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Peer Reviews Go Crazy for Crazy
For You Entire contents are copyright © 2007, Craig Nolan Highley. All rights reserved.
In recent years, the Broadway stage has been accused of running out of new ideas and rehashing old ones. A prime example is the current trend of creating musicals out of existing songs from established musicians and musical groups like Abba, The Who and Bob Dylan. As with any trend, this has led to some great shows (Mamma Mia!, Jersey Boys), some tolerable ones (We Will Rock You, The Who's Tommy, Movin' Out) and some awful ones (The Times They Are A-Changin'). Derby Dinner Playhouse even pulled it off recently with Sing Hallelujah!, a show based around a string of traditional gospel songs. But one of the earliest and best examples of this trend opened on Broadway in 1992, and has been given a stunning revival at the Clarksville Little Theatre. Crazy For You is a delightful throwback to the old-fashioned musicals of the twenties and thirties, using a songbook full of tunes by the legendary George and Ira Gershwin. Ken Ludwig's libretto fashions a very traditional screwball comedy, in the style of the Marx Brothers, around twenty or so classic Gershwin songs, full of pratfalls and mistaken identities and every other conventional plot device you can think of. Director Alan Weller has done an absolutely amazing job of reining in a huge cast of experienced and inexperienced performers alike and making this look every bit the professional production.
The story centers around Bobby Child (Daniel Main), who dreams of being a song-and-dance man, but his domineering mother (Grace Poganski) won't allow it. She runs a bank and wants him firmly planted in the family business, and sends him to a cowboy town in Nevada to collect on a rundown old theatre's mortgage. While there, he meets the lovely and rambunctious Polly Baker (Rebecca Chaney), with whom he falls hopelessly in love. She won't give him the time of day until he disguises himself as Bela Zangler (Ted Lesley), a famous Ziegfeld-type New York producer, and promises to help get the old theatre going again. Things are going smoothly until the real Zangler shows up. The story is so tame that there really aren't even any villains. The closest thing would be Bobby's mother (played with just the right blend of snobbery and spunk by Poganski) and Lank Hawkins (Kevin Temple, bombastic and swaggering in the role he was born to play), the cowboy who is Bobby's rival for Polly's affections. But even these characters come out on the right side by the end. Lesley is hysterical as Zangler, mumbling a thick Hungarian accent through a deliberately fake-looking black beard, mustache and fright wig. Mother-and-son Brian and Janet Morris are hilarious as brother-and-sister Eugene and Patricia Fodor, a couple of English aristocrats touring the dust bowl like they're on safari. Brad Lambert does a great Jim Nabors impression in a falling-down funny moment as an educated cowboy discussing Eugene O'Neill and Stanislavsky. And in one very brief but memorable moment, Jesse Lyles does the funniest "death" scene since Paul Reubens in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. By far, though, Daniel Main is the standout. He absolutely owns the show as Bobby, a role that is exhausting to watch. Not only does he sing in most of the musical numbers, he also has pratfalls and physical comedy in nearly every scene. Add to that he spends half the show in his Zangler disguise, doing a dead-on impersonation of Lesley's accent. Through it all he never misses a beat and remains engaging. It is simply a masterful performance. Finally, Kathy Todd Chaney has completely outdone herself with the choreography. The leads acquit themselves nicely in the smaller numbers, but the real treat is in the big numbers. I don't think I have seen this much tap dancing in a community theatre production before. The chorus and dancers never miss a beat, and it's just stunning to watch. I did notice a couple of flat notes here and there, and occasionally the harmonizing went off on the bigger chorus numbers. The acoustics of the theatre made it difficult to hear any soloist unlucky enough to be caught singing during a big tap number. And there was one sequence of the two Zanglers mirroring each other that went on a bit too long. But these are minor quibbles and (judging from the opening night audience's response) don't detract from the show's overall appeal. In fact, the show's best praise would probably
be a comment from six-year-old Jocelyn Borden,
who was sitting three seats down from me (and whose
parents apparently haven't taught her to use her "inside
voice"). She kept up a running commentary
throughout the show, and at one point shouted happily, "I
want to be up there!"
Crazy For You Music and Lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin. September 7 through September 15, 2007 Featuring George Bailey, Caren Borden, Kathy Todd Chaney, Larry Chaney, Rebecca Chaney, Kristen Connelly, Carrie Cooke, Carolyn Gambrell, Magdalen Hartman, Katie Hay, Victoria Hay, Heather Hertel, Nicole Hommrich, Nic Johnson, Chris Koenig, Brad Lambert, Ted Lesley, Victoria Lewis, Jolie Lindley, Jesse Lyles, Daniel Main, Petar Mandic, Joyce Miller, Mike Miller, Brian Morris, Janet Morris, Colleen Niehoff, Mary Stuart Peace, Grace Poganski, Jerry Prince, Hy Stein, Kevin Temple, Tony Vincent, and Cindy Whalen Posted September 9, 2007 Side Note: TheatreLouisville has received a few complaints through our web site that when you call Clarksville Little Theatre's box office, you either can't get through or the recording does not allow you to leave a message. I mentioned this to them, and was told they are aware of the problem and working to fix it. In the meantime, if the phone problem persists, CLT can be contacted through their web site.
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