Every unhappy musical is unhappy in its own way, but no musical is more unfortunate than ”Anna Karenina,” the travesty of Tolstoy`s novel that opened this week at Circle in the Square Theater.
The musical ”Anna Karenina” reduces the story to the proportions of a historical romance: Barbara Cartland meets Leo Tolstoy, and the band plays on. In his production, Theodore Mann has undercut the show through a flagrant stroke of miscasting. Ann Crumb, who played the fickle actress in ”Aspects of Love,” is a continent away from Anna in temperament, bearing and appearance.
The failure of the musical is a question of tone, which is much closer to Broadway show business than to Czarist Russia.
The adaptation is most damaging in the rewriting of two major characters. Levin, one of the noblest of Tolstoy`s creations and a close approximation of the author himself, is turned into a musical comedy second lead, a good-natured bumbler. Kitty, his eternal love, becomes the ingenue, a pert and silly flirt who can`t say yes so she says no. When they finally confess their love for each other, one of the most powerful scenes in the book is reduced to a joke.
