This show is better termed a "revuesical" as it moves from character to character in song, scene or monologue, never returning to its characters for a second look. Instead for one hour and 46 minute the show just ambles through the workforce of the Union, from menial workers to executives to housewives to call-girls. The ten players work as a chorus, as individual characters and as symbols of what identifies the American worker, union organizer and even marginally a politician. In the age of Trump this is a very justified moment of pause to reflect on what really makes America great.  With music. 

Farah Alvin as Rose Hoffman, Jaygee Macapougay as her student;

Photo: Emma K. Rothenberg-Ware

Farah Alvin as 40 year plus teacher Rose Hoffman is an inspiration and a deterrent to the profession of teacher in Mary Rodgers and Susan Birkenhead's song "Nobody Tells Me How." She laments the loss of the way things worked when she began teaching and the current loss of student attention in the 21st century.

Alvin has a wonderful scene as Kate Rushton, a full-time housewife. She performs Craig Carnelia's wonderful number about this unsung profession in a most winning manner, accompanies by several similar women and the occasional man doing the same work. 

Denis Lambert; Photo: Emma K. Rothenberg-Ware

From the beginning to the end of the show Denis Lambert exhibits terrific talent as a singer and as an actor. In his many roles he displays versatility, excellent character development and an acute interpretive skill. He does a sensitive job with Stephen Schwartz's song "Fathers and Sons" and James Taylor's "Millwork" along with Julie Foldesi who is great in this number.

There are no soft moments in this show which moves along from character to character, job to job, wish to wish without pause. If you need any proof that there is a worker's God, it would seem likely that collaboration of all the contributors to this show could comprise such an all-knowing being.

James Barry has melded his cast into an amazing amalgam of American humanity. He moves them, along with props and furniture, through the lives of our country's unsung heroes, the working class. One character, a happy fireman talks about his earlier life as a policeman. There is no need for anything but the actor and his hat to make this a poignant moment in the show, especially in light of the 911 disaster when both professions played such vital roles. Barry gives us stage pictures of his people, like snapshots from an old-fashioned camera. His work with choreographer Ashley DeLane Burger is seamless which is lovely as her angular formations and body contortions never jar with Barry's simpler, more structural people.

Casey Reed does a nice job with the music which occasionally bordered on the too intrusively loud.  Nicholas Hussong's set and projections are both simple and complex, just like the show's topic. Asta Bennie Hostetter's costumes are always appropriate and Oliver Wason's lighting was excellent and appropriate. Nathan Leigh, sound designer, needs to better balance the voices and the musicians.

Though I hadn't been anticipating much from a 1978 flop show, I had a wonderful time with this production and definitely appreciated its multiple messages, so very appropriate to our times. The show's opening with its quotes from Emma Lazarus' famous poem about the "homeless, tempest tossed" set me up for the ideal look at a modern America and it never let me down.