2016
“She Loves Me” is probably the best Broadway musical you’ve never heard of (unless you’re a Broadway nerd). It’s an unassuming, Old World charmer, testament to craft, witchcraft and romance that echoes the operettas of Romberg and Friml. It didn’t make much of an impression when it opened in 1964 despite an astonishing pedigree: Based on the same Miklós László play that Ernst Lubitsch turned into 1940’s “Little Shop Around The Corner” with James Stewart and Margaret Sullivan (and, much later, Nora Ephron’s “You’ve Got Mail” for Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan), She Loves Me was the first show Hal Prince directed from inception to opening night. The score is by Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock, who next would write “Fiddler on the Roof,” and the book is by Joe Masteroff, who would next write the book for Kander & Ebb’s “Cabaret.”
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March 17, 2016
Desire is chemical, or so the scientists say. When that special someone draws near, their scent can cause a fuss in the hypothalamus, prompting a rush of dopamine, adrenaline and oxytocin. Perfume is also a matter of molecules, combining the right proportions of water, alcohol and oil to activate similar neural triggers. And we all know that romantic comedies depend on chemistry—between leads. Laura Benanti and Zachary Levi have that in spades. As quarrelsome clerks in a Budapest perfume store in the heaven-sent “She Loves Me,” these two cuties irritate each other so much, they’re obviously destined for cuddles and kisses. How could I be unfamiliar with a show this excellent? By missing, I suppose, the previous Roundabout Theatre Company revival in 1993, also helmed by the stylish Scott Ellis. Grounded by a witty book by Joe Masteroff (“Cabaret”) and swoonworthy tunes by the team of Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick (“Fiddler on the Roof”), “She Loves Me” is a perfectly crafted charmer from 1963. It arrived long after the musical-comedy template had been set but also at a time when songwriters could still unironically evoke the spirit of Franz Lehár or a Strauss waltz.
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