'New York, New York' Review: A Love Letter to NYC
My journey to the St. James Theatre to see New York, New York was rife with the annoyances of living in New York City. The L train service was suspended, amok Rangers fans filled the subway station, and the crowded, slick sidewalks were made worse by bungling tourists with poky umbrellas. I made it to the box office with no time to spare.
But New York, New York, a new musical featuring music and lyrics by John Kander and Frank Ebb, delivered a love letter to the city and reminded me why I’m still here after thirteen years of riding packed subway cars and dodging rats.
The new musical, with a book by David Thompson and Sharon Washington, is loosely based on the 1977 Martin Scorsese film of the same name, starring Robert De Niro and Liza Minelli. The tuner has a winning creative team, with director/choreographer Susan Stroman, scenic designer Beowulf Boritt, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, who provided additional lyrics.
The musical follows a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed group of wannabe artists aiming to make it big in the big city in 1946. “Big dreams, big life—little dreams, little life,” says Jimmy Doyle (played by Colton Ryan), an aspiring jazz pianist. When Francine Evans (played by Anna Uzele) arrives to the Big Apple, Jimmy outlines the trifecta for success: music, money, and love. This “major chord,” as he calls it, is his North Star.
Francine is a rising star in her own right and quickly lands a gig as a singing waitress. On the other hand, Jimmy struggles with a drinking problem and fails to keep his eye on the prize. Somehow, the two intermingle in a hot and cold relationship that always feels cold from Francine’s side of the bed. She dooms it from the start, stating that an Irishman and a Black woman will never work—but I think their affair suffers from a faulty script. There’s no fire or chemistry to build a performance around.
Several of the ambitious New Yorkers, including a budding saxophonist and an aspiring fashion designer, falter from underdeveloped storylines. They fall to the wayside and orbit Francine’s central story. But the lackluster book is buoyed by the frenetic energy of the show.
Under the direction of Stroman, even the scene transitions are dance breaks. Smartly dressed passersby hurry and scurry in beautiful costumes by Donna Zakowska, the designer behind The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. And the dedicated dance sequences really shine, like a rousing tap number set atop an iron beam high in the sky and lively salsa dance at an uptown club. Perhaps the strongest scene takes place in the rain with streaming light projections (co-designed by Christopher Ash) and windblown umbrellas that whirl across the stage.
There’s much to look at, and among them are Beowulf Boritt’s awe-inspiring sets. Each scene showcases a colorful component of the concrete jungle with climbing fire escapes and water towers, and scenic backdrops depicting sky-high buildings and New York landmarks. My favorites were the old Penn Station, a canopy of iron and glass, and Grand Central Station, with its cerulean blue ceiling and gold-emblazed constellations. Magic.
The musical’s greatest strength is its ability to capture the city’s resilience. Set after World War II, it shows a city re-building and re-opening and remembering shuttered businesses, much like New York today in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The musical also captures all the bits of magic that outweigh the annoyances of life here.
Jimmy takes Francine to the Whispering Arch, an archway in Grand Central’s lower concourse where soft murmurs can travel to a faraway corner. I remember visiting the archway for the first time as a college freshman and being gobsmacked by the architectural feature. The characters flock to Bow Bridge in Central Park to relish in the season’s first snowfall, and I thought of traipsing through the park after the historic snowstorm in 2006 while visiting the city with my dad. The musical also highlights Manhattanhenge, a summer phenomenon when the sunset perfectly aligns between the East-West streets on Manhattan’s grid. It brought me back to warm evenings with friends spent waiting for the sun’s show. And the titular song, which closes out the show with a Big Band bang, unlocked a core memory of listening to it while standing in Times Square as a middle schooler, the night I promised myself I’d live here one day.
After the show, I spilled out onto 43rd Street and into the rain. Instead of complaining about the umbrella-filled sidewalk, I noticed how the marquee lights glimmered in the puddles and how the taxi headlights shone in the rain. My husband and I took advantage of the city that never sleeps and ducked into a late-night hamburger joint, where we sat next to some Rangers fans fresh from Madison Square Garden. At a far table, I heard a group of German tourists humming “New York, New York.”