Stephen Schwartz can be a magical composer. “Pippin” is brilliant. “Godspell” grand fun. And “Wicked” is a megahit on tour and on Broadway (where it is still playing a dozen years after opening).
And while “Snapshots,” which Arizona Theatre Company opened Friday, Dec. 5, features tunes from those and other Schwartz musicals, it never reaches the heights of some of his earlier works.
Schwartz pored over his catalogue and pulled songs from his musicals, then rejiggered the lyrics so that they would fit the story, written by David Stern: Dan and Sue have been married two decades and she’s had enough of her husband, who is the center of his world and thinks he should be the center of everyone else’s as well.
Sue is in the attic, grabbing her suitcase and ready to leave Dan a note to tell him to forget the whole thing. Instead, Dan comes home early, and together they start going through old photographs of their life together.
Their younger selves pop out of the photos and remind them of what they once had. But is it enough?
Along the way, songs are sung; 28 of them, to be exact.
And some of those are beautiful. “Lion Tamer” from Schwartz’s lesser known “The Magic Show” is a lovely lament about childhood dreams; the lyrics are unchanged in “Snapshots.”
But the lyrics have been changed in “All for the Best” from “Godspell” and it is just as much fun and witty as the original, and serves the story well.
Then there is “The Spark of Creation” from Schwartz’s “Children of Eden.” The lyrics have been altered so that it is now an ode to motherhood, and it’s beyond schmaltzy.
The cast, directed with a sense of fun by Daniel Goldstein, oozes talent, especially Mallory King, whose crisp voice caresses and soars.
But “Snapshots” is interested in just that — giving us snapshots rather than any insight on marriage or characters with any depth. Everything is an outline that is never quite filled in, which is quite a feat considering the play basically takes us from their childhood friendship to Sue’s decision to leave.
The thin storyline is way too pat and serves as a flimsy launch for Schwartz’s songs, few of which offered anything fresh.
Now, that’s OK — 28 songs by Schwartz sung by talented performers is a fine way to spend an evening.
But it’s an evening that fades away more quickly than an Inkjet photo left in the sun.
