More than one critic attending Harmony found themselves wishing they were instead watching Cabaret, with its layers and moments of levity, or Leopoldstadt, with its deeper and more finely crafted storytelling. Though Barry Manilow’s music is largely successful and the performances from Chip Zien and the young talent featured onstage are wonderful, Sussman’s thin story about these forgotten men doesn’t quite lift the show to the levels of those others.
New York Times Review of Harmony
But the version of “Harmony” that opened on Monday at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, after a potholed, decades-long trek to Broadway, makes a beeline for the bleakest parts of the tale and then bleakens them further. Sussman’s script, relentlessly focused on historical trauma, takes reasonable dramatic license with the group’s actual history, but only in one direction: darker. And though Warren Carlyle’s production is smart and slick, it traps the tale in a figurative and literal glassy black box (by Beowulf Boritt) from which only pathos escapes. … Wherever it can — in the plot, in the characterizations and in the sometimes bombastic orchestrations for a heavily synthed and amped orchestra of nine — “Harmony” wields a truncheon instead of the needle it needs. It might have helped if the supposedly comic numbers were actually funny, but neither Manilow and Sussman nor Carlyle excel at that here. … Still, “Harmony” is no “Cabaret.” It doesn’t take the risk of letting you think for yourself; everything is a billboard.
TimeOut Review of Harmony
Harmony serves mainly to honor the group’s memory. It tries to find joy amid the mourning, like a funeral framed as a celebration of life. Accordingly, the musical is strongest as a platform for its talented performers. Director-choreographer Warren Carlyle captures the spirit of the Comedian Harmonists through inventive comic sequences. … The six actor-singers who play the Comedian Harmonists—Sean Bell, Danny Kornfeld, Zal Owen, Eric Peters, Blake Roman and Steven Tesley, five of whom are making their Broadway debuts—blend together beautifully without disappearing into anonymity. … This is admirable, but it is also one of the show’s limitations. Manilow’s music, an attractive blend of old and new sounds, is mostly well served by Sussman’s lyrics, and the result is a series of entertaining moments. But the show’s determination to give everyone equal time spreads the storytelling thin. … As enjoyable and affecting as Harmony is—and as timely, with antisemitism on the rise worldwide—it doesn’t make the case that, among all that we must never forget, the Comedian Harmonists merit quite this degree of remembrance.
New York Post Review of Harmony
Take apart Barry Manilow’s new musical “Harmony,” which opened Monday night on Broadway, and you’ll find a lot to admire. … Manilow’s likable music accompanies an eye-opening chapter of largely forgotten history. … The Harmonists’ harrowing road to fame in an enflamed Europe is remembered by actor Chip Zien … It’s a blistering performance from the 76-year-old actor, who is in fantastic voice. Zien’s wealth of experience is paired with exciting young talent. Five of the Harmonists are making their Broadway debuts, and all of them are tremendous singers. … The problem is that while “Harmony” is about a sextet of singers whose voices blend like milk and coffee, its elements do not similarly fuse into a cohesive and satisfying musical. The show, directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, has been tinkered with by Manilow and lyricist/book-writer Bruce Sussman for nearly 30 years, but on its largest stage yet it still doesn’t quite work.
Deadline Review of Harmony
As a musical, Harmony occasionally soars, occasionally stumbles, but the former more often than the latter. With a structure that takes fewer chances than one might hope, Harmony is nonetheless steadily compelling and not infrequently stirring, attributes that speak as much to the Manilow-Sussman craftsmanship as to an intriguing tale long-lost to history. … If the real-life tale of the Comedian Harmonists lacks the extreme inherent tragedy of, say, The Diary of Anne Frank or the more recent Leopoldstadt, it nonetheless raises questions of duty and responsibility when confronted with pure evil. Zien’s powerful performance of “Threnody,” in which, as an old man haunted by memories he poses just those questions, sadly giving Harmony a resonance today that it might not have had even a year ago. Harmony insists we pay attention, to it, and to the world.
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