It might as well be called “Molly Smith’s ‘The Music Man.’ ” The artistic director of Arena Stage has a swell penchant for producing shiny American musicals unlike any other local director in the Washington area. Sure, there are those who take on high-budget, slick affairs in the same genre, but no one quite understands the understated like Smith in her unique presentation of musical theater.
It’s in the way that her version of Meredith Willson’s great ode to small towns is distilled down to its soul and presented on a (mostly) bare stage, and it’s in the way that Smith moves her players around that stage with trademark finesse. “Set in a vision of America’s past, with echoes of today,” Smith’s production replicates life in microcosm, amid the small minds and stuffy stiffs of River City, Iowa.
