A Charming Year with Frog and Toad
By Linda Winer
Staff Writer

Niceness is not generally considered a goal for a Broadway musical. Gentleness and civility have seldom been the definition of boffo.

In other words, when we tell you that the nicest show in town is "A Year With Frog and Toad," you would not be wrong to put this in the context of a market where high-tech and the hard sell are practically moral imperatives.

But so it is with the sweet entertainment for the very young and grateful grownups who know how bad bad children's theater can be. The 90- minute charmer, which opened at the Cort Theatre last night, was a smash in a limited run at the New Victory Theater last November and first directed by David Petrarca at the admirable Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis.

Consider this the not-Disney idea of a small world, a story about amphibian kindness that, aside from a preposterous and alienating top ticket price of $91.25, is family- friendly in the friendliest sort of ways. Adapted from the "Frog and Toad" books by Arnold Lobel, co-produced and lovingly designed by the late author's daughter, Adrianne Lobel, the show begins at the end of winter hibernation and ends when the zoological cycle begins again.

Mark Linn-Baker plays the Toad, a worrier who, among other insecurities, is self-conscious about how he looks in a bathing suit. Jay Goede is Frog, a tweedy and philosophical fellow who lives down the road. Despite their differences, these are loyal friends who linger in one another's dreams and soft-shoe through the long winter's sleep and share the mundane wonderment of daily life.

There are also three birds - Danielle Ferland, Jennifer Gambatase and Frank Vlastnik - who carry suitcases back and forth from the South and, in Daniel Pelzig's modest choreography, do the occasional birdlike twitch. Most adorably, there is Vlastnik as the Snail who very, very slowly delivers the mail - actually a letter that Frog wrote to Toad, who is sad because he never gets mail. Snail wears what appears to be a rolled backpack on his shoulders and sings about "coming out of my shell."

The songs - music by Robert Reale, book and lyrics by brother Willie Reale - have an understated sophistication. And the number about the compulsive eating of cookies is far more than a cue for parents to buy the show's own brand of cookies at intermission.

Ferland, fondly remembered as the little girl in the original "Sunday in the Park with George" and "Into the Woods" in the 1980s, has grown into an equally endearing actress with a wicked subtext. Gambatase makes a nice mouse who appears from the cupboard to share the cookie feast.

And that's about the level of the special effects in Lobel's tribute to her father's books. The curtain is dominated by the benign smile of a pleasant frog and the furniture is often shaped by the outline of froggy ears. The scenes have scrims of flowers. Butterflies appear on poles. Frog and Toad are too dignified to wear silly costumes. We know who they are because they know who they are. And that's awfully nice, too.

BROADWAY REVIEW

A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD. Music by Robert Reale, book and lyrics by Willie Reale, based on books by Arnold Lobel. Directed by David Petrarca, with sets by Adrianne Lobel, costumes by Martin Pakledinaz, lights by James F. Ingalls, choreography by Daniel Pelzig, music direction by Linda Twine. Children's Theatre Company of Minneapolis production, Cort Theatre, 48th Street east of Broadway. Seen at Friday's preview. Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

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