Pasadena 'Brigadoon' Revival Racks Up Rave Reviews
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- Pasadena Playhouse is staging a revival of the 1947 Lerner-Loewe musical 'Brigadoon,' marking the first major New York production in 46 years after a string of lukewarm Hollywood adaptations.
- Alexandra Silber obtained permission from the Lerner-Loewe estate to substantially freshen the book, aging the romantic leads into their 40s and increasing the townspeople's time-displacement from 200 to 300 years so the age gap reads as an 'upgrade.'
- Tyne Daly plays Widow Lundie — a gender-swapped reimagining of the previously male Mr. Lundie — and sings at the top of the show before delivering key storytelling passages; the critic calls it 'less than a twentieth of the singing she had to do' for her 1990 Tony win in 'Gypsy.'
- Betsy Morgan and Max von Essen anchor the central romance as Fiona and Tommy, with the critic praising performances that build from restraint to 'superheroes, vocally speaking' and calling their chemistry 'about as heartmelting a thing as you could see on a stage.'
- Donna Vivino plays a reworked Meg, now a tavern proprietess with genuine agency rather than the original's near-nymphomaniac, and turns 'The Love of My Life' into 'an action-packed, first-act rave-up' that nearly overshadows the leads.
- The critic argues the production rivals Broadway-scale work at 'popular prices' and contends it 'ought to' transfer to New York, where audiences would otherwise pay 'several times as much' in a much larger house.
Why it matters: The 46-year New York drought reflects long-standing doubts about the show's dated book and the much-maligned 1954 Vincente Minnelli film, but Silber's overhaul — gender-swapping Widow Lundie, aging the leads into their 40s, and rebuilding Meg — directly targets the weaknesses that have kept 'Brigadoon' off Broadway. A transfer would be the first major NYC revival in nearly half a century.
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