sandiego.com Review 3/14/08 (Dancing In the Dark)

JuliaM

Project QL Intern
Aug 16, 2004
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www.seshatplace.com
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San Diego Arts
"Dancing in the Dark" at the Old Globe Theatre
All those songs!
By Welton Jones
Posted on Mar 14 2008
Last updated Mar 14 2008

“Dancing in the Dark,” the new musical at the Old Globe Theatre, launches itself vigorously with an act curtain saturated in nostalgia and an overture to die after.

(Given a bottomless trunk of Arthur Schwartz-Howard Dietz songs like “By Myself,” “You and the Night and the Music,” “I Guess I’ll Have to Change My Plan,” “A Shine On Your Shows,” “That’s Entertainment” and the title tune, what would you expect? Well believe me, overture-writing being the quaint and all-but-lost craft that it is now, this could have been something sad and sodden but, thanks to either Larry Hochman’s orchestrations or Eric Stern’s arrangements, it is instead a sparkling cascade of dear tunes served with deep love and solid respect.)

The bad news is that the show which follows isn’t yet at the same level. The good news is that it’s never really bad, either.

This is a musical for true believers and slaves of the passion. It’s a backstage story based on a legendary movie (“The Band Wagon”) adapted from the early Broadway revue of the same name. It’s packed with theatrical and dance in-jokes (Did somebody mention Arthur Laurents?) and sticky with all the standard sentimentality. The only thing resembling a bad guy is the modern-dance choreographer (“Martha Graham without the laughs,” a line that REQUIRES quoting.) who doesn’t get it.

It’s an assemblage sprung from the brain of Douglas Carter Beane, last seen fashioning a successful Broadway show out of the fabled film flop “Xanadu.” That’s the sort of labor that begets rueful tales such as this one, in which collaborators rip each other’s artistic flesh just out of audience view, whilst cooing publicly about their creative bliss.

Well, I might as well say it. What this show lacks that its two predecessors had is Fred Astaire. That’s all.

It always seemed kind of a dumb part even with Astaire playing it: Broadway kid heads for Hollywood, forgetting his roots, until he hits the skids back east trying for a comeback in a misguided project which only he, finally, can save. It’s just hard to believe Astaire as a flop.

Scott Bakula, who has been wallowing in Hollywood himself recently but who I remember from an under-rated Broadway show called “Romance/Romance,” is in the Astaire role and, since his song and dance is pretty standard stuff, he’s free to make a bit more of the part, which, acting-wise at least, he does.

The Broadway “Band Wagon” (New in 1931!) was just a collection of Schwartz-Dietz songs. For the 1953 film, Betty Comden and Adolph Green were imported by MGM to write a real book which they did, featuring themselves (as played by Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant) and Astaire as, well, sort of HIMself. (This kind of endless rummaging in distant origins seems inescapable, given the nostalgic thrust of the show.)

For the present version, Beane has fluffed up the story and cut back on the choreography, seeking to mount more a real play than just a framework for hanging up songs. Admirable ambition, but he just takes the little story too seriously. Everybody knows it’s tough to create a hit show. But everybody also knows that a musical with songs like this is going to end happily.

Actually, this one ends with an odd coda set 50 years later, with Bakula as creaky grandpa, which then segues into first an movie-style linked-arm march of the principals to “That’s Entertainment” followed by a finale stolen directly from “A Chorus Line” which was itself, of course, stitched together from decades of musical numbers stretching at least back to the original “Band Wagon” and...

Whew! Just an awful lot of show biz schmaltz here.

The ensemble, under Gary Griffin’s direction, is attractive, enthusiastic and game. Patrick Page is a naughty pleasure as a self-important Brit; Mara Davi is appealing as the ingénue; and Paul Byrd impressive as the surly dance master.

I wish I liked Adam Heller and Beth Leavel better as the creative team but competent is reassuring at the stage where this show is right now, still finding its feet.

John Lee Beatty’s scenery is presently rather too reliant upon bland drapery and random wagons. Except for some heavy whimsy in specialty girls’ outfits, David Woolard costumes appear rented from a tux shop. Ken Billington helps his design colleagues with nimble, knowing illumination.

What’s really working, though, is the music, with Don York conducting what sounds like a lot more than 12 players. The arrangements, resting so comfortably on the splendid bones of the basic score, are so ideal that they give the rest of the show a goal worth clawing towards.
 
With no mening of disrespect I have to ask you somthing,jmoniz...Why instead of opening one thread dedicate only to "Dancing in the dark" with all the reviews/photoes/interviews/etc. you open new threads about the subject?
I really think one thread with all of this information about this project would be much better then different threads. I'm sure it would be easier for members/guests on this board to read all of the information aboutl this project of Scott Bakula in one thread ,then start and looking for the information in different threads.
Beside - if you would do it in one thread It won't take so much "room" on this board.
 
I start a separate thread for each since they come from different publications and they, therefore, receive the proper attribution right from the start. No one else has complained before this and I'll continue to do it in this fashion unless the board administrator requests otherwise.