The Broadway musical Wicked has been such a gargantuan success that it almost makes you forget about its most humiliating defeat. On the night of June 6, 2004, Radio City Music Hall erupted in cries of disbelief as Avenue Q, a ragtag puppet musical with songs like “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist,” won the Tony Award for Best Musical, beating the big-budget box-office sensation about the witches of Oz. It was such an unlikely upset that, for a brief period, the screens in the theater read “Best Musical: Wicked.” It seemed that even the people running the awards show thought it would go the other way.
That’s the most famous example of an idea that holds true today: Broadway loves an underdog. Critics, industry folk and, eventually, audiences have a history of rallying behind unassuming, small-scale musicals that punch above their weight. We’ve seen it time after time in recent years, with original musicals like A Strange Loop, Kimberly Akimbo and Maybe Happy Ending each winning the top prize at the Tony Awards this decade, beating lavish productions that adapted well-known entertainment for the stage, from Michael Jackson’s music to movies like Death Becomes Her and Some Like It Hot.
So who’s the underdog this season? That would be Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York), a stripped-down, two-person romantic comedy about a wide-eyed English bloke (played by Sam Tutty) and a jaded New Yorker (Christiani Pitts) who are thrown together in the build-up to a Christmas wedding. It’s got all the hallmarks of theatrical dark horse: It’s an original musical by two writers, Jim Barne and Kit Buchan, who are making their Broadway debut; it has a barebones set, with a simple turntable piled high with luggage that morphs into suggestions of scenes; and it’s cast a spell on some of the major critics, with The New York Times even bestowing it with a coveted Critic’s Pick designation.
As I shuffled into the Longacre Theatre on a rainy Wednesday night in December, through doors newly plastered with the Times’ seal of approval, I sat down for Two Strangers expecting to get in early on yet another diamond in the rough, like I did 12 months before at a performance of Maybe Happy Ending when I sat next to huge swaths of empty seats (it now consistently sells out). But it only took a couple songs into the two-hour show for me to come to another, more startling realization: Broadway’s love affair with underdogs has turned into a delusion.
Instead of being “the most charmingly simple show on Broadway,” as Laura Collins-Hughes wrote for the Times, acknowledging its underdog status, Two Strangers is just plain simple. The songs are simple, the set design gets monotonous quickly and the story feels less like a golden age romantic comedy than a half-baked Hallmark movie, a similarity only highlighted by the Christmas setting. It’s not the most disappointed I’ve ever been after buying a ticket at Broadway prices — King Kong tops that list, a musical I’m sad to say Pitts also starred in — but it certainly doesn’t belong on any best-of-Broadway lists, like those from USA Today and Entertainment Weekly.
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Jackson has thrilled Broadway audiences by putting her signature stamp on classic characters. She thanks the “Black luminaries who paved the way,” even as she picks up that mantle herself.The story follows an ebullient Brit named Dougal Todd (Tutty), who is visiting New York for the first time on the occasion of his estranged father’s wedding; he left before Dougal was born, and this will be the first time they’ve ever met. Robin Rainey (Pitts), the dispirited younger sister of the bride-to-be, picks up Dougal from the airport, not knowing she’s about to acquire a tag-along tourist who speaks almost entirely in jokes and movie references.
Like the best romantic comedies, Two Strangers is a story of opposites attracting. Like the worst romantic comedies, it tries to use charismatic actors to mask uninspired material. The common thread in seemingly every positive review of the musical is effusive praise for Tutty, who has been called a “revelation” by Entertainment Weekly and a “brand new Broadway star” by the New York Post. He is charming at the outset, no doubt, but the shine wears off before the end of the first act. Instead of infusing his dialogue with cleverness, the writers instead rely on wearisome film references (Dougal works at a movie theater back home) while beating their best jokes into a pulp.
Case in point: The biggest laugh of the night comes when Dougal calls his reluctant guide “Auntie Robin,” even though they’re about the same age. I’ll admit, I laughed out loud the first time he said it. I didn’t laugh the second, third and fourth time. And yet, Two Strangers seems to prove the point of Colin Frissell from another festive romantic comedy, Love Actually: If you have a “cute British accent,” Americans will love you, no matter what you’re saying.
How about what they’re singing? Let’s just say there’s probably a reason why the positive reviews don’t delve too deeply into the mechanics of the songs, as the music is largely repetitive, disjointed pop with lyrics that often feel like the audience has shouted out situations and they’re being improvised on the spot.
This problem is especially stark in Robin’s songs, where Pitts sings passionately about memories, hopes and dreams that could be removed and easily slotted into thousands of other musicals. In “This Is the Place,” when Robin is showing Dougal the Brooklyn neighborhood where she grew up, she sings, “This is the place / Where you can come and watch the city on Saturday nights.” Later, in “This Year,” what’s supposed to be an emotionally devastating moment in the second act is hamstrung by banalities: “Wide awake in the city tonight / And the world is alive in the flickering light / In the anticipation of the girl that you might still be / Will be.” By the end of the show, you feel like you barely know Robin, which might be why so many people come away with Dougal on the brain.
I understand the desire to heap praise here, even if it’s unwarranted. In the current Broadway landscape where celebrities are taking the place of seasoned stage actors, where IP plays (Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Stranger Things: The First Shadow) and long-running shows (Wicked, The Lion King) are raking it in while new stories flounder, and where it’s almost impossible to turn a profit, it feels good — righteous, even — to root for an original show with unknown writers and actors. But Two Strangers is not ready for primetime. Off-off-Broadway maybe, but not the 1,007-seat Longacre with top ticket prices of $300.
The sad thing is, there are flashes of brilliance in this musical. The music in the opening song “New York” is undeniably infectious. When Dougal sheds the jokes and sings from the heart in “Dad” and “About to Go In,” I almost thought things could be turned around. If only someone had said to Barne and Buchan, This is a good start. Can you do another draft? Or better yet, as with Rent creator Jonathan Larson, I wish someone had said, This is a good start. Now work on your next show.
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