Groundhog Day tells the story of Phil Connors (Andy Karl), a disgruntled big-city weatherman mysteriously stuck in small-town America reliving the same day over and over and over again. But when he gets to know associate TV producer Rita (Barrett Doss), he discovers that a day of second, third and fourth chances just might bring him the promise of a lifetime. It's a classic boy meets girl... boy meets girl... boy meets girl story.
Based on the iconic film, Groundhog Day is re-imagined by the award-winning creators of the international hit Matilda The Musical- including director Matthew Warchus and songwriter Tim Minchin- with a book by original screenwriter Danny Rubin. Starring two-time Tony Award nominee Andy Karl, Groundhog Day is the new musical comedy about living life to the fullest, one day at a time.
But star and set were in fine form for the opening, and while Groundhog Day may not actuially be the best musical, it is, as I said, very good. This will come as a surprise, no doubt, to diehard fans of the film, which starred Murray as Phil Connors, a self-loving Pittsburgh weatherman assigned for the third year running to hit the road for Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover the annual rite of P-Phil and his shadow. Accompanied by his producer and camerman (Andie MacDowell and Chris Elliott, in the film), Pittsburgh Phil approaches Punxsutawney Phil and all his human Punxsutawney denizens with loathing and condescension, and basically can't wait to get out.
When it comes to credible depictions of small-town Pennsylvania, "Groundhog Day the Musical" is about as veracious as a woodchuck named Phil is a qualified rodent meteorologist. This British import to Broadway - staged by people for whom small-town America is a typology, rather than a collection of souls - is more Whoville than Punxsutawney. Director Matthew Warchus' overstuffed and near-chaotic production is similarly far from Woodstock, Ill., the doppelganger for exurban insularity used to film the 1993 movie - a film forged in the caustic and improvisational Second City style by the late, great Harold Ramis, with Bill Murray as his melancholic muse. Andy Karl, the handsome, courageous and hugely talented star of these musical proceedings, is closer to the open-face sandwich that is Jim Carrey than to the iconoclastic Cubs fan Murray, benign and dangerous, perplexing and perplexed and a guy who looked like he'd been knocked around by the storms of life. But, you know, this is still a new Broadway musical that works - even one that has a few moments of greatness, replayed and redux.