No, No, Nanette

photo: Joan Marcus

I usually resist writing about dress rehearsals for a variety of obvious reasons but I want to say that this latest Encores! show - a new version of the 1971 hit adaptation of the frothy 1925 musical comedy - is certain to be a crowd-pleaser. (It runs through Monday, at City Center.) I can say so purely on the sparkle of the blissfully delightful dance numbers (put together by Randy 42nd Street Skinner) which provide spectacular transportation back to the forget-your-troubles Broadway of yesteryear. And some of the songs ("Tea For Two", "I Want To Be Happy..") are so infectious that you might find yourself grinning like a fool and humming along. I'm not comfortable commenting on the performances, but I do want to say what a pleasure it is to have Sandy Duncan doing jaw-dropping fan kicks and lighting up a stage again. At 62, she's still the best kind of "bubbly".

Good Boys And True

*** (out of five stars)

Second Stage

In the wake of an explicit sex-tape floating around an exclusive private high school, a mother and her senior jock son must deal with the surrounding questions and all of the fallout. Is the guy in the tape actually him? If not, who is it? If so, why did he do it? This pretty good, pretty interesting play by Roberto Aguirre Sacasa, sped along and raised a whole bunch of issues surrounding the cluelessness of privileged youth and their immense sense of entitlement. With J. Smith-Cameron and Brian J. Smith leading the pack we have a designer cast living on a gorgeous designer set (an immense gallery of sports trophies) by Derek McLane. I liked this play and I was glad I got to see it.

Glory Days

1/2 (...out of five stars)

Broadway

I was charmed by the Cinderella story of these young first timers sneaking their little show to Broadway just under the Tony deadline. I wanted to like it but 5 minutes into it i realized that liking it wasn't going to be an option. This hanging-out-on-the-old-high-school-bleachers-reliving-the-old-glory-days (the "old glory days" being three years previous) pop musical suffered from a myriad of problems one would most likely find in the first draft of a workshop production: low stakes, cliche', stories not resolving, at least one main character missing any sort of journey at all. Nick Blaemire, the composer (obviously heavily influenced by Jonathan Larson and Jason Robert Brown) does have potential and maybe down the line can look back on this freshman disaster as a humbling learning experience as he is hopefully launching a new, more Broadway-worthy production. However, this time, no go. There was a prevailing bitterness for me while watching this wildly shocking misfire: Why the FUCK isn't [title of show] right here right now?

Substitution

photo: T. Charles Erickson

In a role written for her, Jan Maxwell sounds notes of believable anguish and despair playing a suburban mom mourning her son, recently killed along with many of his classmates in a freak accident. As good as Maxwell is, as always, she can't rescue the play, which tries to quirk up its destination to the land of Hallmark by pairing the grieving mom with a kooky, full-of-life substitute teacher whose eccentricities (such as exercising in the classroom in his underwear upon their first meeting) are meant to be endearing but mostly register as incoherent and bizarre. (Not at all the blame of Kieran Campion, who does all that anyone could reasonably be expected to do with the part). The play is further dragged down by flashback scenes of two students who also died in the accident: their scenes don't flow into the narrative and quickly sink the show's pace.

Cry Baby

** (...out of five stars)

Broadway

Completely abominable? No, not at all. A run-of-the-mill, business-as-usual, generally forgettable big musical farce seems more like it. Everyone from the creative team to the performers are courageously bending over backwards to sell this ersatz Grease to the back of the Marquis, but the book and score are giving them little to work with. With no real secondary story to round out this musical (there are definitely secondary characters whose journeys each begin and wrap up in perhaps 6 lines throughout but that's different), we are left to follow our one-dimensional, mildly likable romantic leads from scene to scene to their obvious conclusion. And the journey along the way is littered with forgettable rockabilly songs and ballads that are both less delicious vintage Waters trashiness and more cutesy feigning as naughty. I want to be Harriet Harris's life-partner but not even her brilliance could make the ten mile long eleven o'clock "Let me explain everything!" monologue listenable. Not everything was forgettable though: Best. Choreography. Of. The. Year. Cheers Mr. Ashford! You certainly know your way around a posse of Drapes...(or is that a drape of Posses...?)

Also blogged by: [Patrick]

Stretch (a fantasia)

Reviewed for Theatermania