A “Bright Star” lights up the Ahmanson

Lighting up the Sky

“Bright Star” at the Ahmanson, a review

How often do you read a review of a show where the first thing a writer tells you is that it’s contrived, predictable, melodramatic and rather implausible, and then adds that’s it’s captivating and entertaining and that you should go and see it?

I’ll answer that for you: Not often. But this is how I feel about “Bright Star,” a musical written by master-of-everything-he-sets-his-mind-to Steve Martin and former New Bohemian Edie Brickell. It’s waiting for you at the Ahmanson through Nov. 19.

The story advances with two narratives, one in the early 1920s and another in the mid-1940s, both in North Carolina. It doesn’t take a Masters from USC to realize that they’re going to converge at the end of the story.

“Bright Star” quickly dims, but only momentarily. Billy Cane (A.J. Shively) returns from his stint in World War II, looking bright and bushy-tailed as if he’d just come home for semester break. His father greets him. Where’s Mom? Well, son, while you were gone…

It should be noted that the onstage transitions between time and place are seamless and imaginative, as when we watch an older, mature Alice Murphy (Carmen Cusack) shed the clothes and demeanor of a hard-nosed literary editor at the Asheville Southern Journal and instantly become a playful and somewhat adventurous farm girl out in the sticks. She falls in love with Jimmy Ray Dobbs (Patrick Cummings), the son of Mayor Josiah Dobbs (Jeff Austin), and, we’ll cut to the chase, has a child out of wedlock.

The mayor has envisioned a more luminous future for his son and he fears that Alice and a child will only impede it. He decides the child must be put up for adoption and even convinces Alice’s father (Stephen Lee Anderson) that this is best for all concerned. Mama Murphy (Allison Briner-Dardenne) disagrees, sides with her daughter, and there is a heart wrenching tussle between these four that’s largely embodied in the song “Please Don’t Take Him.” Cusack is so convincing here maybe you’ll wonder if she’s forgetting that is only make-believe.

Billy Cane’s ambition, now that he’s back from the war, is to be a published writer. He shares this dream with Margo Crawford (Maddie Shea Baldwin), who clearly has grown from a mere girl into a lovely Southern belle while Billy was away. She’s always had a crush on him, that’s evident, but initially he’s too caught up in himself to notice. But even if Billy can’t see it, the audience can: Margo (or Maddie) is very sweet and very pretty. It’s highly unlikely that the playwrights will have her get run over by a truck while crossing the street.

Most of the comic relief comes by way of the older Alice Murphy’s saucy receptionist, Lucy Grant (Kaitlyn Davidson) and her snarky, sarcastic assistant Daryl Ames (Jeff Blumenkrantz). Ames is a would-be writer himself, and he keeps submitting work to the journal he works for, but under various aliases.

In pursuit of literary greatness, Billy Cane has picked up and moved to Asheville, the former home of Thomas Wolfe (“Look Homeward, Angel”). Other names are dropped, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway among them, just so we’ll remember in what era we’re sitting.

Although Alice Murphy doesn’t accept any of Billy’s submissions, she sees promise in the young man and gives him a monetary incentive. Naturally, the young man is encouraged.

The story is well-paced and never flags. The bluegrass, country-flavored music is performed by a 10-piece ensemble that fiddles and strums and is ensconced in a wooden frame shack on rollers that is sometimes positioned in the center of the stage (when it also doubles as the childhood homes of Billy Cane and Alice Murphy) and sometimes off to the side.

The musical numbers are serviceable and pleasant, and those who hear something they enjoy can trot up to the lobby during intermission or after the show and pick up the original cast album.

In addition to being contrived and predictable and all those good things I mentioned at the start of this piece, the story is locked in on its characters and isn’t addressing the world at large, by which I mean rural poverty, mosquitos, or race relations. One reviewer seems to have lamented that the production wasn’t grittier: Where are the black faces? Well, this isn’t a play about sharecroppers, and I’m not so sure where a black actor could have been placed without it seeming to be a concession to political correctness. If you’re looking for that kind of social commentary you’ll need to thumb through your local theater guide.

Billy’s plunge into the big city lights of Asheville would be incomplete without the risk of temptation (a code word for “sex and alcohol”), and it’s encapsulated in a dancehall scene where Billy hooks up with Daryl Ames and Lucy Grant. Well, Lucy has her eye on Billy and attempts to seduce him, grist for the writer’s mill in real life, but Billy catches himself and retains his purity (you’d never guess he’d been a soldier). But what this scene also does is showcase the choreography of Josh Rhodes and the artful stage direction of Walter Bobbie. It also serves notice that Kaitlyn Davidson is an actress to watch.

Soon after her baby is wrenched from her arms, Alice and Jimmy Ray lose touch, and although Alice never forgets about her child and tries to learn what happened to him, she never does. And so the years roll by and she becomes the crusty literary editor or publisher we’ve met early on. But if you’ve paid attention to what I said earlier, that both narratives converge, most of the last minute surprises will really only be surprises to the characters onstage.

Now, on another level, what might this story by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell be about?

A couple of times, because of the tilt of her yellow hat with its wide brim, Alice Murphy looks saintly, like she’s wearing a halo. I don’t know if this is accidental or whether it’s a subtle calculation or whether it’s because I’ve been reading about Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini, but suddenly this musical seemed to be about resurrection, rebirth, redemption, and reunion, in addition to having a second chance to put right an earlier misstep (for all we know, the title of the show alludes to the star of Bethlehem).

One can buy that interpretation or not, and either way it doesn’t do much to alleviate the transparency of the storyline. However, and this is fairly obvious when discussing a musical, it’s not always the plausibility of the story but rather how well it’s handled. This is a tight production with a superb cast, top to bottom. While “Bright Star” may be simplistic on the one hand, it soars on the other, doing what musical theater always strives for, which is to entertain and captivate an audience and send them home well pleased.

BRIGHT STAR is onstage through Nov. 19 at the Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown Los Angeles in the Music Center. Performances, Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 1 and 6:30 p.m. Tickets, $30 to $135. Call (213) 972-4400 or go to CenterTheatreGroup.org. ER

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