The first time I heard of The Baker’s Wife was in 1993 when I bought “Patti LuPone Live.” To set up a song she tells the audience, “There’s a musical theatre joke that if Hitler was alive today his punishment should be to send him out on the road with a musical in trouble. We were that musical, The Baker’s Wife.” Then she sang the lovely song “Meadowlark,” making me wonder why the show was so bad with such a pretty song, which she sang with full heart and obvious appreciation.
The next time I heard of The Baker’s Wife was in 2008 when I received a review copy of the CD “Patti LuPone at Les Mouches.” It had been recorded in 1980 when LuPone had been performing 27 weeks of midnight shows at the Greenwich Village nightclub. After mentioning that her next song would be “Meadowlark,” someone in the audience voiced approval, to which she replied, “You’ve been here before. Nobody know about that gobbler.” Again I was curious about the musical and wondered if I’d ever get to see it.
I finally did, last night, thanks to Classic Stage Company, which has given this 1976 musical a shining and joyful production. Stephen Schwartz’s songs, which are both funny and moving, are well presented by the excellent cast of 20, although I wish director Gordon Greenberg and book writer Joseph Stein had done some cutting. This sweet little story, based on Marcel Pagnol’s 1938 film, set in a rural French village in Provence in 1935 would be better served as two hours with no intermission rather than its two and a half hours. The second act dragged for me.
The story opens as folks gather in the village square in eager anticipation of the arrival of the new baker. They have been without bread for three weeks since their baker got drunk, fell in a ditch, broke his neck and died. For the French, this is a grande horreur — being without their fresh bread, not the death of the baker. Denise (Judy Kuhn), wife of the café owner, describes life there in the opening song,
Ev’ry day as you do what you do ev’ry day/You see the same faces who will fill the cafe./And if some of these faces have new things to say/Nothing is really different.
Kuhn, a multiple Tony, Olivier and Grammy Award nominee, is a winning commentator throughout.
When the baker, Aimable Castagnet (Bill English last night filling in for Scott Bakula), arrives with his wife, Geneviève (Ariana DeBose), the villagers joyously surround them and comment among themselves on why such a beautiful young woman would marry such an old man. Much is made throughout about the age difference and it certainly is a major plot element but I think it would have been more obvious with Bakula, who is 71, than English, who is 63 but with his boyish face could easily pass for a decade younger. DeBose is a mature and sexy 34.
Geneviève had been in love with a married man who refused to leave his wife for her. Aimable was a devoted patron of the café where she was a waitress, every night sitting at her table and ordering veal au gratin because she had laughed the first time he ordered it. It was the start of his devotion that he sings about after they are married, “I will try to make you happy.” Even though it’s a rebound marriage for Geneviève, she seems genuinely fond of her husband and determined to be content with their marriage.
That is until she meets Dominique (Kevin William Paul), the handsome young servant of the Marquis (Nathan Lee Graham). He pursues her at every encounter and she tries to resist until, after singing “Meadowlark,” she gives in and they leave town. The song is about a story Geneviève had loved as a child about a blind lark and an old king who takes her in and she sings for him with a “voice that could match the angels in its glory.” One day the god of the sun sees the beautiful lark and grants her sight. He encourages her to fly away with him, “come along,” but “the old king loved her so” that she wouldn’t leave him. When the king comes down the next day, ”He found his meadowlark had died. Every time I heard that part I cried,” Genevieve sings, and proclaims she won’t miss her chance.
“Oh, just when I thought my heart was finally numb, a beautiful young man appears before me, Singing ‘Come/ Oh, won’t you come?’” And she does.
It’s a wonderful song but DeBose ruins it with wild flinging and waving of her arms throughout. How could Greenberg have allowed that? It’s annoying.
Act Two finds the villagers once again longing for their bread because Aimable is so despondent he has stopped baking. Trying to entice him back into his kitchen they dance and sing around the square in a couple of numbers that show off Stephanie Klemons’ choreography but that I would drop to move the show along. I did love the scene in which Geneviève and Dominique dance a sensual pas de duex (in photo) as Aimable stands looking on; this is what he is imagining.
Scenic designer Jason Sherwood uses the tiny performance space well, creating the atmosphere of a tiny French village with flowers climbing the walls at front and back, with three café tables at one end and the storefront of the BOULANGERIE (bakery) at the far end.
I won’t reveal the ending, which I loved. The show is finishing up its run but you may be able to catch it later since I’m thinking this production is a testing of the waters for a possible Broadway transfer.
