The Shadow of Winter: Review of Groundhog Day: The Musical

Act II of “Groundhog Day: The Musical,” opens on a surprisingly mournful note, when a side character named Nancy (Rebecca Faulkenberry), who barely had any lines in Act I, steps downstage center and sings the ballad “Playing Nancy”, where she shares her sadness about the role life has assigned to her: She is a perpetual one-night stand, a “detour on the journey of some man.” Until this point in the production, Nancy has been seen only in passing as a sexy snow-bunny leered at and seduced by trapped-in-time weatherman Phil Connors (Andy Karl). She is what she appears to be: an easy party-girl. But suddenly, with no preamble, the stage is hers. We learn what life is like for her, her awareness of how she is perceived, her participation in that perception, her hopes that someday she can stop “playing Nancy.” “Playing Nancy” is just one of many moments in this innovative production where the story shifts and allows us to do what the original film did: slow time down enough to consider the implications.

This radical choice is a perfect example of what the Broadway adaptation, directed by Matthew Warchus, with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin (collaborators on “Matilda”), and book by Danny Rubin (who wrote the screenplay for the iconic 1993 film), has done extraordinarily well: dig into what is commonly called “the human condition,” not just for the selfish Phil Connors, but for everyone. As Phil becomes more engaged with life, the people around him – people whom he sneered and leered at from the get-go – start to become three-dimensional.

“Groundhog Day” is the story of a misanthropic weatherman who gets stuck in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on February 2nd, while covering the annual Groundhog Day celebration. Stranded in the town by a blizzard, he wakes up the following morning, eager to flee, only to find that it is yet again February 2nd. He is caught in a time loop, doomed to live the same day over and over again.

The original film, directed by Harold Ramis, starred Bill Murray at his deadpan dry best. An unlikely classic, perhaps (a woman sitting in front of me said to her friend as they took their seats, “You must be the only person in this whole joint who’s never seen the movie.”) but classic films are not created by marketing departments gunning for Oscar gold. There are prestige films that don’t begin to approach the profundity of “Groundhog Day’s” philosophical exploration.

As imagined by Warchus and Minchin, “Groundhog Day” uses the typical format of musicals to illuminate the theme of the story (as opposed to just attaching songs at appropriate points). A musical has artifice built in. Entire town squares burst into song, and every citizen suddenly knows how to tap dance or do the cakewalk. We accept these devices if the story works, if the music is good. Here, songs repeat. Endlessly. The big opening number, where the perpetually happy residents of Punxsatawney take to the streets with balloons and marching bands to celebrate Groundhog Day, keeps repeating as the day repeats, and with each repetition, each time that marching band swarms the stage, the situation seems more and more lunatic. The music tilts into mania and nightmare, minor chords and discordance proliferating, and the jubilant bouncy choreography (by Peter Darling, co-choreographed with Ellen Kane) starts to seem frankly psychotic the third or fourth time you see it, as Phil realizes with horror that this moment – this day – this damned SONG – will be his life now. Forever.

Andy Karl (“Rocky,” “On the Twentieth Century”) has not tried to step into Murray’s shoes and give the audience what they already know via imitation. Instead, with an infectious and dazzling sense of freedom (physically, emotionally, vocally) he obliterates the memory of Bill Murray, giving a performance that shows nothing less than a man’s total transformation, from cranky contemptuous observer to emotionally engaged humanist-romantic. It’s hard to make something look this easy. As talented as Karl clearly is, it is still a surprise at just how deep this performance goes. His baritone voice can do anything, including a Robert-Plant-esque scream at the end of the Act II ballad “Hope”.

A charming Barrett Doss plays Rita, the sometimes-vulnerable and sometimes-tough producer assigned to the “Groundhog Day” spot, exasperated by Phil’s superior attitude towards the people of Punxsatawney, towards her, towards life in general. As Phil’s attraction to her grows, he tries to become a man worthy of her (there’s one hilarious sequence reminiscent of David Ives’ one-act “The Sure Thing,” when one scene is played multiple times in succession as Phil course-corrects his earlier snafus.) Rita’s character is deepened by her introspective diary-entry song (“February 2nd”) as well as her Act II grunge-rock rager, “If I had My Time Again.”

The cast is rounded out with smaller characters, each of whom have their moment in the sun: Ned Ryerson (John Sanders), the overly happy insurance salesman who accosts Phil every day with grating joy, before he – like Nancy before him – shows just what his outward pose is covering up in “Night Will Come,” Gus and Ralph (Andrew Call and Raymond J. Lee), two sad-sack barflies who sing a sad-sack country & western tune (“Nobody Cares”) before going on a joyride with Phil (a sequence that has to be seen to be believed). Even poor Larry the beleaguered TV cameraman (Vishal Vaidya) has a small character arc with a sensitive payoff.

An interviewer once asked Tennessee Williams, “What’s your definition of happiness?” Williams replied, “Insensitivity, I guess.” Minchin’s score understands this difficult sentiment, tapping into the darkness beneath the wintry sunshine of Groundhog Day, the repeating songs underlining the nagging question: “Is this all there is to life? Marching bands and joyful choruses?” Happiness is downright alienating to those who don’t feel it. There’s a dark fatalism here that the production does not shy away from. Phil’s suicide-attempt sequence (featuring a number of visual illusions where there appears to be no less than 4 or 5 Phils onstage at any given time), is a red-lit nightmare from hell, and the cut-outs of Punxsatawney village are placed all cockeyed on the sidelines, making it look like Whoville tilting off into an abyss.

We all play roles in life, many of them not chosen but imposed. Phil sees other people as though they are two-dimensional cut-outs. He writes them off at a glance. We all do this. “Groundhog Day: The Musical,” in ways thoughtful and funny and deep, forces the question: Can we stop writing other people off as this or that “type”? Can we stop thinking about ourselves so much? Can we slow down time just enough to really see each other?