By Harry Forbes
The latest in a long line of musicals drawn from Alexandre Dumas’s endlessly adaptable 1844 novel arrives at the York Theatre Company in a handsome, well-appointed production. With polished staging and a cast of seasoned Broadway professionals—Sierra Boggess, Norm Lewis, Karen Ziemba, and Adam Jacobs among them—this Monte Cristo makes a strong initial impression.
It follows close on the heels of the recent French film and the PBS Masterpiece miniseries, joining a crowded field of adaptations stretching back to the 19th century. Among those is the version by Charles Fechter, whose work—along with Dumas’s original—serves as source material here. Composer Stephen Weiner and librettist/lyricist Peter Kellogg, who previously collaborated on Penelope, or How the Odyssey Was Written at the York, reunite for this effort. Their score is consistently pleasant and occasionally stirring, but on first hearing, only intermittently memorable.
In aiming for a Les Misérables-style sweep, however, this Monte Cristo strays too far from the spirit of its source. Most notably, it softens the novel’s moral architecture. The three conspirators—Villefort (Lewis), Fernand (Daniel Yearwood), and Danglars (James Judy)—whose betrayal condemns Edmond Dantès (Jacobs) to 18 years in the Château d’If, are here recast as remorseful figures. The shift blunts the story’s central engine: righteous vengeance.
Other alterations prove equally misguided. The scheming innkeeper Caderousse (Danny Rutigliano) and his wife Carconte (Ziemba) are reduced to broad comic relief, as if imported from a 1950s musical comedy. Rutigliano and Ziemba are undeniably entertaining, but their material belongs to a different show. Even the comic Thénardiers in Les Misérables retain their menace; here, the tonal imbalance undercuts the drama.
To be sure, Dumas’s sprawling narrative demands judicious trimming. But what has helped adaptations like Les Misérables and The Phantom of the Opera endure is not just compression, but fidelity to the emotional and moral stakes of the original. In sanding down those edges, this Monte Cristo sacrifices much of its gravitas.
Visually, though, the production is a clear success. Anne Mundell’s set, Alan C. Edwards’s lighting, and the elegant period costumes by Siena Zoë Allen and Amanda Roberge combine to create one of the most striking environments the York stage has seen in recent memory.
The performances are uniformly strong. Jacobs and Boggess bring vocal warmth and emotional conviction to the central love story, their duets among the score’s highlights. Lewis lends gravitas to Villefort, particularly in his reflective “A Great and Noble Man.” Rutigliano, despite the misjudged characterization, makes a vivid impression in his two roles, including the Abbé Faria.
At the performance reviewed, Madison Claire Parks stood out as Haydée, the young woman Dantès rescues, delivering a compelling second-act solo and a poignant duet with Boggess. The production also incorporates a queer subplot—drawn from Dumas and highlighted in recent adaptations—through Danglars’s daughter Eugénie (a spirited Kate Fitzgerald) and her attraction to Haydée.
Under Peter Flynn’s brisk direction, the narrative moves fluidly through its many episodes, supported by David Hancock Turner’s music direction and Marcos Santana’s choreography. If the storytelling ultimately lacks the weight it seeks, the production’s craft and performances still offer much to admire.
(Theatre at St. Jean’s, 150 East 76 Street; https://www.yorktheatre.org/monte-cristo-2025; though April 5)
Photo by Shawn Salley: (l.-r. Sierra Boggess, Adam Jacobs)
