The Old Globe’s current world-premiere musical, “Dancing in the Dark” (based on the 1953 MGM film “The Band Wagon”) is really too much of a good thing, crammed with songs by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, performances in which, no matter how scintillating, border on tedium as time goes by.
Granted, book writer Douglas Carter Beane created enough of a second act that it is now more than a revue without book (Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s contracts expired before the film script was complete). However, one questions the wisdom of adding additional numbers from the Schwartz/Dietz songbook when the film score was already chock-a-block with numerous splendid tunes, including That’s Entertainment,” “Dancing in the Dark,” “By Myself,” “I Love Louisa,” “Louisiana Hayride” and “A Shine on Your Shoes.”
“Louisiana Hayride” didn’t work in the film. For numerous reasons, it still doesn’t work, despite tap choreography by Warren Carlyle and perhaps especially its transfer to Park Avenue in the show within a show, which concerns a Wall Street shoeshine boy who convinces his Southern sweetheart he’s a successful financier.
The musical’s plot concerns Tony Hunter (Scott Bakula), a bankrupt, has-been film actor that left New York as a youngster and made it big in Hollywood. Classical actor Patrick Page is a tremendous asset as Jeffrey Cordova, a ham Shakespearean actor who decides he wants to stage a musical, then imposes the plot of “Faust” on the frothy, fun book. Brilliantly, Beane commences the show’s action with a scene in which the too-long-of-tooth Cordova plays Hamlet, which leads into the backstage musical number “That’s Entertainment,” as Cordova introduces his musical collaborators to one another.
Lily and Lester Martin (Beth Leavel and Adam Heller), whose characters are based on Comden and Green, are the songwriting team; Gabrielle Gerard (Mara Davi) is the leading lady and girlfriend of the pretentious modern dance choreographer Paul Byrd (marvelously hunky Sebastian La Cause), whose work, in one of the show’s funniest lines, is said to be “like Martha Graham without the laughs.” Sweet-voiced Benjamin Howes delivers an affecting portrayal of Jeffrey’s factotum and lover, Hal, a character created for the stage musical.
Leavel and Davi are extraordinary singer/dancers. Particularly admired is Davi’s lustrous lower register and Leavel’s scene with Bakula in which she hopes to rekindle their youthful love affair. Heller’s nebbish, truly good man is appealing. The boys and girls of the singing/dancing ensemble create characters as well as dance and sing exceptionally well, accompanied by a 12-piece band in the pit. Larry Hochman’s orchestration is way too brassy at times.
The first act moves by fits and starts, and the musical waits too long for the now-culminating number “Dancing in the Dark.” In the film it was the Central Park-set number in which film stars Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse (who played Tony and Gabrielle) unforgettably fell in love.
Likable as Bakula is, he is charged with the unenviable and perhaps impossible task of dispelling our memory of Astaire, his detachment, his moves and his delicious savoir-faire.
With cuts and a few miracles, “Dancing in the Dark” might make it to Broadway.
Before Village News viewed “Dancing in the Dark” March 19, the Old Globe announced an extension through Sunday, April 20. Performances take place at 7 p.m. Sundays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays; and at 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.
For information, visit www.theoldglobe.org or call (619) 23-GLOBE.