'Wanted' Broadway review — move over, Billy the Kid; make way for the Clarkes

Read our review of Wanted on Broadway, a new musical by Angelica Chéri and Ross Baum inspired by the legend of two 19th-century outlaw sisters.

Summary

• Wanted fictionalizes the true story of the Clarke sisters, two Black women who passed as white and became outlaws to settle their family's debts
• The story is uneven, but the show has a riveting gospel, country, soul, and R&B score by composer Ross Baum and book writer/lyricist Angelica Chéri
• Solea Pfeiffer and Ledisi deliver standout performances
• The show is recommended for fans of Westerns and fans of shows that center complex Black women's stories

"Pull yourself by the bootstraps" be damned. The broken promises of emancipation be damned. You’ll cheer for the Clarke sisters robbing oppressive white society in post-Reconstruction Marlin, Texas in Wanted, now on Broadway under the direction of Stevie Walker-Webb.

Book writer/lyricist Angelica Chéri wrote the new musical as a fictionalized — embellished as family lore often is — tribute to her great-great-grand-aunts’ exploits. “Make way, make way,” sing the Kinfolk, a six-person chorus of ancestor spirits in white costumes by Emilio Sosa, orbiting the sisters as they flow through Chelsey Arce’s choreography. Their varied vocals, propelling Ross Baum’s riveting gospel, country, soul, and R&B score, announce that the “mostly true” story of the Clarke sisters is a parable about the strength of roots, the thrill of want and being wanted (in crime posters or love), and the forbidden fruit of assimilation.

It's 1893. Mary (Solea Pfeiffer) and Martha Clarke (Liisi LaFontaine), products of their mother’s affair with a white Frenchman who abandoned them, decide to venture beyond Marlin, where their white-passing profile may grant them opportunities to pay off their white sharecropper boss’s increasing debts and buy the land. Their mother, Tallulah (powerhouse Grammy nominee Ledisi), blesses them with her .45 “Old Betsy.” When Mary pulls the gun on lecherous men, their tool of self-defense inspires them into full offensive mode as outlaws. Cue the ensemble number “Gun and Powder,” which montages their stick-ups on lustful white men, Confederate daughters, and racist bankers.

But just when Wanted teases adrenaline and expectations of town-to-town exploits, what actually happens next is a harder sell. The sisters find unexpected shelter with shady white hotelier Jesse Whitewater (Bradley Jaden, weaponizing bad-boy charisma), who recognizes them as outlaws but doesn’t discern their Black parentage. He pampers and courts Mary into a marriage proposal. This thrills Mary, who covets the security of being a “Real Woman,” as she sings in an upbeat song.

Once Wanted settles into that hotel and becomes an interior tale, it loses steam. But indisputable is Pfeiffer’s gift for calcifying her Mary's steely facade to hide her Black identity from Jesse. In the chilling “The Way I Am,” Mary obsessively powders first her face, then a vision of her mother, while the Kinfolk gaze over her shoulder. Pfeiffer plays this as a visceral self-erasure and then channels Mary’s internalized shame into vanity in Act 2. Mary and Jesse’s relationship carries a veneer of commercial-friendly romance, though a sensible audience sees a mile away that Jesse is just another white devil long before his “good ole’ days” nostalgia chips at Mary’s illusion of stability.

As Mary grows textured, Chéri struggles with carving out something as compelling for Martha, the voice of reason begging Mary to grasp the risk of her gilded cage while gathering the guts to fire her gun for real. Martha’s tentative romance with Elijah (Luke James), Jesse’s Black valet, is hamstrung by cookie-cutter lyrics. When James performs his ballad “Invisible,” the musical teases the question of how much his attraction is attributed to Martha’s lightness, but what comes after scrapes the surface. (Jesse and Mary, even as a doomed, mismatched couple, also get a sensual consummation, while Elijah and Martha aren’t granted any moment that rivals that passionate scene.)

Greater interiority is given to the comic-relief hotel maids, Sissy (Aurelia Williams) and Flo (Awa Sal Secka), who flit about to gossip, snicker, and gasp at the audacity of the sisters they clocked as Black from the get-go. They envy the Clarkes’ social mobility while being frustrated with the sisters’ complicity in their servitude. Williams and Secka seesaw between dread and exhilaration as if they realized this new soap opera has lassoed them into nerve-wracking stakes.

Wanted remains patchy in its serviceable-to-good lyricism, but it refreshingly paves a less trod path on the Great White Way. The musical is adamant about not apologizing for enacting retribution on the bastards who feed off America’s original sin. No doubt the Clarke sisters are blazing, and belting, a trail for strong-willed, complicated Black women in original musicals.

Wanted summary

You’ve heard of Bonnie and Clyde or Billy the Kid, but Wanted tells the story of the real-life outlaw Clarke sisters, preserved and fictionalized by their descendant Angelica Chéri together with Ross Baum.

It’s 1893 in post-Reconstruction Marlin, Texas. Biracial Black sisters Mary and Martha Clarke must support their single mother, pay off their increasing debts to their abusive sharecropper boss, and buy the land they toiled on. The sisters weaponize their lighter skin to pass in white society and operate as outlaws to rob from the wealthy. The sisters hit a crossroads when white hotelier Jesse courts Mary, who resolves to repress her Blackness and survive as a white woman while Martha must devise a plan to pull her sister from Jesse’s thrall.

Under the title Gun and Powder, the musical had pre-Broadway runs at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Virginia and the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, New Jersey, before it was renamed as Wanted for the Broadway premiere at the James Earl Jones Theatre.

What to expect at Wanted

While Beowulf Boritt’s scenic design isn’t among the standout work of his impressive career, Wanted’s wooden platform sets — flanked by video and projection design by Stefania Bulbarella — are efficient in transforming into barns, saloons, and a hotel. One of the most clever set transformations is into a tight train where the danger feels imminent in “Just Passing Through,” the pensive lyrics and music playfully tapping into the Clarkes' tightrope-like act of making casual conversation with riders without blowing their cover. The set assumes a particularly chilling atmosphere when the platforms rearrange for a climatic showdown.

From my orchestra seat, Gareth Owen’s sound design made it possible to hear about 90% of the chorus's voices. Wanted runs 2 hours and 15 minutes, including an intermission.

What audiences are saying about Wanted

As of writing, Wanted has a 90% audience approval rating on the review aggregator Show-Score based on 517 reviews. Despite sharing mixed reviews on the writing, theatregoers drank in the cast's vocal talents.

• "What a phenomenal new musical. Powerful vocals and perfect score bring a touching original story to life, alongside plenty of laughs.” - Mezzanine user Tyler Austin
• Show-Score user Goldenboy praised the singers and music while finding the story “convoluted.”
• "It's good but there are some characters that need more development and there are a few songs that don't seem to fit the tone [...] but 10/10 talent and maybe one of the most powerful end of show songs." - Mezzanine user Ally Kelly
• "Solea Pfeiffer needs to be originating more original roles on Broadway. She's giving so much of this show with her unreal vocals and her descent into (and recovery from) a softly venomous turn away from her identity and towards complacency." - Mezzanine user Derek Kahle
• “A discomforting true tale of love, loss and lies.” - My +1 at the show

Read more audience reviews of Wanted on Show-Score.

Who should see Wanted

• Black female playwrights are having a moment this season. Wanted should be appreciated like this fall's School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play and creation stories and all the important importants.
• Wanted is a vehicle for the soaring voices of Liisi LaFontaine (Dreamgirls and Moulin Rouge! The Musical) and Solea Pfeiffer (Moulin Rouge! The Musical and Hadestown), whose fans will want to see them.
• The Grammy-nominated R&B singer Ledisi will draw in her fans or be a great gateway to her talents.
• Fans of Western media, like variations of the Bonnie and Clyde legend, may be lassoed into the Clarke sisters’ story, one history tends to overlook.

Learn more about Wanted on Broadway

Torrential talent pours out from the trailblazing Wanted, a mixed bag in writing but a bounty in performance.

Learn more and get Wanted tickets on New York Theatre Guide. Wanted is at the James Earl Jones Theatre.

Photo credit: Wanted on Broadway. (Photos by Julieta Cervantes)