Aisle View: R&H Return to Lincoln Center
10 / 10
In a day and age when producers, directors and author's executors think nothing of imposing their so-called artistic vision on Broadway masterworks that were pretty good to begin with, it is heartening to see producers, directors and executors just do the show as written...The production has the epic sweep that the authors intended, along with all those songs. Mr. Sher and his leading players also investigate undercurrents of romance and physical attraction which were not evident in the original production...Sher enhances these undercurrents, and has his actors act on them...That this works so well--and adds an additional color to the tapestry of the show--is due in part to the acting. Ms. O'Hara seems to have been born to play musical theatre heroines like Anna, Nellie Forbush and Julie Jordan; if only people were still writing such roles. Her Anna is young and hot-blooded enough to respond to the emotion, although unable...to act on it. Ken Watanabe, meanwhile, proves to be a strong actor, and sparks fly.
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