If only the show burrowed into that questing, determined personality more. “Where is love?” is a genuine question, a both sweet-voiced and disbelieving interrogation of unseen forces, Oliver claiming love for his own as something he deserves as much as wants. Oliver scrappily stands up to all the villains around him, as he tries to find-against a background of workhouses and venal exploiters-some kind of happiness and security. But wait till you hear “Where Is Love?” as sung by Pajak, Oliver’s cri-de-coeur and plaintive question to the universe around him.Ī young orphan, who is terribly abused and whose foggy parentage is the plot’s major mystery, his is not simply a song of victimhood. The star of the Encores!’ production of Oliver! (New York City Center, to May 14) may only be 12, but he already has a sterling Broadway credit to his name, as a charming scene-stealer in The Music Man. It would be wrong to say “a star is born” when it comes to Benjamin Pajak.
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