Theater review: ‘Bandstand’ a powerful, swinging musical about the darker memories of war at Playhouse on Park

In the 1940s and 1950s, musicals about World War II tended to be peppy shows about soldiers and sailors on leave, acting carefree for a few days and leaving the war behind. Nowadays, we know that such a casual disconnect isn’t possible.

The stage version of the Gene Kelly movie “An American in Paris” rewrote the book to show how parts of Paris and its inhabitants were destroyed by the war. The original musical “Bandstand” goes even further. It’s about being unable to forget wartime service and wanting others to understand and remember.

“Bandstand” was on Broadway for six months in 2017, where it was mainly appreciated as a showcase for director/choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler to helm a show on his own after being a key contributor to “Hamilton.” After a long interrupted-by-COVID tour that played the Waterbury Palace and New Haven’s Shubert Theatre, “Bandstand” is now being given fresh productions by regional theaters. West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park is staging “Bandstand” through Aug. 20.

Playhouse on Park has its own spirited creative team and doesn’t need to do derivative Blankenbuehler moves. The director, Sean Harris, and choreographer Darlene Zoller (co-credited with Robert Mintz) are co-founders of the playhouse and know the space intimately. The theater’s low ceiling, dark corners and floor-level playing space with a long revolving rectangular platform serving as the show’s titular bandstand are all used to good advantage.

“Bandstand” is mainly the creation of Richard Oberacker, who composed the songs and co-wrote the book and lyrics with Robert Taylor. Rather than depend on actual nostalgic pop songs from the 1940s, as so many World War II-themed shows do, Oberacker has crafted some impressive originals which evoke the same feelings. There’s a train song, a New York City song, a “nobody” song and a “my love is gone” song. As the show builds and the band is formed, the songs get deeper and more intrinsic to the plot.

While other productions bring both depressive lows and euphoric highs to the story, Playhouse on Park’s intense, condensed staging stays mostly on a dramatic, realistic level and doesn’t lift off into a shiny false swing-club dream world. The tone could be brighter, but at least it’s consistent. That really helps the plotline, which concerns a snappy young pianist named Donny “Nova” Novitski (played here by Benjamin Nurthen) who was in the same platoon as his best friend and fellow music lover nicknamed “Rubber” who died in combat. Suffering from PTSD, Donny finishes his service and moves to Ohio, where he looks up his deceased pal’s wife, Julia (Katie Luke). His struggles inspire him to start a band of fellow war veterans to enter a national contest that will get them onto a live radio broadcast and maybe a Hollywood movie. Julia joins as a vocalist.

You might be able to guess some of the plot twists, but you certainly can’t anticipate most of them. “Bandstand” keeps you guessing about whether the band will win the contest or even stay together, but the reasons are compelling and have a lot to do with the characters’ post-war issues. One of the brilliant strokes of “Bandstand” is to invoke a little music history and show how jazz entered the war as light pop music but transformed into a moodier post-swing be-bop state which explored rawer emotions.

One of the hallmarks of the show is that the actors playing the band members actually play their instruments. Some of the Playhouse on Park cast have done the show before, and it’s clear that a small industry of actor/musicians has formed around this show. At the playhouse, not only does the jazz playing sound more than credible, the musicians make the acting part of the gig look easy. Alan Mendez as the sozzled bassist Davy Zlatic, Jack Theiling as even-tempered saxophonist Jimmy Campbell and Hartt student Dan Jantson as brain-traumatized drummer Johnny Simpson are especially convincing. Still, none of it would work if Nurthen wasn’t such a riveting bandleader/leading man and if Luke didn’t have the voice of an angel. In their hands, when it’s decided that a certain song is “the song” that will make their fortune, it truly sounds like it is.

The main cast is supported by a nine-piece offstage band led by keyboardist/conductor/music director Melanie Guerin and a small chorus of dancers led by dance captain James Felton II. The dancers are used throughout the show mainly as punctuation. If something great happens, they leap for joy and wear broad grins. When things turn bleak they crawl about the stage with visages of woe.

“Bandstand” is a romance that won’t romanticize war. It’s a musical that wants its songs to be meaningful, not escapist. It jumps down off the bandstand and gets in the dirt. They didn’t used to make wartime musicals like this, and they don’t make enough of them now. It may be an unsettling experience, but “Bandstand” is a summer musical worth rallying around.

“Bandstand” runs through Aug. 20 at Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Road, West Hartford. Performances are Tuesdays at 2 p.m., Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays at 8 p.m., Saturdays at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. $42.50-$55; discounts for students, seniors and military. playhouseonpark.org.