The Music Man is creatively a one-man show, with book, music and lyrics by Meredith Willson. One result is that it does seem created, that it displays a style, a sense of one-man showmanship. It also achieves a sustained swinging tempo; as his own triumvirate, Willson escapes all the Stop and Go, the Detour and Closed for Repairs signs of musicomedy collaborations. Boasting a brisk production, and in Robert Preston a delightful star, this 1912 tale of an itinerant con man, a musical ignoramus who invades an Iowa town posing as a bandleader, has...
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