It’s the question heard over and over again whenever modern Broadway musicals are discussed: What do the critics have against Frank Wildhorn? Does their aversion stem from his leaping out of pop/country music directly onto Broadway, instead of toiling away at some musical-theater workshop or drama school? Is it because he has endured a string of flops yet has little trouble bringing projects to New York, whereas, for the past two decades, some of Broadway’s most legendary talents had to settle for revivals because their new material couldn’t scare up enough investors? Is it because he works in an idiom closer to Evita than Gypsy?
No doubt, all of these factors come in to play when critics (with, alas, myself among them) greet a Wildhorn show with a heavy sigh of tolerance tested. Not having seen his two latest, Wonderland and Bonnie and Clyde, I can’t say whether Wildhorn has developed as a musical maker, nor am I truly able to put my finger on why this undeniably talented composer gives me and so many of my writerly brethren the blahs. It could simply come down to the same reason I won’t listen to smooth jazz on the radio: the format is perfectly fine and competent for what it is, but it’s simply not for me.
Having said that, I can offer two distinct reasons why Jekyll & Hyde, Wildhorn’s first musical (and, for many, still his strongest), makes for passable entertainment at best. First: the lyrics. Don’t blame Wildhorn; Leslie Bricusse (of Stop the World – I Want to Get Off fame) penned them, as well as the show’s book. Since J&H is almost wall-to-wall music, having lyrics that sound as if they’d been written by a junior high school student gifted with a rhyming dictionary on his Bar Mitzvah, proves a crippling disadvantage. Yes, the lyrics do explain the characters’ dreams and motivations, but good luck finding one surprise, one truly clever turn of phrase, or even a verse where you can’t guess exactly what the line’s going to be right from the first word.
Jekyll & Hyde’s other great lack is, well, a sense of joy. Of course, the material is grim; it’s about a moral fellow who, in trying to eradicate mankind’s evil nature, becomes a homicidal maniac. But think of other unhappy stories told in a musical-drama context: Carousel, Cabaret, and the grandmaster of all psycho-revenge tales, Sweeney Todd. All of these carry strong currents of comedy, panache and buoyancy (not to mention subplots and songs that resist the urge to become power ballads). These shows have a fullness that allows them to become richly involving. By contrast, Jekyll & Hyde feels dutiful, like splashy homework. We have no real feelings for Dr. J; Emma, his fiancée, is a nice lady stuck on the wrong man – and no more interesting than that; and Jekyll’s kinship with a prostitute who yearns for a better life doesn’t have much pull, either.
In J&H’s current Broadway revival at the Marquis Theater, the lead performers (Constantine Maroulis, Teal Wicks and Deborah Cox) all sing their hearts out and emote with all their best emoting, but we watch the characters being put through their paces as opposed to wondering how they’ll react or what they’ll do next. Mr. Hyde has a chilling moment or two – what dangerous man with a knife wouldn’t? – so it’s a shame that his grappling with Jekyll’s soul offers little to engage the mind or heart.
Critics who dump on Wildhorn invariably grant the backhanded compliment that he writes some pretty melodies. You’d think, then, that the producers of this touring revival would at least let us relax and enjoy the tunes, but instead, orchestrations are blasted at us at near-earache levels. Crueler reviewers than I would say that you have to be deaf to appreciate a Frank Wildhorn musical. How perverse that the Nederlanders, et al., are making every effort to grant that wish.
