I dare you to find a flaw in “She Loves Me,” Harnick and Bock’s intimate, tender-hearted, altogether exquisite 1963 musical comedy/romance, which is receiving a terrific Broadway revival produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company and directed by Scott Ellis.
As it happens, Ellis also directed a production of “She Loves Me” for the Roundabout two decades ago. But unlike the Roundabout’s recent carbon copy rehash of its 1998 “Cabaret” revival, this is a new staging.
Based on the same play that inspired the 1940 Jimmy Stewart film “The Shop Around the Corner” and 1998 Tom Hanks remake “You’ve Got Mail,” it observes two squabbling co-workers (played by Laura Benanti and Zachary Levi) at a parfumerie in 1930s Budapest who have unknowingly been paired together through a lonely hearts club and have been writing long letters to each other.
The first-rate score, full of inventive multi-character sequences and revealing solos, all neatly integrated into Joe Masteroff’s book, is universally adored by musical theater aficionados. You listen and sigh, “They don’t make them like that anymore.”
In addition to the main couple, “She Loves Me” contains a wealth of great supporting roles, which are here filled nicely by Jane Krakowski, Gavin Creel, Michael McGrath, Peter Bartlett, Byron Jennings and 17-year-old Nicholas Barasch.
With her superb vocal abilities and comedic instincts and open emotionality, Benanti scores a homerun as the hopeful but staunch Amalia, and the same can be said about Krakowski as Ilona, the gal pal who’s been around the block one too many times.
Levi (who replaced the previously announced Josh Radnor) is likable but underwhelming as the hardworking, affable clerk Georg, but that hardly matters. The overall impact of this winning production leaves you teary-eyed and overjoyed.
If you go
“She Loves Me” plays at Studio 54 through June 12. 254 W. 54th St., roundabouttheatre.org.
