It is a new Broadway musical written by the team of Steve Martin and Edie Brickell. Here with his review of "Bright Star" is contributing critic David Cote of Time Out New York.
This season, Broadway is sounding very diverse: You can hear Latin pop, hip-hop, rock and gospel – not to mention – traditional show tunes. Now, with “Bright Star,” bluegrass joins the list.
Featuring two hours of banjo and fiddle, “Bright Star” marks the multi-talented Steve Martin’s first foray into Broadway musicals.
Anyone who has followed Martin’s career in comedy and movies knows him as a longtime banjo aficionado, but this time, his skills as composer and book writer are on display.
Initially, there are enjoyable elements. The onstage band is lively and quick-fingered, and director Walter Bobbie’s overall production has a fresh, whimsical feel. And Carmen Cusack’s lead performance as country-gal-turned-city-editor Alice Murphy is radiant, assured and charismatic.
Cusack charms and has a great big voice. Sadly, Edie Brickell’s awkward and obvious lyrics are hobbled by cheap rhymes and the bluegrass idiom can grow repetitious.
Set in North Carolina, “Bright Star” is a sentimental folktale driven by plot twists, both ridiculous and wildly predictable. Murphy is a free-spirited young woman who falls in love with the Mayor’s son. Scenes go back and forth between the 1920s and just after World War II, as we see a connection forming between an ex-soldier who wants to be a writer, and Murphy, his editor.
But trust me you will see the eleventh-hour revelations coming from a country mile away.
Again, Steve Martin’s jaunty bluegrass score may get your toes tapping, but only if the sappy and sketchy plot does not drive you out at intermission.