‘Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ review: A sweet and folksy musical that wants to go to Broadway

Much as Benjamin Button ages backwards from elderly to infant, the new musical “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” also starts off unrecognizably from where it ultimately winds up. From annoying to beautiful.

That stark reversal could be because its style, folksy and verbose Paul Bunyan-ish exposition in overeager group songs, takes some getting used to. But truth be told, that often confusing and self-satisfied aspect never grew on me.

The sweet show from London with a new American cast that opened Wednesday night at the Public Theater with Broadway aspirations improves, and staggeringly so, in the second half when many of the side characters and story-theater shtick get the heave-ho and its rich romantic leads are allowed to live and breathe more freely and honestly.

They’re Benjamin, played from tomb to womb by Andrew Durand, and his life-long love Elowen, earthily portrayed by Kelsee Kimmel.  

That pair of actors and their earnest passion, which radiate genuine love for each other rather than the hopped-up theatrical suggestion of it, is “Button”’s greatest asset and enough of a reason to recommend this very sincere show. 

But it takes a while for the material and director Jethro Compton’s production to calm down and find that focus. 

Most will know F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story from David Fincher’s movie starring Brad Pitt. Composer Darren Clark and book writer Compton (both co-wrote the lyrics) have moved the action from Baltimore in the US to coastal Cornwall, England, and changed the commencement point from 1860 to 1918. 

That’s smart. For one, during the First World War, millions of British children lost their dads. Kids had to grow up fast — not unlike Benjamin. And then there’s the acoustic, sad-happy, pub music of that time, which makes up this lush, Celtic-adjacent score. But most importantly, what could be more surreal than Britain reeling from one world war that devastated a generation of young men while being just two decades away from getting dragged into another one?

Well, how about a baby born at 70 years old?

He’s Benjamin, who’s already an old man with the ability to speak and read and even arrived complete with a pair of glasses. Thankfully, this is the one plot point the musical does not endeavor to explain.

But it does quickly introduce an undercurrent of darkness. Benjamin’s mother Mary (Sachiko Mae) hates that she gave birth to what she believes to be a freak of nature. Doubling down, she sings an almostly laughably moody song comparing her baby to the Kraken, a giant squid that drags ships to the watery deep. Ouch! Mary makes Joan Crawford look like Maria von Trapp. And his father Roger (Brandon J. Ellis) resents his son for what his wife does to herself.        

As the years and wrinkles wash away, Benjamin has to find inspirations to be optimistic, as he spiritedly sings in the musical’s best song, “A Little Life.” The music is always pretty and transportive, if a tad repetitive. 

His No. 1 reason for being turns out to be the local barmaid Elowen. He’s 55 (sorta) and she’s 25. Uh oh! Being that this is 2026, she makes a speech about why the mid-50s is the perfect age for a man. The Public’s donors will be delighted.

The two fall in love and they plan to leave town — only parental meddling separates them for years.

The other struggle with Act One, and why there is so much narration, is that a whole lot happens. Benjamin starts at 70 and ends the first half at 44. He goes off to sea for a decade and enlists in the Royal Navy during World War II. Entire shows have been about far less than one of those.

The seafaring voyage and oceanside locale is taken advantage of by Compton’s set (this guy’s a real Jeth of all trades), resembling a sunken fishing boat. Little buoys floating above the stage light up to become celestial bodies at nighttime. Though more than anything it evokes that 2010s trend on Broadway of hip little analog shows that appear to take place in dank old pubs, like “Once” and “Hadestown.”  

Similarly, the costumes by Anna Kelsey both nod to the period and make the cast look like they work in an ethical butcher shop in Red Hook. 

That cool ensemble of actor-musicians plays the score well and sings splendidly, but I struggled to keep straight the many, many characters they play in the first 90 minutes.

And then the tide of Act Two rolls in, and the show becomes less of a rattled-off series of events and on-the-nose reference to “time” and a more mature musing on loss and how we willingly waste so much of our lives. 

Durand and Kimmel are sublimely romantic in the second part, and not in that prescribed musical-theater way. Maybe it’s because these are not your typical romantic leads. What they’re doing is grounded and palpable. 

Unlike Durand, who is solely Benjamin all night, Kimmel plays numerous roles, including a sheep (see, this kind of stuff gnaws at me). But I noticed that after some especially emotional numbers, or scenes in which Elowen confronts Benjamin, that she wouldn’t easily snap out of it and fall into line with the rest of the cast. Those feelings would linger.      

Her commitment and chemistry with Durand makes the musical. And so does he. The actor’s career has been a fun and weird one to follow. Mostly he’s wound up in out-there comedies, such as “The Robber Bridgeroom,” the Go-Gos show “Head Over Heels” and corny “Shucked.” But during last season’s “Dead Outlaw” — in which he was basically typecast as a corpse — Durand sang a serene song called “Normal” that made me want to see more of his dramatic chops.

Wondrous Durand delivers on that desire. He’s got a fascinating face that here allows him to, well, play a baby and an old man without having to overdo it, which could easily happen with a broad and dorky script like this one. He has an ease, lightness and a casual wisdom that contrasts with the cacophony all around him. And the actor is intensely affecting near the end as Benjamin has his Emily Webb in “Our Town” realization as a 50-year-old in a young man’s body.   

“Who knows how much time you have left?,” he tells his son, who is now the same biological age. “Don’t you waste a second of it.”

And then the sad inevitable happens. Ashes to ashes, us to home.