A Review of Catch Me If You Can, the Musical

I recently saw a performance of Catch Me If You Can in New York City, and I highly recommend the show to anyone who enjoys theater.  Both Aaron Tveit, who appeared as Frank Abagnale, Jr., and Norbert Leo Butz, who appeared as Agent Carl Hanratty did a particularly spectacular job.  Norbert Butz was completely believable in his role as a hardworking and obsessive FBI agent, while Tveit played the role of feckless conman with somewhat alarming ease.  Apart from Chicago, this is the only show I have ever seen in which the actors shared the stage with the orchestra—a potentially awkward situation that was actually integrated quite well, featuring a dividing wall that periodically separated the actors from the musicians as well as walkways both above and bisecting the orchestra.  Although lacking the distinctive songs characteristic of such productions as Les Mis, Wicked and The Phantom of the Opera, Catch Me If You Can played out quite well as a musical, and, in contrast to the style of the movie, I do not believe that a non-musical adaptation would have carried over to the stage nearly as well.

The story is based upon a movie and a book that share the same title, both of which center around the real-life story of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a conman and a forger who went on to work for the FBI.  As would be expected, both the book and the movie take some creative license with Abagnale’s life.  The musical largely follows the plot of movie although it differs in a few important respects concerning Abagnale’s eventual capture by Agent Hanratty.  Like the movie, the play opens with scenes of Abagnale’s capture and then quickly progresses to his recounting of the events that directly led to this situation, a smooth transition aided by the portrayal of Abagnale as cocky, smooth and somewhat overly confident, traits that one would expect a conman to possess.  Although the show does make a few brief overtures towards having a moral message or meaning of some kind, it largely stays within the bounds of what it actually is—a mostly lighthearted and entertaining show that should leave one feeling satisfied and happy even after the final curtain call.