Based on the original-cast CD, were “The Immigrant” to open a Bay Area run, it should top your “must miss” list.
A musical based on Mark Harelik’s 1986 play, “The Immigrant” opened off-Broadway in 2002 to good reviews. Perhaps in performance, “The Immigrant” hits its emotional targets. But the CD as a stand-alone reveals the show’s many flaws.
Harelik wrote the four-character play/musical based on his grandparents’ sojourn from Russia to small-town Texas in the early 1900s. There they met a stern Baptist couple with whom they lived for decades while seeking the American dream.
While a culture clash between greenhorn and longhorn seems like natural dramatic material, “The Immigrant” proves a stifling show that treads overly familiar ground.
It wouldn’t seem so at first glance. Most Jewish immigrant stories take place in teeming tenements. This one is set on the vast Texas plains. Who knew Jewish immigrants went to Texas?
The couples — Haskell and Leah Garlik (later changed to Harlik) and Milton and Ima Perry — differ over religion. They differ over family (the Harliks bear three sons; the Perrys have no contact with their grown son), and mostly they struggle to accept each other as more than strangers in a strange land.
While the two actresses (Cass Morgan as Ima, Jacqueline Antaramian as Leah) hold their own, Adam Heller’s Haskell is a weak link. His inept Yiddish accent sounds like a cross between Chico Marx and Father Guido Sarducci. Walter Charles toils valiantly as Milton, but the gruffness of the character short-circuits his musical persona.
That’s not the actor’s fault. The prime failure of this show is the music. Though composer Steven M. Alper and lyricist Sarah Knapp both have respectable pedigrees in musical theater, they have lost their way in “The Immigrant.”
Alper’s score meanders like “Sweeney Todd”-era Stephen Sondheim, only without the wit. The bulk is recitative, with nothing particularly Texan or Jewish about it (including the Shabbat dinner scene). None of the songs is memorable with the exception of “The Stars,” a tune so lovely, Alper and Harelik bring it back, reprise after reprise.
As for Knapp’s lyrics, they are insipid (“I don’t want this sky/I don’t want this ground/I don’t want this cactus or this pecan pie/I don’t want it/I don’t want it,” sings Leah). It’s one thing to write simply; it’s quite another to drain the poetry out of a lyric, something Knapp does routinely. Where is Ira Gershwin when you need him?
The hero in this project is music director Kimberly Grigsby. She takes on a tough assignment — Alper’s rudderless score, a drumless ensemble of piano, bass, reeds and violin– and makes magic. The arrangements are beautifully written, beautifully performed.
But that’s not enough to elevate “The Immigrant” above “nice try” status.
As a rule, original cast recordings serve best as souvenirs rather than brochures. “The Immigrant” CD only proves the point.
“The Immigrant” is available on Ghostlight Records for $17.99. Information: www.sh-k-boom.com/ghostlight.