It Shoulda Been You

It's the oldest story in the world: the feuding in-laws who disapprove of their children's relationship. We've seen this scenario play out on television (Mad About You), onstage (You Can't Take It With You), and in literature (Romeo and Juliet). So not even a contemporary twist, like the one midway through Barbara Anselmi and Brian Hargrove's new sitcom-musical It Shoulda Been You at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, could make the subject matter feel anything but passe.

It Shoulda Been You comes to Broadway after a 2011 run at New Jersey's George Street Playhouse, where it was the highest-grossing production in the theater's 40-year history. It's not surprising; how often do A-listers like David Hyde Pierce (who makes his New York directorial debut), Tyne Daly, and Harriet Harris (both of whom play mothers-in-law from hell) trek out to do regional theater? What is surprising is just how deceptive this show really is.

As the curtain rises, it's the day of a wedding. On the docket to get hitched are Jewish princess Rebecca Steinberg (Sierra Boggess) and WASP extraordinaire Brian Howard (David Burtka). In charge of the wedding planning is Rebecca's older sister, Jenny (Lisa Howard), who is unmarried and overweight — and boy, does Hargrove's script not let you forget these two ongoing factoids. Judy (Daly), Jenny and Rebecca's mom, is also at the helm, running around like a crazy person, taking no prisoners. She nearly meets her match in Brian's mother, Georgette (Harris), the cold-as-ice goy who's just as devastated that her son is getting married at all as the Steinbergs are that their daughter is marrying out.

Leading up to the ceremony, barbs are jabbed, pre-nups are threatened, and a former flame (Josh Grisetti) suddenly catapults back into a picture. For more than an hour, it's clear sailing through antiseptic, seen-it-all-before territory…until the big reveal of a plot point that not only turns the show upside-down, but actually makes it sort of funny.

It's kind of mysterious how It Shoulda Been You suddenly springs to life in the second half. Hargrove's book, structured like a sitcom with a joke every five lines, becomes as clever as it shoulda been from the start (though there are some cringe-worthy racial jokes that should have been excised). Anselmi's music, with lyrics by Hargrove and several others, progressively becomes more varied, turning from easy-listening dentist's-office Muzak to distinctive musical-theater tunes. Even Pierce's direction turns less static as the farcical elements take shape on the perfectly bland, multilevel wedding-hall set by Anna Louizos. William Ivey Long's blue-toned costumes are flattering from start to finish, as is Ken Billington's hyper-realistic lighting.

Pierce, married to the book writer and no stranger to the world of television sitcoms (after 11 years on Frasier), has brought together a company of actors who are perfectly in tune for this relentless style of zinger after zinger. Daly is hilarious as the tyrannical (but in a loving way) Jewish mom who has nothing good to say about anyone. Harris is matchless as the upper-crust gentile matriarch whose sense of humor is as dry as the gin she swigs. Chip Zien and Michael X. Martin play their put-upon husbands, respectively, with good-humored exasperation.

Grisetti is a charismatic delight as Marty Kaufman, Rebecca's ex. The sharp Edward Hibbert, one of Pierce's Frasier cohorts (along with Harris) is always a welcome presence, here playing the sarcastic wedding planner who can read minds. Nick Spangler and Montego Glover make solid impressions as a best man and co-maid of honor with a shared secret.

Boggess, who possesses one of Broadway's most beautiful sopranos, is too luxuriously cast for a role that gets only one solo, half a duet, and disappears for large stretches of time. Burtka tries too hard to make "charming" his character's defining trait, but besides that, he doesn't have much to do. Why these two are presented as the central characters only to become barely ancillary is a major flaw of Hargrove's book that never gets reconciled.

The other flaw is that, no matter how much life the creators can inject into the tired circumstances, no matter how adept the actors are at delivering one-liners, little about It Shoulda Been You is actually believable. The thing about a show trying to emulate a sitcom about families is that, with television, especially long-runners, over time you can really grab onto the layers of humanity beneath the hilarity, which makes the characters well-rounded individuals. In this musical you only have that in one character, Jenny, played by the truly magnificent Howard. It is in both her and the role she portrays that the production finds its sole dose of reality and genuine emotion. In fact, Howard's performance is so moving and her delivery of music so showstopping, that it makes you wish the rest of the show had as much heart as she does.