Review: ‘Anastasia’

“Anastasia,” (“The New Broadway Musical” in this case) is a fictional reimagining of the fate of the youngest daughter of the last Czar of Russia. Bolsheviks executed the real Anastasia, along with her family, at the age of seventeen. The reason that such grim history has instigated so many “alternative facts” — especially in the glittering iteration now singing and dancing at the Broadhurst Theatre — lies in the persistent notion, however improbable, that Anastasia might have survived. Imposters emerged over successive decades to claim her identity, and these events have been dramatized in a play, an iconic 1956 film which brought a scandal-plagued Ingrid Bergman back to the big screen, and an animated feature, also called “Anastasia,” which has developed a devoted following in the twenty years since its release.