Eli's Comin'

Right off the bat, I have to say that Eli's Comin', the long-gestating Laura Nyro project currently performing at the Vineyard Theater, has the best voices anywhere on a stage right now. The four leading females (Judy Kuhn, Mandy Gonzalez, Anika Noni Rose and Ronnell Bey) make every note their own, throwing in a healthy dosage of blues, R&B and rock to Nyro's beautifully crafted tunes, all of which sound better with age. Unfortunately, enthusiastic praise will have to cease there, because otherwise, Diane Paulus' "music-theater piece" never achieves lift-off. Paulus, who co-created The Donkey Show, a dazzling reinvention of disco through Shakespeare which is still running off Broadway, would seem the perfect person to open up Nyro's often pain filled odes to pre-Giuliani New York. But the production, while ambitious, is stillborn and remains a concert, no matter how many fancy interludes are thrown in.

Many Nyro songs are featured, including "Stoney End" (once recorded by Barbra Streisand), "Stoned Soul Picnic", "Money" and the title track, and if the show succeeds in one area, it's getting an audience to appreciate an oft-neglected song stylist, who is as indelible as Joni Mitchell or Rickie Lee Jones but has nowhere near the notoriety. And at least the show is trying to be about something, unlike the toxic Love, Janis, now playing at the Village Theater, which foolishly tries to con the audience into a glorified tribute concert. But Eli's Comin' leaves one with a similar feeling as well. Situations created to accompany the songs often come off as New-Age trivial, and the cast (which also includes Tony winner Wilson Jermaine Heredia from Rent as a sort of sexy devil/love god type) are not nearly as comfortable with the acting as they are with the singing.

When all is said and done, the show still comes off as a revue, which doesn't seem like what the creators were going for. One unforgivable detail proves completely frustrating and makes it almost impossible to give the show a pass. Why create a musical and give its most prized asset nothing to sing? Except for a few harmony bars with the ladies, Heredia (who has a smooth, refined R&B voice that can lift an auditorium) gets to sing virtually nothing in the show, which seems utterly sinful. His talents are perfectly suited to Nyro's melodies, but instead he's relegated to slithering down poles and writhing with his co stars.

After seeing Lonny Price's magical biographical musical A Class Act (four times, no less), I have grown to expect more from musicals that incorporate a life's work. That show proved you can find narrative, as it miraculously used Edward Kleban's trunk songs to create an unforgettable look at the process of creation and the fear of dying a failure. You can argue that Laura Nyro's work produces the same effect and has the same registers of sadness and joy, but where A Class Act sent us home knowing more about the face behind the face behind the face (to quote one of Kleban's tunes), Elis' Comin' leaves you only with the music, and you can get that at Tower for under $15 and let your imagination run wild while listening to it. And you can even sing, too.