Daily Variety
By JOEL HIRSCHHORN

"Brigadoon" is a knockout, Reprise's best show since 2002's "Anything Goes." Lerner & Loewe's first commercial success opened in 1947, predating "My Fair Lady" by nine years, and the infectiously tuneful songs are on par with the tunes from that show and their Oscar-winning "Gigi." Director Stuart Ross -- writer, creator and director of the touring triumph "Forever Plaid" -- has chosen a superb cast and choreographer and transformed a whimsical love story into an entrancing adult fairy tale.

This material can go disastrously wrong, as evidenced by the heavy-handed 1954 MGM movie, and Ross is careful to keep every scene light and unsentimental. A breezy tone is established when we meet Tommy (Jason Danieley) and his caustic, cynical friend Jeff (Larry Cedar), New Yorkers who inadvertently stumble into Brigadoon, a mysterious Scottish village.
Together they peer past a stage full of fog and see a happy crowd in kilts and colorful peasant dresses. Tommy is instantly taken with redheaded Fiona (Marin Mazzie). Fiona's younger sister Jean (Elisa Nixon) is about to marry lusty former ladies' man Charlie (Sean McDermott); the occasion is a joyous one except for the scowling rage exhibited by bitter Harry (Chris Holly), who wants Jean for himself.

Each number advances the plot crisply, aided by sound design (credit Philip G. Allen) that makes every Lerner lyric brightly audible. Mazzie's "Waitin' for My Dearie" shows her selectivity as she insists on a true love rather than settling like other Brigadoon girls, whose motto is "All he must be is a man and alive." Three-time Tony nominee Mazzie is a lass with sass. She brings strength and heart to the role, singing with powerfully intense yearning. Her duet with Danieley, "The Heather on the Hill," is vibrantly moving.

Every performer gets a chance to stop the show, and Sean McDermott (whose versatility was displayed on Broadway in "Miss Saigon," "Starlight Express" and "Chicago" sings and dances up a storm on "I'll Go Home With Bonnie Jean." McDermott and Danieley do an uplifting dance together and double on an exhilarating high note.

McDermott is such a vital presence that he threatens to wrap the production around his finger, but Danieley (who starred in Broadway's "The Full Monty firmly defends his artistic turf and holds it with sincerity, charm and brilliant vocals. His rendition of "Almost Like Being in Love" makes the viewer wish it were preserved on CD, and "There but for You Go I" has equal impact.
When scenes turn dewy-eyed and romantic, Cedar's Jeff supplies crackling comic punctuation. Pursued by husband-hungry Meg (Deborah Gibson), Cedar gives a wry, acidic spin to such lines as "If sex were a hobby, you would be a collector's item." Gibson sinks her teeth into "The Love of My Life," aggressively ignoring Cedar's order to "buzz off" while humorously describing dead-end affairs that don't end in marriage.

Villainy is expertly handled by Chris Holly. Whereas the equivalent Jud Fry in "Oklahoma!" was a figure of horror, Holly's pained cry to Jean, "All I've done is to want you too much," dynamically dramatizes a tortured human being.

A suggestion stating that it's a woman's job as wife to listen rather than talk momentarily dates the piece, and the idea, championed here, of sleeping in order to avoid reality (in this case, witches and sorcerers) also is hard to swallow. It's a tribute to Orson Bean, as wise old schoolmaster Lundie, that he delivers a saccharine, expositional speech about miracles with enough tenderness to make it plausible.

Lee Martino's splendid choreography enables us to overlook these flaws. Reprise productions rarely concentrate on dance, and Martino's work proves a small stage can accommodate electrifying routines if the staging is creative. Martino's ensemble numbers pack a euphoric energy, and the solo ballet she provides for Kim Mikesell, as the girl who loved Harry and expresses her grief in a dance over his dead body, is spine-chilling.

Gerald Sternbach's band is better than ever, perfectly paced and highlighting all of Loewe's harmonies. A notably tasteful touch is single piano renditions in the climactic New York bar scene. These sensitive reprises offer emotionally subtle tension when Danieley tells his materialistic fiancee, Jane (Teressa Byrne),that their relationship is over and set the mood for his return to shadowy, bewitching Brigadoon.

LA Times

It's a Highland fling
A Reprise! rendition of 'Brigadoon' overcomes some rough patches to sing 'It's Almost Like Being in Love.'

By Lynne Heffley, Times Staff Writer
The Reprise! Broadway's Best series formula — choreograph, tech, rehearse and open a high-profile musical in two weeks — comes with a built-in disclaimer: If it's not quite ready for prime time, well, isn't it admirable what can be done by pros with such short prep time?
Reprise's latest production, Lerner and Loewe's "Brigadoon," one of the most unabashedly romantic musicals ever written, is more than an admirable effort. Yes, it had its stumbles during its Wednesday opening at UCLA's Freud Playhouse — a few ragged edges in ensemble songs, a few missed cues and some silly swaths of cloth used to usher in scene changes. But, oh, what a lovely treat it is.

By turns boisterous, bawdy, melancholy and tender, this is vibrant tale-spinning about love and redemption in a spellbound 18th century village that slumbers in the remote Highlands of Scotland but for one day each 100 years.

When the village appears out of the mist to a vacationing, mid-20th century New Yorker and his friend, their visit there will seem no more than a bizarre dream to Jeff, the cynic of the pair. (Larry Cedar, in this thankless role consisting of little more than a series of one-liners, isn't able to make any more of the part than did Van Johnson in the 1954 film starring Gene Kelly.) To lost and lonely Tommy (Jason Danieley), however, it will bring, after a crisis of faith, salvation in the form of the fair Fiona MacLaren (Marin Mazzie).

Under Stuart Ross' lively direction, ably matched by Gerald Sternbach's musical direction and Lee Martino's rousing, balletic choreography, this production is more fully realized than expected on the Freud's tight stage, made more cramped by the presence of the 17-piece orchestra.
Gorgeously dressed by Alex Jaeger, it's also capably served by lighting designer Tom Ruzika's blue and violet washes and Evan A. Bartoletti's spare scenic design — ramps and a couple of raised platforms — and Philip G. Allen's sound design, although some miking irregularities were in evidence Wednesday.

The cast is led by Danieley and Mazzie, the real-life husband and wife who appeared recently in "110 in the Shade" at the Pasadena Playhouse. They are well-matched here, with expressive, full-throated voices and emotional depth that makes the signature song, "Almost Like Being in Love," a thrilling show-stopper.

Mazzie is an especially vivid presence, sensuous and playful with an all-embracing warmth. She's the production's heart too; when she sings Fiona's musical goodbye, "From This Day On," her tears and yearning tenderness are real.

Others in the sterling cast include Deborah Gibson, who enjoyably romps through her depiction of a flirty free spirit, and Orson Bean, a robust, Scottish-burred delight as village elder and keeper of the town's legend.

Sean McDermott is a kick as village golden boy Charlie, whose wedding day it is, despite a tendency toward self-admiration. He missed the cue for his entrance Wednesday, leaving Mazzie to fill the discernible pause with a "Where's Charlie?" — but his soaring vocal range makes "I'll Go Home With Bonnie Jean" pretty nigh irresistible
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A strong ensemble player too, he's also among the show's many assets in the leaping, spinning, kilt- and skirt-whirling dance numbers.

Another is Chris Holly, who adds a convincingly dark note as Harry, the angry odd man out who desires Charlie's bride, Jean (ethereal Elisa Nixon).

The consequences of his actions spark a deeply affecting ballet solo performed by Kim Mikesell as Harry's would-be bride, Maggie, in a visceral expression of loss danced to a punishing drumbeat.

Blake Pullen, who plays Sandy Dean, and Robert Pike Daniel, notable as gravel-voiced patriarch Andrew MacLaren, are the show's bagpipers, hauntingly underscoring both the town's shaken innocence and its reconfirmed faith.

After a stylishly efficient shift to a Manhattan bar — love the neon cocktail sign and the capable orchestra's sudden, raucous jazz rhythms — Tommy's desperate return to the Highlands, because "somewhere out there, between the mist and the stars, is someone I want so terribly," leads to a redemptive, happily-ever-after finale that is all it should be.

 

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