1960's musical "On a Clear Day You Can See Forever" is a case of an older-school music theatre team (Alan Jay Lerner of "My Fair Lady" and "Brigadoon" fame, with Burton Lane of "Finian's Rainbow" attempting some distinctly unconventional material, using past lives, ESP, precognition, psychiatry, and hypnotism to tell a story that is ultimately a love triangle between two living people and the past life of one of them. Even in its original season, it was never a runaway success, running under a year in 1965, but it was definitely a passion project of Lerner's (having worked on the subject matter with Richard Rogers in early drafts), and it combined a somewhat messy script (the show takes a very easy-going attitude to the somewhat manipulative behaviour of a psychiatrist over his patient) - in many ways, the original is another story of a man who tries to create the woman he loves, a la "My Fair Lady" and can't reckon with the object of his affection having their own personality - it doesn't take a lot to reflect on how this might map to Lerner's history of being married eight times over his lifetime. Still it's a great score and Lerner's sense of wit in his lyrics and the unusual romantic triangle at the centre of the story compels revisitation to try to resolve this problem-piece into something that coheres.
Director Jay James-Moody has adapted the script, taking elements of the original Broadway run, the subsequent tour rewrite, the 1970 Barbra Streisand movie, and a recent Broadway revival to try to resolve this into something more coherent. There's a lot of strong work here and it feels about one more rewrite clarifying what's really going on. The main twist that has been applied in the Broadway revival and in this one is that the role, previously combined in one actress, of modern-day-quirky anxiety-ridden heroine and past-life-independent woman who compels the shrink, is now split between a male modern-day persona and a female past life, complicating the sexualities of the show in ways that are never quite resolved. James-Moody seems aware that a conventional coupling at the end can't entirely be satisfactory, but can't really shape a clear future direction for David/Daisy either - just indicate that they shouldn't be held down by anybody else's expectations of what other people want them to be, which is a good start but it's not an ending. It does the job of complementing the existing score and presenting it well, though - building in passion from whimsical intro of "Hurry it's lovely up here" (sung to some plants), to the intense yearning "Melinda", the unwindingly romantic title song, the intensely introspective "What did I have that I don't have" and the desperate "Come back to Me".
There's strength in the performances - James-Moody gives David a cheerful goofyness and enthusiasm, Blake Bowden sells the passion he feels and the melancholy about his former lost love, and Madelaine Jones makes Melinda a woman compelling enough to want to traverse a century for. James Haxby plays two different somewhat-despicable romantic interests with power, and Billie Palin, Natalie Abbott and Lincoln Elliot fill out the cast in smallish roles as sympathetic advisers, disapproving parents, generous friends and sultry lovers entertainingly.
Michael Hankin and Bella Rose Saltearn's set jumps us across time and space stylishly, using simple shelves with expanding floral embellishments to capture the worlds of David, Mark and Melinda. Natayla Aynsley's four-piece band arrangements manage to still make the show feel big and lush, and Leslie Bell's choreography is witty and charming.
In short, this is an oddity - one of those shows from the past where you can see why it didn't work then, and it doesn't quite work now, but you can also see just how close it is to getting there. Perhaps a future incarnation of Lerner and Lane can come up with a song for David/Daisy to Want Something properly so the show can resolve itself off properly rather than drift off ethereally, but as it is, this is a thinking man's entertainment done well.
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