Newsday from New York, New York • 51

B3 wiwMmmrtmww Jonathan Larson show that reopens tonight this time on Broadway mnn pint Kmo by Joan Mumin and hiwug: heroes but with the passions of the people But while polyglot bohemia in which performers of any nationality sing their Parisian lines in Italian is an abstraction existing only in Operaland was written and first staged in the neighborhood where it is set If shockingly premature death in January just days before the show opened in the workshop is so bound up in the experience of watching it as to be virtually a plot element the cast members too seem to be acting out their own lives is the apotheosis of verismo In the music is the guiding principle a conventional superstructure without which it an opera and music help but romanticize bohemia We possibly feel the grittiness of the garret through his sumptuous score the music is too concerned with beauty to render accurately the misery of being poor In the music emerges from the work -itself Rodolfo is an unrecognized poet Roger is a struggling musician (as is Adam Pascal who plays him) and his songs belong to the character and the composer In Song infuriated plea for just enough inspiration and longevity to write one great piece of music becomes an opera about itself Where style was native to the opera houses built and patronized by the middle class (and unaffordable to the bohemians he depicted) rock is a sophisticated version of basic bar-band blues mixed with grunge a touch of Broadway and a disco number or two It is opera too complete with recitatives 'leitmotifs and ensembles but it requires neither trained voices nor the forces of an orchestra This is an opera whose characters can claim the music as their own And when Dreamworks Records releases the original cast album this summer and the music from is heard blasting from East Village windows and fire escapes the circle of art and life will have made a complete turn Justin Davidson is a regular contributor to Newsday A much-loved movie turns into a musical HSISiTHEATERREVIEW 116 Musical based on 1988 movie with book by John Weidman music by David Shire lyrics by Richard Maltby Jr Directed by Mire Ockrent and choreographed by Susan Stroman With Daniel Jenkins Crista Moore Jon Cypher Barbara Walsh Patrick Levis Brett Tabisel Gene Weygandt Lizzy Mack Sets by Robin Wagner costumes by Wiliam Ivey Long lights by Paul Galo music direction by Paul Gemignani Shubert Theatre 44th Street west of Broadway Manhattan Seen at Thursday's preview for Levine enough references to callow MBAs and sex to establish some contact with the real world Basically this remains a combination of two of favorite formulas the coming-of-age and the fish-out-of-water stories John Weidman book follows much of the movie outline about young Josh Baskin who wishes on a carnival genie to be then must live with the consequences Where the movie mostly centered on Josh as an adult in Manhattan however the musical spends at least as much time with his suburban New Jersey friends That is the show embraces all the cutesy-kid traps that the movie so admirably avoided Depending on how you feel about glitzy performing children this is either an adorable improvement or well not A definite plus is Daniel Jenkins given the seemingly impossible task of making us forget the funny-sad embodiment of a scared boy inside Hanks We do not sorry but the star of in 1985 has grown up to be an agreeable talented man who still knows where he left that inner child With his limbs dangling and an endearingly childlike stiffness behind his neck Jenkins does a fine job of making us see the kid in Josh Crista Moore who played the title role in the recent revival of is surprisingly bland as Susan the toy-store executive who learns to love the kid in herself through him Of course she is also saddled with the sappiest songs ones about happiness and stars in the sky In contrast the underutilized Barbara Walsh the mom and wife in makes the most out of a ballad that may bring royalties at bar mitz-vahs to rival those that gets at weddings Jon Cypher a familiar face from Street and is an exuberant musical performer who as the toy manufacturer brings a much-needed humanity to the now-mnerblown dancing-on-the-piano scene Brett Tabisel has a solid no-nonsense quality as Billy best friend who almost stops the show with the comic realization that a white Jersey kid faking a rap song Patrick Levis as young Josh brings just the right haunted quality to Want to in which he shad- ows the grown-up Josh in a tentative love scene gj Shire and Maltby perhaps best known together for their enjoyable but short-lived musical about parenthood write pleasantly unassuming deceptively easygoing songs Although we can anticipate lines and melodies before they happen they are never stupid If you think not high praise you probably never saw the Broadway adaptations of Favorite Year" or 5 Goodbye 'translating fight comedies into musicals may not be the most we have 8 memories that prove it By Linda Winer STAFF WRITER THIS SEASON is to be remembered for the contrary forces pulling on the Broadway musical we are now smack in the middle of the main event Thanks to a fluke of scheduling we have great seats to witness the generational esthetic and socioeconomic tug-of-war between the mainstream commercial musical-comedy of the spring and the combined hip-hop and rock breakthroughs of two seriously streetwise downtown transfers in Noise Bring in which opened last Thursday and opening tonight Although all three shows are ostensibly about seldom have contrasting world views of it seemed so radically dear In a healthy theater scene heck perhaps even in a healthy country there may be room for more than one impulse and direction which opened last night at the Shubert Theatre after a troubled out-of-town tryout is an amiable throwback a sweet enough square enough simply melodic and well-adjusted family fantasy informed by mall culture hard-sell Broadway show-biz tradition and Hollywood No it is not nearly as charming or moving as Penny 1988 movie in which Tom Hanks took the 13-year-old in us all on a wistful enchanting terrifying trip down the rabbit hole of growing up Rather the David Shire-Richard Maltby Jr show directed and choreographed by the for team of Mike Ockrent and Susan Stroman is going after the and the crowds here with a bright and pleasant pop confection one that for all Robin jaunty New York scenery has as much relationship to urban America as Bye had to rock and roll In fact we think often during the evening about that dopey but likeable early hymn to sanitized adolescence just as you may find echoes of the same To Succeed in Business Without Really in the mild Satire of corporate mentality Nobody is trying to get big business angry here not with all these product awith eo-producer FAO Schwarz- but- theie are tor an unctuous grin as if mistaking Levine for Doc Severinsen Birgit Nilsson saluted Levine with a couple of unaccompanied Despite all those singers it was really a show one that began and ended with Wagner (with plenty of Wagner in between) and bypassed the greatest hits from and or the famous bel canto showpieces While the singers waited their turn Levine presided gleefully and indefati-gably over the party he had planned for himself His stamina shamed the audience out of restlessness and energized the orchestra which sounded as supple strong and richly hued as fine Moroccan leather (Only by early Sunday did the players begin to sound fatigued) When after each number he plucked another item from the stack of scores at the foot of his podium he looked-like a kid with the key to a candy store possible that after eight hours Levine hadfinally gotten to conduct as much opera at a time as he wanted Justin Davidson is a regular contributor to Newsday.