{"id":2150991,"date":"2025-11-12T08:21:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T08:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2150991"},"modified":"2025-11-12T08:21:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T08:21:32","slug":"oscar-winner-ariana-debose-takes-on-one-of-musical-theaters-biggest-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/oscar-winner-ariana-debose-takes-on-one-of-musical-theaters-biggest-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar Winner Ariana DeBose Takes on One of Musical Theater\u2019s Biggest Songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

When one or both of Ariana DeBose and Judy Kuhn are on stage all is right in Classic Stage Company\u2019s revival of The Baker\u2019s Wife<\/i><\/a>. But without their charisma, stage presence, and creamily lovely singing, other elements of this musical\u2014with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, and book by Joseph Stein\u2014can seem rickety.<\/p>\n

The production (running to Dec. 21) has lots of charm. It is smoothly choreographed (by Stephanie Klemons) and directed (by Gordon Greenberg). David Cullen supplies lovely orchestrations. Jason Sherwood has designed the space to look like the town square of the French village of Concorde, with caf\u00e9 tables, balconies, shuttered shops, and hanging plants. Catherine Zuber\u2019s pretty costumes and Bradley King\u2019s softly gorgeous lighting take us to a pre-war mid-1930s. When you walk in, the actors may encourage you to take part in a game of boules.<\/p>\n

The musical\u2019s book is its thorn. Perhaps on screen\u2014the 1976 musical is based on Marcel Pagnol\u2019s 1938 film La Femme du Boulanger<\/i>\u2014it would make more goofily comic sense for a town to be so invested in a much-loved bakery\u2019s future that its menfolk would pursue the baker\u2019s wife to return to him when she is suspected of infidelity. Here they seem like dweeby vigilantes.<\/p>\n

That husband, played by a soulfully earnest Scott Bakula, embodies the show itself, willing away all signs of disturbance. The baker\u2019s first name is \u201cAimable\u201d (literally \u201ckind\u201d in French), and Aimable is beyond that. He is older than his wife Genevi\u00e8ve, played by Oscar winner DeBose, and he brings her to Concorde to varying degrees of shock and disbelief. Aimable feels the same, and says he is happy enough to say \u201cI love you\u201d for both himself and Genevi\u00e8ve, as she appears not able to say it to him.<\/p>\n

\"Ariana<\/span><\/div>\n

Ariana DeBose and Scott Bakula \/ Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman<\/p>\n

The couple are happy to make bread for the townsfolk, and in a lovely number their neighbors relish their delicious creations (Breads Bakery delivers a daily fresh loaf to be consumed by the cast in this number).<\/p>\n

Dark portents are sewn in the relationships we see. The women in the show are constantly referred to as the property of their husbands. Bar owners Denise (Kuhn) and Claude (Robert Cuccioli) trade barbs that are far from fun, Kuhn adeptly conveying her character\u2019s mix of spikiness and sadness.<\/p>\n

\"Judy<\/span><\/div>\n

Judy Kuhn \/ Evan Zimmerman \/ Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman<\/p>\n

Another female character, Hortense (Sally Murphy), is the frustrated, put-upon wife of Barnaby (Manu Narayan), too nervous to buy the pastries she really wants. Arnie Burton is excellent as the town\u2019s teacher, despairing at the community\u2019s ignorance; Will Roland relishes delivering the bug-eyed zeal of the town priest.<\/p>\n

The central drama unfolds when young hunk Dominique (Kevin William Paul) sets his sights on Genevi\u00e8ve, who first rebuffs him, then suddenly sees having sex with him and running away with him as a great idea. Also a mystery: Dominique has great lats and is clearly a regular at the local 1930s Equinox, but he comes across as unhinged stalker, not temptation-stallion.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t quite see why Genevi\u00e8ve is with Bakula\u2019s extremely passive baker, and you also don\u2019t understand why she\u2019d go off with this insufferable hunk. When the women sing a collective song about love and romance, you might wonder why it isn\u2019t about their status and relationships.<\/p>\n

\"Ariana<\/span><\/div>\n

Ariana DeBose and Kevin William Paul \/ Matthew Murphy \/ Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman<\/p>\n

DeBose\u2019s songs, especially the famous \u201cMeadowlark\u201d\u2014sung at countless auditions, and by greats such as Patti LuPone and Betty Buckley\u2014are gorgeous, soaring, and compelling. But why Genevi\u00e8ve returns to her husband, and a marital prison she escaped from, is a mystery. His own rage is eventually expressed as a rant at their beloved cat.<\/p>\n

When Claude gets back into Denise\u2019s good graces with one apologetically proffered rose, you think: Oh, come on monsieur<\/i>, Denise (and Judy Kuhn) deserve way more than that.<\/p>\n

Averse to fully confronting its textual conflicts, The Baker\u2019s Wife<\/i> instead opts for a mellifluously sung, all-is-fine finale. With its lovely performances this show isn\u2019t just crumbs, but it\u2019s not the full loaf either.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When one or both of Ariana DeBose and Judy Kuhn are on stage all is right in Classic Stage Company\u2019s revival of The Baker\u2019s Wife. But without their charisma, stage presence, and creamily lovely singing, other elements of this musical\u2014with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, and book by Joseph Stein\u2014can seem rickety. The production […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2150992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[411494,344988,411492,411493,411491,396172,344985,344989],"class_list":["post-2150991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-aimable","tag-ariana-debose","tag-classic-stage-company","tag-david-cullen","tag-judy-kuhn","tag-matthew-murphy","tag-scott-bakula","tag-stephen-schwartz"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Oscar-Winner-Ariana-DeBose-Takes-on-One-of-Musical-Theaters.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2150991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2150993,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150991\/revisions\/2150993"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2150992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2150991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2150991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2150991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}