If you saw “Schmigadoon” on Apple TV, you might want to consider its Broadway iteration.
More succinct, humorous and charming, it cuts through the filler and gives you the “real” spoof of a 1950s Broadway musical.
In short, a couple of doctors (Alex Brightman and Sara Chase) go camping in the Catskills and find themselves washed up in a backward town called Schmigadoon. There, everything is a song prompt and a callback to musicals from the past.
When they go to a restaurant for lunch, the town breaks into “Corn Puddin’,” a song that could have come from “Oklahoma!” When she visits a carnival, the roustabout running it (Max Clayton) sings about his desires, just like someone from “Carousel.” And when the preacher’s wife (Ana Gasteyer) gets riled up about changes in the community, she launches into her take on “Trouble” from “The Music Man.”
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It’s all good fun, rewarding you for knowing the shows it’s referencing. Written and composed by Cinco Paul, who also did the TV series, it’s a callback to pre-“Rent” musicals that manages to poke them ever-so-slightly. It also has smart trappings (like a gorgeous old-school set, rousing choreography and razor-sharp lyrics) that make you believe you’ve gone back in time and didn’t have to suffer through someone else’s angst.
Brightman — who starred in several musicals — plays a guy who “hates” musicals and does his best to convey the message. Chase, however, loves them and leans into every key change and dance cue it has to offer.
Thanks to director/choreographer Christopher Gattelli, this is the kind of musical you wished they still made.
Gasteyer uses all of her comic charm to pick a little, talk a little; Isabelle McCalla is the schoolteacher you wished had knocked some sense into those who badmouth educators.
Whip it all together, and “Schmigadoon” is a valentine to shows that offered hummable songs and twisted storytelling.
That it includes “morally adrift” characters doesn’t hurt, either.
