‘About Time’ Shows Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire, Seven Decades Into Their Musical Collaboration, Are Still Going Strong

Richard Maltby Jr., a Tony Award-winning director and lyricist, and David Shire, an Oscar-winning composer, are known to theater and film fans for their work both individually and as a duo. The latter includes “Starting Here, Starting Now” and Closer Than Ever,” a pair of musical revues charting relationships and other life challenges in young adulthood and middle age.“Ever” opened off-Broadway in 1989 and has been a cult favorite ever since, so fans will no doubt rejoice at the news that Messrs. Maltby and Shire, now both in their late 80s, have crafted a third show to consider the corresponding chapter of life.The characters summoned in “About Time”—a title that cleverly suggests both contemplation and a sense of urgency — are, for the most part, considerably younger than their creators. Eddie Korbich, one of six musical theater veterans who make up the cast — their roles are listed as simply their first names in the playbill, though each juggles a variety of parts—introduces himself as a 65-year-old man preparing “to write a revue — about things I feel.”In the numbers that follow over two acts, with a handful of short interludes sprinkled in, we meet several men and women still in their fifties — that is, not much older than some of the characters in “Ever.” (In one of the earlier musical’s catchier tunes, “Life Story,” a woman cheekily describes herself as “a well-toned 49,” suggesting that she may have already passed that next milestone.)If 40 is the new 20, as we’ve been told for decades, I suppose it stands to reason that 55 could be the new 35 — and by that math, Messrs. Maltby and Shire could be spry 60-somethings. Certainly, it’s refreshing to see people eligible for AARP membership still fully engaged, as many are, in life’s struggles and joys, from dating to raising kids — the subjects of, respectively, the charming “Making Movies” and the contemplative “What Do I Tell the Children?”On the other hand, “About Time,” which is directed by Mr. Maltby, doesn’t dangle the possibility of a fourth chapter and it seems odd that mortality isn’t addressed more. “Just a House,” a short, plaintive ballad showcasing an elderly woman in a nursing home, movingly sung by Allyson Kaye Daniel, seems to come out of nowhere; in “Saying Goodbye,” a terminal diagnosis is played for laughs, with the doomed man calling ex-girlfriends and discovering the wacky turns their lives have taken. Like so many new plays and musicals, the show would have worked better as a one-act piece, with the issues addressed in these songs fleshed out a bit more and other numbers abbreviated or eliminated. For the last task, I would have started with “Over-Ripe Fruit,” which casts the talented female singers as drunk harpies lamenting their male peers’ preference for younger gals, and a prolonged parody of overripe machismo titled “Vroom! Vroom! Vroom!”Still, the songcraft is overall more solid than most of what you’ll hear from much younger composers and lyricists working on and off-Broadway. Highlights include “Little Susan Lawrence,” a fetching, funny reflection on a childhood crush, and “I’m There,” an account of mature wanderlust that’s both inspiring and somehow elegiac; the creamy-voiced Sally Wilfert delivers both with wit and grace.My favorite selection, however, is the jaunty “I Like Jazz,” in which a delightful Daniel Jenkins addresses us from the self-styled “man-cave” he has created as a retreat for savoring old recordings by Erroll Garner and Charles Mingus. Such giants “die,” he tells us, “but none of them will ever age.” Alas, it’s not like that for most of us. For all the talent showcased here, “About Time” might have been more consistently satisfying with a little more acknowledgment of its ostensible subject, and less cuteness.

‘About Time’ Shows Richard Maltby Jr. and David Shire, Seven Decades Into Their Musical Collaboration, Are Still Going Strong

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