I was there tonight too and I found it to be satisfactory, but nothing more. The show is earnest and has the best of intentions, but the execution is too erratic to overlook its flaws. I didn't care for the opening number/sequence much at all, but after that I actually did enjoy most of the score. It's a mix of swing and jazz with some modern LaChiusa-type touches thrown in. The lyrics are mostly decent to good.
I think a problem is that the same team, Richard Oberacker and Rob Taylor wrote both the lyrics and book (Oberacker wrote the music by himself) and I think it could have benefited from another mind looking it over. The book really was problematic. It was slack and devoid of tension, but there were also some anachronisms and way too modern sounding speech that jarred. With that said, I think the story was interesting and could have been more engaging in the hands of a more skilled book writer.
I do believe worse than the book was Andy Blankenbuehler's direction and choreography. Is this Blankenbuehler's first major gig pulling double duty? I think it shows in that everything is way over-directed and over-choreographed, like he was so happy to show off his whole bag of tricks for the first time that he never stopped to edit himself. The stage is always way too busy- so much so that you don't know where to focus your attention.
Some of the directorial choices are pretty half-baked too. Blankenbuehler borrows from Follies in a few early sequences by having ghosts follow our members of the bandstand around, except this time it's not younger selves haunting our characters, but rather their fallen brothers in war that they can't shake. The ghosts push the survivors around as they struggle to go through their daily routines. It's an interesting idea and if we didn't have 50 swing dancers gallivanting around the stage at all times I would be more on board with this concept. He makes the odd decision to drop the ghosts about halfway through act one anyway, so it becomes a moot point.
It's a pretty small story in the first place, and the ensemble- hardworking that they are- tend to get more in the way than enhance the proceedings. The story revolves around Donny (Cott) who was best pals with Michael "Rubber" Trojan in the war. Rubber dies in the opening sequence, but not before asking Donny to check in on his soon to be widow Julia (Osnes) if/when he gets back home. After the war NBC holds a talent contest that will select one group from each state to go to NYC and compete for a cash prize and spot in an MGM picture singing the winning song. Donny decides to enlist only fellow veterans in his bandstand group and convinces Julia to be the co-lead singer as a stand in for the musically inclined Rubber.
Yes there are "rubber" jokes and "Trojan" jokes. Yes you will cringe.
Beth Leavel, as Julia's mother, is the comic relief and is wonderful, but also woefully underused. She only gets one song in act two. Maybe they could write her something funny for act one when Donny comes over to dinner at the mother's house.
The bandstand members all play their instruments live, and it is impressive, but nothing we haven't seen in Million Dollar Quartet, Company, Sweeney...the list goes on.
I liked Osnes quite a bit, and I think she's the chance they have at a nomination. She has really beauty and glamour- Osnes really could have been an old 40's movie star. She sings well and never pushes or tries to hard to manipulate the audience with Julia's pain and sorrow.
Cott was solid too- certainly much better than in Gigi. He has a distinctive timbre to his voice and like that he's not just another off the assembly line cookie cutter performer.
A major theme of the show is the PTSD soldiers suffer when they return from war. Of course, the term PTSD wasn't really used by the psych community until the 1980's after Vietnam, and luckily no one utters the acronym during Bandstand, but the authors clearly expect a 2017 audience to understand what's going on. That's fine, and obviously PTSD existed before it was "discovered" and labeled, but one must be careful about how much understanding you can allow lay characters to have of an issue that wasn't formally identified in their lifetime.
I would describe Bandstand as a very noble effort, but one that is ultimately too flawed to really be called a success.
Marie: Don't be in such a hurry about that pretty little chippy in Frisco.
Tony: Eh, she's a no chip!
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