Woodland Creatures Sing, Act and Dress Well
By BEN BRANTLEY

The winds of pollution have never visited the sylvan sanctuary of "A Year With Frog and Toad," the pure-hearted children's musical that opened last night at the Cort Theater. No acrid airs of irony, condescension or frantic salesmanship hover over this gentle, agreeable production, which presents episodes in the friendship of two slime-free amphibians set to song.

In its intentions and execution, "Frog and Toad" is as clear as a rural stream in a preindustrial age. The show is speaking specifically to boys and girls who have yet to reach the age of personal cellphones and Avril Lavigne CD's. In other words it is a musical that hopes to tap into a mostly overlooked market: preschool theatergoers with large disposable incomes. Which makes its coming to Broadway an even more daring proposition than Baz Luhrmann's dragging "La Bohème" into the mainstream.

"Frog and Toad," which is based on Arnold Lobel's beloved series of books, was produced at the Children's Theater Company of Minneapolis, then in the fall moved to New York, where it played to packed houses at the jewel box called the New Victory Theater. Whether its undeniable but fragile charms will translate at a box office where ticket prices reach $90 remains to be seen. Certainly it is the first Broadway show I've attended where audience members are more likely to go for booster seats than for infrared hearing devices.

Still, in these days of artistically uncertain productions created by corporate committee and market surveys, it is gratifying to find a musical that knows exactly what it's doing and that, on its own terms, works perfectly. And I'd far rather spend an airy 90 minutes with the woodland characters of "Frog and Toad" than revisit a spangled runaway elephant like "Thoroughly Modern Millie." Would I recommend it to grown-ups unaccompanied by children? Honestly, no.

That said, there is much to extol in "Frog and Toad," which is directed with a light but confident hand by David Petrarca and stars Jay Goede and Mark Linn-Baker in the title roles. Robert Reale's score, which goes from jazz-age jauntiness to step-along cowboy tunes, is eminently hummable. The book and lyrics by Willie Reale, which concern themselves with things like eating cookies and making reluctant kites fly, are witty without talking down to younger audience members or winking at older ones.

The sets by Adrianne Lobel, daughter of the aforementioned Arnold, charmingly evoke the cozy scale and enchanted warmth of her father's illustrations. And Martin Pakledinaz's costumes and Daniel Pelzig's choreography ingeniously summon the show's assortment of animal characters without literal-mindedness.

This approach provides children with plenty of stimulating visual clues, while encouraging them to fill in the blanks with their imaginations. Check out, for example, the fitted paisley coats and feathered hats (nothing as obvious as wings, mind you) of those chic bird creatures, not to mention their jutting-necked walks. Or note the way Mr. Goede (who always wears green socks with his dapper suits) leaps, froglike, just once in the course of a song.

Mr. Linn-Baker, a star of television ("Perfect Strangers") and Broadway ("A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"), and Mr. Goede work in pleasantly low-key symbiosis, with Mr. Linn-Baker playing a mildly lugubrious Toad to Mr. Goede's perkier Frog. And Danielle Ferland (Red Riding Hood in the original "Into the Woods"), Jennifer Gambatese and Frank Vlastnik are delightful in all their incarnations as different denizens of the forest.

When adults talk about finding the inner child, they are usually referring to some state of wondering open-mindedness that probably never existed. When I think of myself from my earliest years, I recall someone who liked a reliable, orderly world that left room for the occasional good-natured scare and jokes so silly that grown-ups couldn't really appreciate them. That's exactly the level on which "Frog and Toad" operates so successfully.

A YEAR WITH FROG AND TOAD

Music by Robert Reale; book and lyrics by Willie Reale; based on the "Frog and Toad" books by Arnold Lobel; directed by David Petrarca. Sets by Adrianne Lobel; costumes by Martin Pakledinaz; lighting by James F. Ingalls; sound by Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen; orchestrations by Irwin Fisch; musical director, Linda Twine; music coordinator, Kimberlee Wertz; general management, 101 Productions; technical supervisor, Peter Fulbright; production stage manager, Michael J. Passaro; choreography by Daniel Pelzig. The Children's Theater Company production presented by Bob Boyett, Ms. Lobel, Michael Gardner, Lawrence Horowitz, Roy Furman and Scott E. Nederlander. At the Cort Theater, 138 West 48th Street, Manhattan.

WITH: Jay Goede (Frog), Mark Linn-Baker (Toad), Danielle Ferland (Bird, Turtle, Squirrel and others), Jennifer Gambatese (Bird, Mouse, Squirrel and others) and Frank Vlastnik (Bird, Snail, Lizard and others).

Snagged from:
NYTimes.com