By Sharon Eberson
It wasn’t a raucous crowd that welcomed Broadway back to Pittsburgh Thursday night. But then, the musical they were seeing wasn’t that kind of show. It was an appreciative audience, masked and vaccinated, that packed the Benedum Center and gave a warm welcome to the return of The Band’s Visit, the musical that was stopped in mid-run by the pandemic 19 months ago.
Unity, resiliency, relief from what had become the mundane — qualities being celebrated by the show — were palpable among the masked patrons as well.
Recognizing theater buddies from the look in their eye, fist bumps that said, “We’re back” without words, that was the mood surrounding the Tony Award-winning charmer.
Lobby at the Benedum Center
Just settling into my velvety Benedum seat felt like the most natural thing in the world and a celebration of survival at the same time.
The differences between the show that was cut short last year and the one in town through Sunday mainly were in the audience on Thursday night.
Everyone wore masks except the performers, proof of vaccinations with IDs were mandatory, and there was no food or beverages sold.
I arrived a half-hour early with my ticket, vaccination card, and ID in hand and breezed through security. Guests are allowed to bring their own bottled water, as my companion did, and she walked right in as well. (Find COVID safety protocols here. https://trustarts.org/pct_home/visit/welcome-to-the-cultural-district )
On a busy, weather-friendly night in the Cultural District, with all Trust theaters humming with activity, the post-show lines of people waiting for elevators in the Theater Square garage had also returned — and I didn’t even mind taking the stairs on this night.
This was my third time seeing The Band’s Visit, which won Tonys for David Yazbek’s score, a harmonious mashup reflecting his ethnic roots — his mother is Jewish and father Lebanese — and the book by Itamar Moses.
Based on the 2007 movie of the same name, the story strands an Egyptian band in a sleepy Israeli desert town for one night.
The similarities of the Hebrew names of the towns where the band is headed and the one where it lands is a running joke that doesn’t get old.
The show is crafted as a carefully planned meal of many courses, almost all with something to savor, paired with bittersweet flavors. It takes a step back from musicals with a bent toward the brassy and belty and instead opts for the subtle and sultry. The human interactions are individually consequential yet address universal themes.
Among the things that set The Band’s Visit apart is that it is never pushy in its message of music as a bridge between cultures. The possible implications of an Arab police band dressed in their Sergeant Pepper uniforms being welcomed into the homes of Israeli denizens is a matter of fact here. Any geopolitical implications are left for the audience to ponder.
For restaurant owner Dina and her neighbors, who lament their boring, blah existence in song, the musicians’ appearance represents a break from their humdrum lives. They represent something different, and that is enough.
Their interactions are played out by a mostly intact cast from the performers onstage in March of 2020.
Sasson Gabay, who starred in the movie as well, returns as the formal, seemingly repressed band leader who fascinates Dina, a feisty former dancer played again by Janet Dacal (In the Heights on Broadway).
Among newcomers to the tour is Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh CLO, and Front Porch Theatricals alum Joshua Grosso, playing the role of Telephone Guy (previously portrayed here by Pittsburgh native Mike Cefalo). Grosso joins two other CMU alums: Clay Singer as Itzik, a harried out-of-work husband, and father, and Nick Sacks, a standby with the tour.
Telephone Guy is a role full of hope and anticipation — a fitting mood for the show and the audience — as he waits steadfastly through the night for a call from the girl he loves. Grosso also leads the cast in the hauntingly beautiful “Answer Me,” perhaps the show’s most traditional Broadway number.
For many of us, Telephone Guy’s faith that the call will come is a metaphor for the longing many of us have felt to be inside a theater with a full house, experiencing the magic of a live performance.
Just as it did in the before times, the tour of the musical that won 10 Tony Awards includes a uniformly stellar cast and brilliant musicianship. If anything has changed, it is how living within a pandemic makes many of us experience the show.
The Band’s Visit begins with the song “Waiting,” about characters stuck in a rut, “Waiting for something, for anything, to happen.” And after that seemingly endless wait, something does happen — people who might never meet are drawn together by circumstance, and all are changed by the experience — a textbook conveyance of art and humanity, writ intimate and transcendent.
When you think the bows are coming, don’t run up the aisle trying to beat the crowd. The band of The Band’s Visit delivers a spirit-lifting klezmer concert to send you on your way. And for that, on an opening night like no other, an appreciative Pittsburgh audience settled back into their seats one more time.
For tickets visit https://trustarts.org/production/69943/the-bands-visit
Categories: Reviews
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