Rarely have I found myself more thoroughly smitten with a new musical that I am with The Band’s Visit, now enfolding audiences in its warm, welcoming embrace at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre.

Not that a warm, welcoming embrace would describe the greeting given to the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra when the Egyptian band finds itself stuck overnight in the isolated Israeli desert town of Bet Hatikva, the result of an unfortunate bit of miscommunication at the Tel Aviv bus station.

Still, with no busses running to their actual destination (the Arab cultural center in Petah Tikva) until the following day, band conductor Tewfiq (Sasson Gabay), trumpet player Haled (Joe Joseph), violinist Camal (Yoni Avi Battat), clarinetist Simon (James Rana), and their fellow musicians find themselves lodging with townspeople like café owner Dina (Janet Dacal) and waiter Itzik (Clay Singer), who shares a home with his wife Iris (Kendal Hartse), their infant child, and her father Avrum (David Studwell).

Other locals include bashful waiter Papi (Cody Getzug), his outgoing buddy Zelger (Billy Cohen) and Zelger’s girlfriend Anna (Ariel Reich), Papi’s crush Julia (Layan Elwazani), Dina’s ex-lover Sammy (Marc Ginsburg), and Telephone Guy (Joshua Grosso), so named because he spends his every waking hour at the town’s one and only pay phone waiting for a phone call from his girlfriend that has yet to come.

Nothing particularly earthshaking happens over the course of the musicians’ single night in Bet Hatikva or The Band’s Visit’s intermissionless one hundred minutes.

What does transpire, however, ends up transforming the lives of the Egyptian visitors and their Israeli hosts in the profoundest of ways, their stories linked together by what is easily composer/lyricist David Yazbek’s (The Full Monty, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) most exquisite score to date, a haunting series of hummably melodic minor-keyed songs that feel like the very stuff of life itself.

In adapting writer-director Eran Kolirin’s 2007 Israeli film for the Broadway musical stage, book writer Itamar Moses opts to focus not on the cultural-religious-historical conflicts that have kept Arabs and Israelis at war for generations but rather on concerns of a more personal nature, in particular the power of music to influence and transform lives.

It is music that has brought Itzik and Sara together. It is music that serves as a connection between Tewfiq and Dina, who spent her childhood listening to the music of Egyptian legend Umm Kalthoum. It is music that can calm a crying infant. The first words out of Haled’s mouth when he makes a new acquaintance are “Do you know Chet Baker?” And it is music, ultimately, that helps both the visiting musicians and the townspeople who will remain in Bet Hatikva long after their departure to overcome fears, face heartbreaks, and forge brighter futures.

No wonder, then, that when the Tonys were awarded in June of 2018, The Band’s Visit won eleven in all, including “The Big Six,” Best Musical, Best Book, Best Score, Best Actor in a Musical, Best Actress in a Musical, and Best Direction of a Musical, the latter by David Cromer, whose work here is as stunning as it gets.

In roles that won their originators coveted Best Lead Performance Tonys, Ducal is deadpan/droll perfection with smoky pipes to match and Gabay deeply poignant in the same role he originated in the Israeli movie eleven years ago.

There’s not a weak link in a supporting cast that gets to share a wealth of stereotype-breaking roles almost equally, with vocal kudos to Joseph for a deeply moving “Haled’s Song About Love,” Getzug for a delightful “Papi Hears The Ocean,” Singer for a heartfelt “Itzik’s Lullaby,” and Grosso for a heart-rending “Answer Me.” (The entire cast’s spot-on Arabic and Hebrew accents deserve to be saluted as well.)

Add to this Patrick McCollum’s seamlessly integrated choreography and a production design (by Kai Harada, Charles G. LaPointe, Sarah Laux, Tyler Micoleau, Scott Pask) that enhances The Band’s Visit every step of the way and you have a musical that looks and sounds unlike any other you have seen or heard before.

 Last but not least is The Band itself (Battat, Roger Kashou, Brian Krock, Kane Mathis, and Wick Simmons), whose live onstage performance on instruments ranging from violin and clarinet to oud, riq and darbuka is yet another reason The Band’s Visit is in a class all by itself.

Associate director Seth Sikes and associate choreographer Jesse Kovarsky keep Cromer’s and McCollum’s original visions fresh as The Band’s Visit continues its national tour.

John M. Atherlay is production stage manager. Ali Louis Bourzgui, Loren Lester, Dana Saleh Omar, Nick Sacks, and dance captain Hannah Shankman are standbys.

Given its competitors (Frozen, Mean Girls, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Summer: The Donna Summer Musical), it’s probably no wonder The Band’s Visit swept the 2018 Tonys.

But no matter how slight its competition have been, The Band’s Visit stands tall among the past decade’s great new musicals. Unlike anything I’ve seen before, it had me from Salem/Shalom.

Dolby Theatre, 6801 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood.
www.BroadwayInHollywood.com
www.TheBandsVisitMusical.com

–Steven Stanley
November 30, 2021
Photos: Evan Zimmerman/MurphyMade

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Tags: Broadway In Hollywood, David Yazbek, Dolby Theatre, Itamar Moses, Los Angeles Theater Review