Bruce Sussman & Barry Manilow’s ‘Harmony’ Review: Broadways Best and Most Important New Musical (5-STARS)

Harmony strikes a powerful chord.

Harmony — a new musical — that opened Monday night at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre — by legendary songwriters Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman, is a new original work of art that will give you hope for humanity in a world that seems to be falling apart.

Harmony tells the true story of The Comedian Harmonists, a real-life singing group who rose from the streets of Berlin to play some of the most prestigious concert halls around the world. Selling millions of records in the 1920s and '30s, the world’s original boyband made thirteen movies and performed with the likes of Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker (both of whom appear in the new musical). Then in 1933, Hitler came to power, and within a few years, the group's meteoric success came to a halt. Their films were destroyed and their records were confiscated.

The reason we have never heard of The Comedian Harmonists is the story of ‘Harmony,’ so magnificently told by Sussman’s pitch-perfect book.

If you love to laugh, act one of ‘Harmony’ is the best new musical of the season. If you love to cry, act two of ‘Harmony’ is the most important new musical of the season. Blending both acts together is the genius of this glorious new show.

Act one is by design a traditional golden-age musical. As author Sussman put it in a recent interview, "the sort of show that would have been written about these talented young men if act two had never occurred." Sussman cleverly gives us a clue to his intentions in the final scene of the first act which takes place backstage at Carnegie Hall where the group’s triumphant New York debut is being celebrated.

There are telegrams from Fanny Brice, Gypsy Rose Lee, Will Rogers, and Mayor Fiorello La Guardia – all of whom have had musicals written about them. The decision made in the dressing room that night would change their lives forever, conveyed in the dazzling song ‘Home’ sung by the equally dazzling Sean Bell who is amazingly making his Broadway debut playing Bobby.

I don’t think there could be a better way to end the act than this anthem--with a soaring melody by Manilow and devastatingly great lyrics by Sussman of hope and optimism about the future, set against a terrible sense of foreboding that what we in the audience feel about what will happen next.

The other performers playing The Comedian Harmonists are equally wonderfully in their well-rounded roles: Rabbi (Danny Kornfeld), Harry (Zal Owen), Erich (Eric Peters), Chopin (Blake Roman), Lesh (Steven Telsey).

Ruth, brought to life by Julie Benko, will break your heart in a role that will be impossible to forget at awards season. While, Mary, wife of Rabbi, played by Sierra Boggess, will melt your heart.

Theatrical treasure Chip Zien must be singled out for his shattering performance. This is what is must have been like seeing Ethel Merman create the role of ‘Rosie’ in Gypsy or watching Barbra Streisand blow the roof of the Winter Garden theatre in ‘Funny Girl.’

Zien, the original baker in Stephen Sondheim’s masterpiece, ‘Into the Woods,’ has found his greatest role at the age of 76– playing the lead character, Rabbi, and several other supporting characters he summons up. (Give this man the Tony award right now).

Act two is where Sussman’s superb book comes into its own. I don’t think I can remember the last time I left a theater humming the book, but that’s exactly what happened.

To say act, one is a musical and act 2 is a play is no insult to Manilow’s magnificent theatre score, but rather a compliment to Sussman's deft book. And if all this makes the show sounds disjointed, do not fear it certainly is not. Rather, it is a perfect jigsaw puzzle of a musical where miraculously all the pieces eventually fit perfectly together in the most thrilling fashion.

The last 20 minutes of HARMONY are the most remarkable 20 minutes you will ever experience within a theater. You can hear a pin drop.

Director Warren Carlyle and scenic designer Beowulf Borritt deliver an audacious design relying on black mirror which presents challenges for iconic lighting designers Peggy Eisenhauer and Jules Fisher who meet the challenge head-on and create one of the most imaginative lighting designs in recent memory. The costumes by Linda Cho and Ricky Lurie, which run the gamut from impoverished street singers to tiara-clad concertgoers, are spot-on.

Finding harmony in the most discordant chapter of human history is what The Comedian Harmonists did. What Manilow and Sussman have done is equally impressive. The men who made the whole world sing with their Grammy-award winner mega-hit ‘Copacabana,’ will now make the whole world think with what will surely become the most important hit of their careers – ‘Harmony.’

If you only see one show this year, make sure it’s Harmony. Not only will it change your life, hopefully it will change the world too.

Running time: 2 HOURS, 30 MINUTES with one intermission.

A New York Times Critic’s Pick, Harmony received a 2002 Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Musical and an award for Outstanding Best Book of a Musical and the Off-Broadway Alliance’s Best New Musical for 2022. It also received eight 2022-2023 Outer Critics Circle Award nominations including Outstanding New Off-Broadway Musical and two 2022 Lucille Lortel Award nominations including Outstanding Musical.