‘The Baker’s Wife’

Paper Mill Playhouse presents a reworked version of this musical about the inhabitants of a small French village.

By: Stuart Duncan

Alice Ripley and Lenny Wolpe star in TheBaker’s Wife at Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn.

   They finally got it right. The Baker’s Wife, which attempted to reach Broadway in 1975 but was shuttered in Washington, D.C., during tryouts, is back — rewritten, reworked and as charming as anything you have seen in years.
   Book writer Joseph Stein and composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz never gave up hope on the show, which has had a few well-received revivals over the years, but the current staging at Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn is big time. There are new songs, changed lyrics and, above all, a major refocus to the intent.
   Originally, as the title suggests, the plot looked primarily at the French baker, an old man named Aimable, and his pretty wife, Genevieve, who is half his age. Now the show also looks at the small French village and its inhabitants. The plot still includes the young man from the village who falls in lust with Genevieve and persuades her to leave her husband and run away with him, but now the story is more about the effect on the town and its people — how it affects them.
   And now it works.
   Of course, a great cast helps a lot. The voices are extraordinary and the audience gets a genuine feeling of the personality of the village, beginning with Denise, the wife of the local café owner, who sets the scene. We meet the characters of the town: the café owner, the school master, the cleric, the Marquis and his "nieces." We meet some who refuse to talk to each other and some who talk and talk, but never say much. All are anxiously waiting for the new baker — the old one having died a few days earlier. He arrives (Lenny Wolpe, taking a break from a national tour of Little Shop of Horrors to come to Paper Mill) with his stunning young wife (Alice Ripley), immediately assumed to be his daughter.
   And after he has shown his prowess at the oven to all — a rousing scene with the song "Bread" — sex rears its ugly head. A macho young man (Max Von Essen, who played Freddy in Paper Mill’s My Fair Lady a few seasons back), working for the local Marquis, immediately begins to tempt Genevieve to run away with him. Meanwhile, composer Schwartz gives us his best score in years. "Meadowlark" already has achieved a solid following, but "Where is the Warmth?" "Gifts of Love" and "If It Wasn’t You" are not far behind. He has lost none of the witty manner with a lyric either: "What is as luscious as a fresh brioche is." And book writer Stein has done for a French village what he did for a Russian one (he wrote the book for Fiddler on the Roof).
   Director Gordon Greenberg has mounted the evening exquisitely. Anna Louizos’ set design is picture-book charming and Jeff Croiter’s lighting design complements it beautifully.
   Now that they got it right, maybe somebody should think about taking it back to Washington, D.C., and then onto New York.
The Baker’s Wife continues at Paper Mill Playhouse, Brookside Drive, Millburn, through May 15. Performances: Wed. 8 p.m., Thurs. 2, 8 p.m.; Fri. 8 p.m.; Sat. 2:30, 8 p.m.; Sun. 2, 7:30 p.m. Tickets cost $31-$68, $16 students. For information, call (973) 376-4343. On the Web: www.papermill.org