Meet Me In St. Louis

**1/2
Irish Repertory

Though Meet Me In St Louis has Irish blood in it, I'm not sure if Irish Rep was the best place to stage it (for the sake of argument we'll factor out the notion that it should be staged at all). The central conflict (we're moving away from St. Louis!) doesn't even arrive until Act 2 which indicates that this is less a book musical and more of a Lawrence Welk style pageant. So it's all about the musical numbers and even though a lot of talented people tried their darndest, it's next to pointless trying to cram this enormous hunk of sugar onto a stage the size of a studio apartment. The cast was reduced to bare minimum and the dancing was reduced to marking in place. In its defense 24 hours later I am still humming "The Trolley Song" which I guess is what it's really all about. HGA!