Entertainment :: Theatre
Girl Crazy by Steve Weinstein
EDGE Editor-In-ChiefSaturday Nov 21, 2009 The only way to approach a story as utterly ridiculous as Girl Crazy, which is getting a solid-gold treatment by the Encores! series at City Center, is to surrender yourself. As a curmudgeon who couldn’t warm to the silliness of the Encores’ No, No Nanette and found Finian’s Rainbow’s book slightly painful, I can’t explain the giddiness that overcame me as soon as the curtain opened.
Was it the magnificent onstage Encores! orchestra, so masterfully conducted by Rob Fisher? Was it the charming, energetic and super-talented cast? The fantastic score chock full of Gershwin standards? The inspired direction of Jerry Zaks, which rivals Broadway productions with ten or even 20 times the budget? Or was it even that vaudevillian skeleton of a book?
A combination of all of them, I guess. Call it theater alchemy: that moment when everything comes together on a stage and produces magic.
In this case, the book somehow works. A young New York playboy’s dad sends him to his ranch in rural Arizona, which Junior promptly turns into a fantastically successful dude ranch upon which all of his New York girlfriends descend in search of real men (i.e., cowboys). A side trip to nearby Mexico to go to the races and sort out the minor romantic complications. I won’t give anything away if I reveal that boy gets girl.
It’s so idiotic, there’s an interior method that makes all the lunacy fun, if not believable. The cast--one of those dream ensembles that Encores! has made a specialty of in recent years--certainly helps. They deliver the lines with sincerity and a knowing wink at the audience.
Chris Diamantopoulos is absolutely adorable as the girl crazy New Yorker. He sings like a dream, dances better and can do a front flip. As his local (and real-life) love interest, Ugly Betty star Becki Newton continues the Encores tradition of giving TV stars a chance to strut their gams and belt out tunes in an old-fashioned book musical.
Speaking of TV stars, Wayne Knight, the obnoxious postman from Seinfeld (and the evildoer in Jurassic Park, let us not forget), does a fabulous turn as the schlemiel cabdriver who sticks around to take the fatal job of local sheriff.
As the Barbary Coast songbird hired to entertain in the dude ranch’s new gaming room, Saturday Night Live alumna Ana Gasteyer is almost--almost--good enough to make you forget that this was the part and the song ("I’ve Got Rhythm") that turned Ethel Merman overnight into the toast of Broadway, a perch she’d continue to hold for the next 30 years. Gasteyer holds those famous notes as long as the Merm--no easy feat. And hooray to Encores for giving the invaluable and under-appreciated Marc Kudisch (he practically made 9 to 5) a turn as Gasteyer’s ne’er-do-well husband.
The heart of this show, however, is the music. The Brothers Gershwin didn’t possess the DNA to write anything but a great song, and this is no exception. In 1930, the Gershwins were entering their own private golden age that would culminate in Porgy and Bess. Here the score is light as air, with three much-covered standards--"I’ve Got Rhythm," "But Not for Me," and much-reprised (that’s a good thing) "Embraceable You." Even the throwaway songs, like "Bidin’ My Time," are better than anything else you’re likely to hear on the boards this season.
The production is topnotch, with the chorus running with Warren Carlyle’s inventing choreography. Costumes are equally first-rate. And Robert Russell Bennett deserves special recognition for the tight, peppy orchestrations.
I had previously only experienced the terrible MGM film version, in which Gasteyer’s and Newton’s roles were combined, the whole plot was reworked, songs were cut and added. It’s a mess.
The biggest pleasure of Encores! is being to see a show you thought was hoary and dated beyond redemption and realizing that, restored to its pristine state, it still has the ability to thrill, these many, many years later.
If you haven’t gotten hip to this essential series, please hand in your Broadway Show Queen card immediately.
Girl Crazy will be performed on Sunday, Nov. 22, and then, like Brigadoon, will once again slumber. So get to the City Center, West 55th Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues! Go to the City Center website for more information.
EDGE Editor-in-Chief Steve Weinstein has been a regular correspondent for the International Herald Tribune, the Advocate, the Village Voice and Out. He has been covering the AIDS crisis since the early ’80s, when he began his career. He is the author of "The Q Guide to Fire Island" (Alyson, 2007).
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