‘Harmony’ review: Barry Manilow’s Broadway musical is moving, but doesn’t quite sing

nypost.com:

the musical “Parade” and Tom Stoppard’s play “Leopoldstadt.” The problem is that while “Harmony” is about a sextet of singers whose voices blend like milk and coffee, its elements do not similarly fuse into a cohesive and satisfying musical.The show, directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, has been tinkered with by Manilow and lyricist/book-writer Bruce Sussman for nearly 30 years, but on its largest stage yet it still doesn’t quite work.Structural flaws that were mostly forgivable when the production played the more intimate Museum of Jewish Heritage downtown last year are detrimentally exacerbated by Broadway’s imposing size.

The musical, therefore, is lopsided. Act One, charming enough previously, is now longwinded and poorly paced — gobbled up by the 1,058-seat Ethel Barrymore Theatre.Act Two, when the conditions Germany rapidly deteriorate and the main characters’ lives are imperiled, packs a punch, fills every inch of the room and is worth the wait.

But getting there takes long, aimless stretches, encyclopedias of exposition and hardly any strong character development to speak of.We begin in 1927, Berlin when we’re first introduced to the Comedian Harmonists: Josef (Danny Kornfeld) a former Rabbi from Poland (and Zien’s character’s younger self), med student Erich (Eric Peters), whorehouse pianist Chopin (Blake Roman), an opera bass named Bobby (Sean Bell), Bulgarian Lesh (Steven Telsey) and an actor named Harry (Zal Owen).Before you can say, “do re mi,” they’re international superstars.

Star-is-born stories reliably entertain and capture an audience’s imagination and hearts. “Harmony” illogically skips straight to star-is-star, robbing the tale of some much-needed lightness before the horrors of reality set.