The Band's Visit
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Cititour.com Review
It’s easy these days to have a negative view of human nature, which is one reason audiences will feel so uplifted by “The Band’s Visit,” a surprisingly touching musical fable now bowing at the Atlantic Theater Company. Itamar Moses’ adaptation of Eran Kolirin’s award-winning film about a band of Egyptian musicians in 1996, who are welcomed by the residents of sleepy Israeli town in which they’ve accidentally ended up, is unusually delicate theatrical fare, thanks in large part to David Cromer’s clear-eyed direction. Better still, the work also acts as a potent reminder of how all people, regardless of race or religion, must deal with the same fundamental issues.
Here, that overriding issue is loneliness and isolation – feelings which come to the forefront during the one day the band is in town. (Its various, unspectacular locations are well rendered by scenic designer Scott Pask, making excellent use of a turntable set.) And they are most deeply felt by the band’s leader, Tewfig (a beautifully understated Tony Shalhoub), a stoic, genteel widower afraid to love again, and Israeli café owner Dina (a truly sensational Katrina Lenk), abandoned by her husband and desperate to reignite a true human connection.
Nowhere is Dina’s longing for a rekindling of romance more evident than when she sings the haunting “Omar Sharif,” a reverie of her classic memories of Egyptian films that works spectacularly as both inner monologue and an outward attempt to seduce the stone-willed Tewfig.
Essentially we come to realize that all the characters we meet are desperate for that connection: handsome, seemingly womanizing musician Haled (a very fine Ar’Tel Stachel), who we discover is dreading his soon-to-happen arranged marriage; troubled young Israeli couple Itzik (the hangdog John Cariani) and Iris (Kristen Sieh); Iris’ widowed father Avrum (a welcome Andrew Polk); shy Israeli 20something Papi (an excellent Daniel David Stewart); even the character only identified as “Telephone Guy” (the strong-voiced Erik Liberman) who waits nightly by a pay phone, seemingly in vain, for his girlfriend to call.
We learn as much about all these characters through Moses’ dialogue as we do by the eclectic score by the gifted Broadway composer David Yazbek, who relies on both Middle Eastern-inspired music and all-American craft to make his points. For example, Papi’s fear of reaching out, both literally and physically, to local girl Julia (Rachel Prather) is wonderfully expressed by the comic “Papi Hears the Ocean”; while “Itzik’s Lullaby” is one man’s wrenching apology to his baby about his perceived failures as a father.
As for the show itself, it can best be summed up by the title of one Yazbek’s most crowd-pleasing numbers: “Something Different.”
By Brian Scott Lipton
Visit the Site
https://atlantictheater.org/playevents/thebandsvisit
Cast
George Abud, Bill Army, John Cariani, Katrina Lenk, Erik Liberman, Andrew Polk, Rachel Prather, Jonathan Raviv, Sharone Sayegh, Tony Shalhoub, Kristen Sieh, Ari’el Stachel, Daniel David Stewart, Alok Tewarie
Open/Close Dates
Opening 11/11/2016
Closing 1/8/2017
Box Office
866-811-4111
Theatre Info
Atlantic Theater Company/Linda Gross Theater
336 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
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