Betty Comden, a Brooklyn native, Adolph Green from the Bronx, and Leonard Bernstein, originally from Boston, all born in the 1910s, first come to mind imagining them gathered around a piano in Greenwich Village during the early 1940s. There, they entertained themselves by crafting topical sketches for the Village Gate, calling their group the Revuers.
That spontaneous and playful energy is what they aimed to embody in the lighthearted and affectionate 1953 musical, “Wonderful Town.” Set amidst the winding streets and modest apartments of Greenwich Village, the show centers on the quirky New York experiences of two sisters from Ohio. Based on Ruth McKenney’s autobiographical stories originally published in The New Yorker, the musical ultimately celebrates the delight of discovering a community where outsiders belong and intellectuals thrive.
However, the musical’s structure is somewhat makeshift—improvised like a candle in a wine bottle or the patchwork nature of the Village Gate revues. Bernstein indulges in eccentric rhythms and styles, while Comden and Green favor playful wordplay over strict narrative coherence, at one point rhyming “learned to read” with “André Gide.” With a whimsical book by Joseph A. Fields and Jerome Chodorov based on their earlier play “My Sister Eileen,” “Wonderful Town” is an endearing yet loosely connected work. Kathleen Marshall’s 2000 Encores! production, featuring Donna Murphy and later transferred to Broadway in 2003, presented this charm with considerable success.
The current Encores! revival, which opened Wednesday at City Center, marks only the third time in 31 seasons that the series has revisited a previous title. While Anika Noni Rose as the elder sister Ruth and Aisha Jackson as the younger Eileen are aptly cast and deliver moments of genuine appeal, and Javier Muñoz shines as the magazine editor both sisters admire, the production falls short of the earlier revival’s achievements. The choral performances meet the company’s high standards, but aside from the dance sequences, Zhailon Levingston’s direction feels uneven and sluggish, lacking the humor that should enliven the show.
This is disappointing because Levingston’s core concept is promising. Although diversity is often seen as a progressive, one-directional evolution, 1935’s Greenwich Village—the setting of the story—welcomed a broader and scruffier mix of characters (and even rats) than the polished neighborhood it is today. Levingston expands on the script’s comedic depiction of impoverished bohemians—painters wearing berets, dancers in tight costumes, and street-corner singers—to highlight a racial and gender diversity that the original creators overlooked in their tribute to Christopher Street as a haven for self-expression.
Yet despite this well-intentioned and timely update, it does not quite make “Wonderful Town” truly wonderful in this staging. Rose’s skill with understated humor and Jackson’s effervescent energy are frequently undermined by vague visual storytelling and awkward pacing, which can leave audiences uncertain about the unfolding action. Even the sisters’ poignant harmonies in Bernstein’s “Ohio,” expressing nostalgia for a simpler life, are oddly displaced by unusual sound design that makes the lyrics feel otherworldly rather than grounded in the Midwest.
