FORT WORTH “The Immigrant” will never be one of those musicals that fails because of book problems.
Mark Harelik adapted his own play of the same name, which was one of the most popular scripts at regional theaters all over the country a few years back. Both versions were born at the Denver Center Theatre Company, and both tell the story of how the playwright’s Jewish family got to the small Texas town of Hamilton.
We first see Haskell, a Jewish immigrant who speaks almost no English, pushing a cart to peddle bananas. The town banker, Milton, and his pious Baptist wife, Ima, rent him a room, mostly because Ima sees something of her own long-lost son in the young foreigner.
Milton observes how hard Haskell works and backs him financially as his business grows into a store. The Texas couple gets a surprise one day when Haskell announces that his wife, Leah, is outside, fresh off the boat from Europe. Leah at first resists this new place where she and her husband are the only Jews, but eventually the newcomers settle in.
This story is so strong you may wonder why it needs music at all especially when the score by Steven M. Alper is so challenging to the singers and, to an extent, the audience. Sarah Knapp’s lyrics stick to the basics of the plot, aside from Haskell’s meditation on the sky in a song that begins the first act and brings it to an end.
We hear that number reprised all too often in the second act. There, the only song that has a musical life of its own is the comic one in which the two women discover that every culture has its superstitions. Otherwise there’s too much sung discourse with no real payoff in melodic pleasure.
Director Jim Covault’s cast does so well by the show that you won’t spend too much time worrying about the score. Melinda Wood Allen, often the strongest voice in a production, also shows how interesting an actress she is by giving Ima so much variety and humanity. Michael Corolla as Milton and Allison McCorkle as Leah are vocally less secure but dramatically Ms. Allen’s equals.
The real surprise comes from Cameron McElyea as Haskell. It’s a brave performance, with more quirks than even Dustin Hoffman could muster. The Yiddish-Russian accent at the beginning is so thick and convincing that we entirely believe in this immigrant as an outsider. Over the 35 years the plot covers, Mr. McElyea changes and grows impressively. This young actor has done some good work at other area theaters, but nothing that quite prepared us for this performance.
“The Immigrant” plays through April 7 at the Sanders Theatre in the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, 1300 Gendy at Lancaster, Fort Worth. 817-784-9378, www.stagewest.org
