Review: 'Anastasia' Is a Romantic Fairy Tale
Broadway's "Anastasia" is based on several, disparate sources; the beloved, 1997 animated film; a 1956 historical drama with Ingrid Bergman and Yul Brenner; and the persistent, apocryphal story that the young, Grand Duchess Anastasia survived the firing squad that killed the czar's family during Russia's Bolshevik Revolution.
Yet somehow, Terence McNally (book), Stephen Flaherty (music) and Lynn Ahrens (lyrics) turn these very different stories into a musical with true romantic sweep.
The show opens with the chilly white opulence of the Romonov Court, where we meet Anastasia as a child. She is bidding goodbye to her grandmother, the Dowager Empress (the eternally elegant Mary Beth Peil), who is returning to Paris. There is a ball. Then there is an invasion. And then we are no longer in Imperial Russia, but in the Soviet Union. Russians are still poor and struggling, but now they need to contend with their neighbors who may be spying on them.
A pair of con men, Dmitry (Derek Klena) and Vlad (John Bolton), decide to try for the reward being offered by the Dowager Empress to find Anastasia by training a girl to pretend to be the lost Grand Duchess. They find the street rat Anya, teach her how to be royal in a series of Pygmalion-esque scenes, and — in a visually-stunning scene that sets a train against a video backdrop of tracks and trees — race with her to Paris. For the most part, I didn't love the stage-high video screens that make real images of Paris and Leningrad the backdrop; they were distracting and made the characters seem small instead of grand. But this is one instance where the result was breathtaking. (Another is when video projections show us the ghosts of Anya's memories circling the stage and then the entire theater)
In Paris, we meet the gatekeeper to the Empress and the musical'ss showstopper — Countess Lily, a Russian ex-pat, played by the formidably funny Caroline O'Connor. She's the gatekeeper to the Empress.
By the time Anya meets the woman who might be her grandmother, she's convinced herself, the con men, and us: She's the lost Duchess.
Christy Altomare plays Anya with soaring vocals and an appealing vulnerability, but her sweetness would work better if it were studded with toughness from the beginning. After all, we're told she's walked half-way across Russia, and she's triumphant in a (completely unbelievable) street fight. It's only when she puts on the gown of a duchess that she suddenly seems resolute and regal, as if Grace Kelly had suddenly glided onto the stage.
Additionally, it's not until late in the second act that she has any chemistry with her love interest, Dmitry. That issue is resolved, though, with the unexpectedly poignant "In a Crowd of Thousands," where Anya and Dmitry try to recreate the moment when they may have met for the first time. Sparks do crackle between her and the show's villain, a Soviet functionary. Ooops.
Yet the production is strong enough to survive a mostly-milquetoast Anastasia. It has exotic locales, funny secondary characters, incredible dresses, and some heart-flutteringly romantic moments (when Dmitry bows to Anya, finally, the audience let out a tremendous sigh). Plus it has all the ear-worm songs (plus many others) that were so loved in the animated film. What's not to love?
At the Broadhurst Theatre; open run
Book by Terence McNally; music by Stephen Flaherty; lyrics by Lynn Ahrens; directed by Darko Tresnjak
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