‘The Baker’s Wife’ Off-Broadway Review: Ariana DeBose and Scott Bakula Headline the Year’s Best Musical Revival

Where has this absolutely captivating musical been hiding for the last half century?

Based on the Marcel Pagnol film, “The Baker’s Wife” was supposed to open on Broadway in 1976, or thereabouts, but shuttered on its way to New York City, the most likely culprit being the abominable showman-producer David Merrick. Productions have popped up here and there over the years, and fortunately for New Yorkers, a stellar production of “The Baker’s Wife” opened Tuesday at the Classic Stage Company. It’s by far the year’s best revival of a stage musical. If there’s any justice, this long-neglected musical by Joseph Stein and Stephen Schwartz will finally make it to Broadway with this great ensemble completely intact.

Scott Bakula plays the old baker and Ariana DeBose is the young wife who has never said she loves him. Of course, she leaves him even before the end of act one, and does so in grand style with the gorgeous “Meadowlark” aria.

But “The Baker’s Wife” is no one-hit-tune musical, because Schwartz’s sparkling lyricism is just as evident in such one-word ensemble pieces  as “Serenade,” “Romance” and, of course, “Bread.” In this tiny French town, the villagers have been without a boulangerie ever since the last baker died on them unexpectedly. They need their bread and Schwartz makes you smell their desire with his music.

Bakula and DeBose are marvelous. He exudes mature warmth and deep affection, telling her he has enough love for the two of them. She remains dedicated and respectful, even when relentlessly pursued by the town’s hot young stud (Kevin William Paul). But for the baker, being respected isn’t the same as being loved.

For much of act one, the baker’s wife is an extremely reactive role, and that’s quite a switch for DeBose, who won an Oscar playing the fiery Anita in “West Side Story” and has hosted the Tony Awards no fewer than three times. Acting assignments don’t get much showier than hosting the Tonys. DeBose captivates here with her uncustomary reticence in “The Baker’s Wife” because we know it is only time before she’s going to burst out of that shell of respectability. And DeBose does so with glorious abandon singing not only “Meadowlark,” but the equally show-stopping “Where Is the Warmth?” in act two.

Bakula and DeBose deliver, but it’s the villagers who really carry this show. They’re its heart beat, and under Gordon Greenberg’s extremely detailed direction, several featured players register as vividly poignant as do DeBose and Bakula.

In their classic musicals, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II always featured a secondary couple who receive much less stage time than the two leads but love just as deeply. Joseph Stein’s book for “The Baker’s Wife” features not one but four other couples who are just as unhappy as the baker and his wife. In fact, the village seems to have succumbed to a plague of miserable marriages. To the credit of Stein’s witty book and Greenberg’s talented actors, especially Judy Kuhn and Robert Cuccioli, these characters emerge as a most entertaining community despite all the bickering.

Especially nice is an ending worthy of Douglas Sirk. It’s basically very happy, but you know the harmony is going to slide off-key again very soon.

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