Joan Marcus
It would be wrong to say “a star is born” when it comes to Benjamin Pajak. The star of the Encores!’ production of Oliver! (New York City Center, to May 14) may only be 12, but he already has a sterling Broadway credit to his name, as a charming scene-stealer in The Music Man. But wait till you hear “Where is Love?” as sung by Pajak, Oliver’s cri-de-coeur and plaintive question to the universe around him.
A young orphan, who is terribly abused and whose foggy parentage is the plot’s major mystery, his is not simply a song of victimhood. Oliver scrappily stands up to all the villains around him, as he tries to find—against a background of workhouses and venal exploiters—some kind of happiness and security. “Where is love?” is a genuine question, a both sweet-voiced and disbelieving interrogation of unseen forces, Oliver claiming it for his own as something he deserves as much wants. If only the show burrowed into that questing, determined personality more.
Pajak sings the song so well—and you can get a taste of why with this Playbill rehearsal video—it almost brings the show to a standstill. There are other moments like this in Lear deBessonet’s production (deBessonet is also artistic director of Encores!)—familiar crowd-pleasing numbers sung with gusto by Pajak and the whole cast. But there are other moments that jar. And then there is the musical itself, whose themes and tonal shifts and characterizations seem even more queasy and weird in 2023. Oliver! is a curious theatrical beast that sometimes zings with old-fashioned musical theater pizazz and sometimes feels less sure about what it is showing, and even less sure in what it is saying about what it is showing.