Review: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

What do you remember about the movie Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice? Probably the iconic poster of the four of them (Robert Culp, Natalie Wood, Elliott Gould, and Dyan Cannon) staring out from a bed, right? It was titillating and somehow summed up the couple-swapping premise of the movie. It turned out, though, that the movie wasn’t particularly erotic, more a 1969 comedy of manners.

Seeing The New Group’s 2020 musical adaptation of the Paul Mazursky movie at the Pershing Square Signature Center, you have to ask yourself, “Why?” Directed by Scott Elliott, the award-winning Artistic Director of The New Group, it has a melodic score by Duncan Sheik, whose breakout musical theater piece was the Tony-winning Spring Awakening, followed by a half-dozen other productions.

It has an appealing cast, but without the star power of the movie’s cast or even the stars-to-be of Spring Awakening (Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele, John Gallagher, Jr., and Lauren Pritchard!). Joel Perez plays Bob with a mustache and curly hair that’s perfect for 1969 and Elliott Gould’s look, except, ironically, Gould played Ted. Ted is played by Michael Zegen, instantly recognizable as Joel Maisel from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, an even earlier period piece. Along with Jennifer Damiano as Carol and Ana Nogueira as Alice, they move and sing well.

The fifth member of the cast is Band Leader, an all-purpose role that’s part narrator, part various supporting roles. Duncan Sheik was originally going to play that himself, but ended up recruiting his friend Suzanne Vega to do it instead. She does have some star power, as well as a background in the theater, including writing and acting in a one-woman play with music, Lover, Beloved: An Evening with Carson McCullers. She’s comfortable, of course, with Sheik’s music, and adds an ironic tone to the proceedings.

The costumes certainly evoke 1969, as do the rituals of an EST-like facility and drug references. However, the book, by Jonathan Marc Sherman, and the lyrics, by Sheik and Amanda Green, don’t give us any new insights into human behavior, beyond lines like “there are limits to love.” Think of some of 1969’s other films: Midnight Cowboy, Easy Rider, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Goodbye Columbus, True Grit. They all have more staying power in their way than Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. In the end, the musical is earnest and pleasant, but probably not the stuff of Broadway.