Both an exultant celebration of song-and-dance traditions dating back decades and an inspiring paean to revolutionary labor action, “Newsies” is one of Broadway’s most likeable and exportable properties of the 21st century—a real-life ragtag fable, with its elements of “Oliver!” and “West Side Story,” that overflows with opportunities for choreographic dazzle. Slow Burn Theatre’s faithful and exuberant production, running through June 25 at Broward Center, exceeds these opportunities at every turn. Director Patrick Fitzwater authentically conveys the show’s 36-point headlines and its dot-every-I minutiae alike, resulting in one of the company’s most stellar productions to date.
Lyricist Jack Feldman, book writer Harvey Fierstein and composer Alan Menken based their musical, which premiered in 2011, on the 1992 film of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the Newsboys Strike of 1899, in which a collective of news hawkers formed an ad hoc union to expose the price hikes and corruption of publisher Joseph Pulitzer. In “Newsies,” it’s a 10-cent increase in bulk newspaper prices—a steep and unmanageable bit of inflation in turn-of-the-century America—that sets the drama in motion. The wiseacre leader of the strike, Jack Kelly (Samuel Cadieux), is also the show’s most complicated character, taking charge in a vacuum of rabble but preferring a life of seclusion far away from the concrete jungle of New York City.
His cohort of fellow “ragamuffins,” to borrow the show’s verbiage, will have some help along the way, including from Jack’s love interest Katherine (Lea Marinelli), a cub reporter for a rival paper who endeavors to be taken seriously in her male-dominated field; and Medda Larkin (Kareema Khouri), an entertainer and ally whose cabaret provides a refuge for the striking newsboys.
I’ve never been one for exhaustive plot descriptions in theatre reviews, and the creators of “Newsies” make it easy for me: They’ve kept the action refreshingly uncomplicated. There’s a twist here and there, but the show is light on plot developments, all the better to focus on themes, character development and showmanship.
Cadieux compellingly embodies Jack in three dimensions, capturing the soul of an artist buried under a streetwise charisma that may well be a front to mask his insecurities. Marinelli is a marvel as Katherine, exploring the character’s own inner anxieties while on the outside besting the barbs of the all-male newsboys with a delectable insouciance.
As Jack’s sidekick Crutchie, so named for his injured leg, Joel Hunt paints a picture of joyful maintenance amid adversity; his solo number “Letter From a Refuge” has an aching tenderness—preceded by deadpan humor—that ranks among the production’s highlights. Matthew Korinko is especially memorable as Pulitzer, a villain the actor portrays with a sort of Mephistophelian zeal. But much could be said about every member of a cast that, including the chorus, is 30 actors deep; there’s nary a weak link in the chain.
But the brightest star in the show may be choreographer Trent Soyster, who channels the late Jerome Robbins with an endless bag of fleet-footed tricks. Replete with backflips and handstands, his choreography is balletic, acrobatic and often gravity-defying. But it’s not simply razzle for the sake of razzle. Working in tandem with director Fitzwater, his routines are in full service to the emotional tenor of the drama. We have the impression that the newsies dance because it’s the only way they can properly express themselves, whether for the promise of a payday, as in “Carrying the Banner,” or when buoyed by the winds of change, as on “Seize the Day.” When fortune seems to be in the characters’ favor, as in the rousing, effervescent tap number “King of New Yorker,” we could almost be watching an MGM movie musical from the 1950s.
The main feature of Kelly Tighe’s scenic design is a deceptively simple two-story scaffolded structure that does a lot of heavy lifting, embodying everything from a theatre to a cellar to Pulitzer’s office, with its decadent, tasseled red satin curtain. Rick Pena’s costumes—ensembles of flat caps, vests, suspenders and pinstriped pants in muted colors—are a triumph of urban period detail.
What comes across most resonantly in this production of “Newsies” has something to do with the reason a show set in 1899 keeps being produced by regional theaters in the 2010s and 2020s. Economic inequality is just as shamefully vast now as it was then, and the striving newsboys of this musical epitomize the gig economy before we even had a term for it. “Newsies” is a critique of predatory capitalism and a celebration of organized labor that could not feel more modern. Come for the extraordinary singing and dancing, and stay for the progressive populism.
“Newsies” runs through June 25 at Broward Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets start at $49. Call 954/462-0222 or visit browardcenter.org.
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