It’s time to put on our welcome hats. There is a new star arrived in the firmament.
Daniel Radcliffe is killing them in How to Succeed! He is turning in the kind of performance you go to the musical theater for. I’m not sure you will easily believe how good this kid is at musical comedy. He dances! He sings!
What? Didn’t he spend his teens becoming like the most famous teenager on the planet, earning a couple hundred million in the offing? Isn’t he supposed to be in rehab by now? Hanging out in Mustique with Jagger and Bowie at the very least?
He’s not. This 21-year-old, instead, for the heck of it, decides to go for mastery in another art form. I know it’s hard to believe. I can hear the doubters; know there’ll be haters. Don’t do it--go see him instead.
I got the thing; I think you’ll get the thing. You know, the thrilly-tingly thing? The kind you got when you first saw “One” in A Chorus Line? You’ll get it from “Brotherhood of Man,” the eleven o’clock number. This is the best production number I’ve seen on Broadway in years. It’s a-fucking-mazing. I would pay the whole ticket price just to see it again. In fact, I can’t believe it will somehow go on again tomorrow night without me there.
Mr. Radcliffe is ably supported. John Laroquette is endearing as always, charming and precise. Christopher J. Hanke shines as the dastardly nemesis, and Rose Hemingway has the cool, clear voice of a seeker of wisdom and truth as Rosemary. Derek McLane’s sets and Catherine Zuber’s costumes are pitch perfect.
But this production starts and finishes with Mr. Radcliffe. And with Rob Ashford’s spot-on directing, exuberant choreography. Ashford doesn’t miss a single trick in this soaring production. He and Mr. Radcliffe give the thing flight!
Look, I’m with you; I find it sort of incredible. I have never been the biggest fan of How to Succeed. I saw the revival with Mathew Broderick, and I saw the original with Robert Morse--and they were fine. But I never came out feeling as I did here: with that irresistible rising up thing in my chest, carried into the street, not sure if the show would continue there. God, I love that.
At the curtain call, everyone is standing before Daniel Radcliffe comes out for his bow--Mr. Laroquette turns, bowing some and, throwing back both arms in utter welcome to the musical stage, our new star. The ovation floods the house, chills go up your spine. I was at two moments like that in the same week—the beyond belief cheering for the new iPad2, and Daniel Radcliffe’s curtain call at How to Succeed.
I’m telling you; it felt like I was there at the start of something big.
Ron Gallen
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