Hugh Jackman and Sutton Foster in The Music Man: “There Was Love All Around”

Harold Hill, a talented conman, who wants to swindle the Midwest town of River City, Iowa, had me at hello. That may owe to the fact that “The Music Man” is played by Hugh Jackman. Arriving on a train, bumping along with salesmen grousing about Hill’s wiles, Hill pays them no mind, singing and dancing his way into the townsfolks’ hearts. All except Marian, the librarian, who is onto him from the start. It does not take the signature “Seventy-six Trombones,” to know he will win her over too. That’s the stuff of the American musical, and especially a revival as juicy as this one is, at the Winter Garden Theater. It helps too that Marian is that darling of this classic genre, Sutton Foster, who when she is won over by Hill can cast a look of epiphany as no one else can.

Harold Hill has a lot to do, convincing everyone that a pool hall brings only trouble to River City. Even the mayor’s wife, one Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn, the unflappable Jayne Houdyshell, falls for him as Hill gets her to lead the ladies committee on dance, fawning over her, ahem, grace. In her costume within a costume, gold topped with a headdress of gold, she is irresistibly hilarious, as the mayor’s face reddens on cue. The wonderful Jefferson Mays seems to have cornered this trait. Young actors take center stage, remarkably gifted each one, and I will single out Kayla Teruel as Amaryllis, Emma Crow as the mayor’s daughter Zaneeta who falls for Tommy (Gino Cosculluela), the town delinquent whose dance moves are out of control. Young Benjamin Pajak, Marian’s shy and lisping little brother melts everyone’s heart. 

Composer and lyricist Meredith Wilson’s standards abound: “Ya Got Trouble,” “Goodnight, My Someone,” aside from the marching anthem “Seventy-six Trombones,” recurring for a rousing finale. But it’s “Till There Was You” that takes your breath away. Harold and Marian meet on a footbridge. They kiss, not just any kiss; a full-bodied lingering, tender mouth on mouth kiss, and for a moment, the intimacy is as fresh as if you had encountered them in life itself. And in the end, it’s Hugh Jackman meeting Sutton Foster where she lives, in a tap duet, bonded on Broadway.