Theater: Broadhurst Theatre / 235 West 44th Street, New York, NY, 10036
Synopsis:
From the twilight of the Russian Empire to the euphoria of Paris in the 1920s, the new musical Anastasia is the romantic, adventure-filled story of a brave young woman attempting to discover the mystery of her past. Inspired by the Twentieth Century Fox Motion Pictures, Anastasia reunites the Tony Award®-winning writers of the Broadway classic Ragtime: book by Terrence McNally, music by Stephen Flaherty and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. Darko Tresnjak, a Tony Award winner for Best Direction of a Musical for A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, will direct, and Peggy Hickey (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) will choreograph.
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The amnesiac title character of “Anastasia,” who may or may not be the long-lost daughter of the last Russian czar, isn’t alone in suffering a serious identity crisis. The postcard-scenic show that bears her name, which opened on Monday night at the Broadhurst Theater, has its own troubling case of multiple personality disorder.
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Combine early 20th-century Russian history with bits and pieces of “Les Miz,” “My Fair Lady” and “Newsies,” and you’ve got “Anastasia,” the uneven but well-meaning and mostly pleasant new Broadway musical based on the 1997 animated film of the same title from 20th Century Fox.
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Broadway's got a bright new star, and her name is "Anastasia." The 1997 beloved animated movie has been transformed into a magical new stage musical, now open at the Broadhurst Theatre, with a much-improved book by Terrence McNally, added songs from the film's composers Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, and a star-making performance by actress Christy Altomare.
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Released in 1997, Anastasia was a dazzling 94-minute animated movie musical. Twenty years later, it’s a fidget-inducing, two-and-a-half-hour Broadway musical, with a production not nearly animated enough to warrant that running time.
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Broadway musicals often feature heroines trying to find themselves, but perhaps never as literally as in Anastasia. In 1927 Leningrad, the scrappy, strapping Dmitry (Derek Klena) and the worldly, roguish Vlad (John Bolton) devise a scheme to pass off a street sweeper, Anya (Christy Altomare), as the Grand Duchess Anastasia Nicholaevna Romanov, rumored to have survived the massacre of the rest of her royal family in the Russian Revolution 10 years earlier. But as the con men school her, My Fair Lady–like, in the ways of nobility—hoping to deceive Anastasia’s grandmother in Paris, the Dowager Empress (an elegant Mary Beth Peil)—it emerges that Anya may be the real Anastasia after all. Who knows? Not Anya: She has amnesia. What former self might be nested like a doll inside her, waiting to be revealed? And might there be other dolls inside that one?
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