The Music Man Finally Marches In, Looking Backward

Certainly it feels like a glitzy, age-of-musicals move to cast Sutton Foster and Hugh Jackman; it’s increasingly rare to see a pair of stage stars of this megawattage sing and dance together. Their celebrity and undeniable presence seem to have overcome any little concerns about fissures between the performers and their characters — there are places where Foster’s mezzo strains in the high stuff and Jackman goes sour. But director Jerry Zaks solves that by bringing ’em front-and-center, to stand (or dance) on the stage lip and radiate Golden Age glamor.