An off year for musicals, but ‘Once’ deserves to win TONY AWARDS

June 9, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

By Chris Jones

Chicago Tribune

NEW YORK

What with “Ghost,” “Lysistrata Jones” and other wearying disappointments, the 2012-13 Broadway season hardly will go down as a banner year for new American musicals. Indeed, should the best-musical Tony Award go, at Sunday’s ceremony, to a show other than “Once” or “Newsies” — the only remotely viable candidates for this most important of theatrical honors — the theater chatterati will be speechless and Tweetless. For a couple of seconds.

“Leap of Faith,” a missed opportunity for a more substantial look at the role of faith in Red State America, and “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” a genial but wholly artificial construct that feels more like a desire to exploit a great song catalog than a show with a coherent artistic purpose, have about as much chance of winning a Tony on Sunday as the NBC comedy “Smash” has of achieving belated verisimilitude. But all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the state of the musical — a form, it should be noted, that has survived far leaner years than this one — should not detract from the formidable and underappreciated achievement of “Once,” a musical that displays significantly more originality and breathtaking artistry than last year’s winner, “The Book of Mormon,” a hit so potent and popular it also will be featured on this year’s Tony Awards.

Sure, “Once” is based on existing material — in this case, John Carney’s 2006 independent movie about a love-lorn busker and an already-married Czech immigrant who totter precariously on the edge of Eros in Dublin. But I’d argue that, formatively speaking, this is one of the best screen-to-stage adaptations that Broadway has ever seen, not the least because the bookwriter, Enda Walsh, the director, John Tiffany, and the choreographer, Steven Hoggett, are all worthy Tony winners who understand the crucial difference between film and theater.

For those of us who have sat open-mouthed on Broadway as huge scenic pieces flew or rolled through a progression of tedious and superfluous short scenes in past movies-turned-musicals such as “Nine to Five” or “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” “Once” stands out as a model of its form. It takes a multi-locale, cinematic story and distills it to its theatrical essence, avoiding artifice and understanding that crucial person-to-person communication on stage can be foregrounded only when there is a minimum of clutter.

“Once” is far better as a musical than as a movie (and it was a good movie) because it deepens the metaphoric weight and universality of the characters.

As beautifully performed by Cristin Milioti, who truly floats through the theater, the unnamed character of Girl feels like a guardian angel whom we’d all like to have setting us back on our feet. How come such a selfless, empowering person doesn’t show up to take care of all we lost souls? We can, at least, go to the theater to see her.

“Newsies,” a rollicking melodrama of striking paperboys, can’t compete on an emotional or structural level and shouldn’t win. Still, it offers a few of its own lessons for next season’s musical wannabes, not the least of which is the palpable, hurricane-strength force of offering up a fleet of lovable protagonists (making characters lovable on Broadway is harder than almost anyone thinks). But the appeal of “Newsies” is as simple as that. These singing, dancing dudes — Crutchy, Specs and all the flat-capped pals — are eminently, endlessly likable. Almost likable enough to win a Tony on the sheer force thereof. But not quite.