Reviewed by James Karas
Bright Star is a wonderful piece of theatre with a significant qualification. It has music, songs and dances and that qualifies it as a musical. But the singers, instrumentalists, dancers, and actors are all the same people. They are referred to as singer/actors or actor/ singers and the combination makes for a thoroughly enjoyable evening at the theatre. The cast play instrumentalists right on stage and some play numerous instruments, sing, dance and, of course, act. I will list the instruments played by every actor after his or her name just to emphasize the talents on stage.
The play takes place in North Carolina between the 1920’s and the 1940’s and has a plot that has love stories, comedy and drama. It has some beautiful songs that have melodies, funny and moving lyrics and if it strikes you as sentimental, so be it. The music can be described as country and western, even hillbilly or you can call the songs ballads from another world. But it never fails to entertain and the sum of its parts makes for fabulous entertainment.
In 1945 Billy Cane (Nick Dolan, also playing banjo, bass, guitar, mandolin, piano and percussion) returns from fighting in World War II. He wants to establish himself as a writer by having his short stories published in a local magazine. Lucy (Marie Mahabal Hauer – fiddle, piano), an editor for the magazine rebuffs him but editor Alice Murphy (Kaylee Harwood – piano, percussion), likes one of his stories and agrees to publish it.
The company of Actor-Musicians of Bright Star.Photo Credit: Dahlia Katz.
Flashback to 1923. Alice is an attractive teenager who is flirting with Jimmy Ray Dobbs (George Krissa – guitar, piano percussion), the son of the well-off, patriarchal and assertive Mayor Dobbs (Brendan Wall – bass, accordion, piano, mandolin, banjo, and percussion). Flirtation leads to love and coitus which leads to pregnancy. The Mayor and Alice’s father (Scott Carmichael – drums, mandolin, guitar, banjo, bass and percussion) decide that Alice has to give her child up to be adopted by someone. In a heart wrenching scene, they take her baby away from her and the Mayor puts him in a suitcase and throws it out of a train window into a river.
Back to the 1940’s. Alice and Jimmy Rae have not seen each other for more than twenty years and she has decided to look for her son. In the course of looking for him she finds the sweater that she knitted for him. Billy Cane hits it off with Lucy with the help of alcohol. Billy’s father Daddy Cane (Beau Dixon who also plays Dr. Norquist - banjo, guitar, piano, drums and percussion) tells how he found a baby floating in a suitcase in the river. Billy is Alice and Jimmy Ray’s son!
It is a beautiful heartwarming, funny and moving story with a happy ending. The strength of the play/musical derives from the songs that are, as I said, country and western or hoedown. They have lyrics that move the story, melodies and character builders. I didn’t think they made them like that anymore but Steve Martin and Edie Brickell did it.
The cast playing all the roles as listed above were on stage much of the time and took up an instrument and played it or pushed, say, the banjo or guitar behind them and took up the character with complete ease. These are talented players in a very different approach to theatre.
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Bright Star by Steve Martin (music, book and story) and Edie Brickell (music, book and story), continues until November 2, 2025, at the CAA Theatre, 651 Yonge St. Toronto, Ontario. www.mirvish.com
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