“Smash” at the Imperial Theatre (Photo: Matthew Murphy)
When the NBC series Smash was canceled in 2013, it’s fair to say very few were surprised. After a strong pilot episode, the show quickly lost sight of its goals and veered into increasingly implausible plotlines. Couple that with declining viewership and the show’s creator, playwright Theresa Rebeck, saw herself summarily fired after the first season. The new direction of season 2, led by new showrunner Joshua Safran, refocused the plot, but lost something in return.
The wild swings of the Rebeck season were part of what made it must-see television. Would Ivy’s addiction to prednisone get the better of her? Would Eileen throw yet another martini at a Pulitzer Prize winner? It was meme-able in the nascent stages of the form and Rachel Shukert’s recaps for Vulture preserved that rush of joy in digital ink. It was Glee for grownups.
The other crucial ingredient was the excellent songs for the musical-within-the-TV-show composed by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman and choreographed by Joshua Bergasse, who won Smash’s only Emmy for his work. From the heart-pounding “Let Me Be Your Star” that closes the first episode, it was clear that these songs were going to stick around. These were not throwaway numbers, these were works of art. They demanded to be heard live, not just on the fictional Broadway stage of the TV show, but on an actual Broadway stage, too.
Over a decade later, they finally are. The zippy, fun, and ridiculous new stage musical Smash eschews the plot and all the characters, except for Ivy and Karen (and even then only keeps their names). Instead, book writers Bob Martin and Rick Elice have created what is essentially a jukebox musical. It takes the songs you know and love and fashions a new story around them. It’s also about the making of a musical based on the life of Marilyn Monroe, but instead of the multitude of problems that plague the series’ characters, this time it’s mostly a single book that triggers the musical’s chaos.
Marilyn was a well-known proponent of the Method and toted her acting coach Paula Strasberg around with her on set. Ivy Lynn (now no relation to Lee Conroy) is handed a tome by the Strasberg-inspired Susan Proctor and her immersion in the Method leads to backstage pandemonium. In addition to keeping the songs and Bergasse’s irreplaceable choreography, Martin and Elice also retain the campy, go-for-broke plotting that made the series so delicious. Light poisoning aside, nothing that happens in the series happens in the musical, but Martin and Elice have invented their own set of wtf-is-happening (complimentary) plot points that send the musical-within-the-musical spiraling.
Credit also goes to director Susan Stroman, no stranger to building a new musical from the ground up. Stroman has a keen sense of when moments need to be big and when they need to be reigned in. The comedy stretches broadly, but the humans beneath the antics are never lost. The musical numbers, all diegetic, are seamlessly folded into the book scenes, and the pace chugs along so swiftly that the two hours and forty-five minutes fly by.
Robyn Hurder shows marvelous range as Ivy Lynn, beginning as the rehearsal room’s best friend, then turning into a monstrous diva consumed by pills and verb substitutions. Her presence is electric and Ivy’s stone-faced disapproval of her castmates is so riotously funny I could not stop laughing. Later, when Ivy realizes what a nightmare she’s turned into, Hurder plays that ashamed repentance with naked honesty. Hurder’s career is built on her legitimately stunning dancing, but in Smash, she’s showing us what a great actor she is, too.
Brooks Ashmanskas, with a box around his name in the program (!), plays the show’s director/choreographer Nigel Davies. Ashmanskas’ superb comedic timing is the backbone of Martin and Elice’s dialogue. Jacqueline B. Arnold as Anita, the show’s producer, nails the withering comments directed at her nepo-assistant, Scott (Nicholas Matos). Kristine Nielsen’s well-honed comedic schtick – when her voice drops an octave, it’s irresistible – is well-deployed as Susan Proctor.
Beowulf Boritt’s set is impressive in scale, if a little boring in its literalization. Brian Ronan’s sound design really leans into Paul Staroba’s spectacular orchestra, but at the loss of some crispness in the vocals. Alejo Vietti’s costumes and Charles G. LaPointe’s wig design are aces across the board, but Hurder, in particular, has never looked better than when decked out in their Marilyn finest.
It’s not a perfect musical by any stretch. It’s constantly urging you to look away from its seams, which is all too easy when the dances, costumes, and performances are so appealing. Some of the rehearsal numbers in the first act feel purposeless, but they’re still diverting. The character of Karen is a casualty of a new plot point in which an assistant director is also in the mix to play Marilyn. Caroline Bowman is giving it her all, but Karen doesn’t feel necessary anymore.
Those are small quibbles in the larger scheme of things, though. Smash is a throwback kind of musical. It’s Mickey and Judy with a contemporary spin. It loves the American musical theatre even as it skewers it. In the show, Anita and Nigel are begging the writers to make Bombshell a plain old musical comedy. Elice, Martin, Shaiman, Wittman, and crew have done just that with.