#26
Posted: 5/9/14 at 3:59pm
PJ, how was the choreography in the Barrington production? I'm really curious about that aspect of the production. Can it really hold a candle to Robbins' work?
Although I'm not a dancer or a choreographer (or even particularly coordinated!), I am as much of a Robbins purist as anyone alive. I've seen On the Town three times on Broadway (twice when I was a teenager in 1972 and once in 1999) and once in Central Park in 1998.
Josh Bergasse's choreography of the ballets (a bit trimmed) had more of the Robbins spirit than either of the two Broadway revivals. I remember feeling sad at intermission that we had to go back in and see the second act--I wanted to go back in and watch the FIRST act all over again. I can't remember ever feeling quite that way at an intermission of anything before.
And it wasn't just that the boys (Tony Yazbeck, Clyde Alves and Jay Armstrong Johnson) were cute and sometimes shirtless, it was that they and the girls had a pitch-perfect horniness appropriate to all those stories of servicemen on leave and the girls who couldn't resist them. The three girls were spectacular: Elizabeth Stanley, Deanna Doyle and the miraculous Alysha Umphress.
Alysha's "I Can Cook Too" was triumphant--she even incorporated some honest-to-god scat singing. Not only do I think Lenny would have loved it--I think he would have jumped up on the stage and scatted along with her.
And Tony had a tap dance in the middle of "Lucky to Be Me" that was more in tune with the Gene Kelly choreography of the movie than the Robbins choreography for the stage, but it was the perfect blending of the two traditions. And he is a real treasure, the way that Gene Kelly was.
Every laugh landed, every sentiment was true and deeply felt. John Rando directed and the energy of the piece was sexy and funny and sweet, appropriate to the period and yet it still felt fresh--an almost-impossible combination of qualities to pull off.
I left exhilarated, thinking how thrilled Lenny and Jerry and Betty and Adolph would have been--not just to hear the music so beautifully played and sung and danced to, not only to hear Betty and Adolph's sometimes corny jokes made funny again, but to witness the re-blossoming of their youthful spirits of hope and fear and loneliness and love.
And everyone in this thread can just shut up about the size of the theater. Yeah, we get it. It's a barn, a big barn. But you know what?
This is a big show.
Although I'm not a dancer or a choreographer (or even particularly coordinated!), I am as much of a Robbins purist as anyone alive. I've seen On the Town three times on Broadway (twice when I was a teenager in 1972 and once in 1999) and once in Central Park in 1998.
Josh Bergasse's choreography of the ballets (a bit trimmed) had more of the Robbins spirit than either of the two Broadway revivals. I remember feeling sad at intermission that we had to go back in and see the second act--I wanted to go back in and watch the FIRST act all over again. I can't remember ever feeling quite that way at an intermission of anything before.
And it wasn't just that the boys (Tony Yazbeck, Clyde Alves and Jay Armstrong Johnson) were cute and sometimes shirtless, it was that they and the girls had a pitch-perfect horniness appropriate to all those stories of servicemen on leave and the girls who couldn't resist them. The three girls were spectacular: Elizabeth Stanley, Deanna Doyle and the miraculous Alysha Umphress.
Alysha's "I Can Cook Too" was triumphant--she even incorporated some honest-to-god scat singing. Not only do I think Lenny would have loved it--I think he would have jumped up on the stage and scatted along with her.
And Tony had a tap dance in the middle of "Lucky to Be Me" that was more in tune with the Gene Kelly choreography of the movie than the Robbins choreography for the stage, but it was the perfect blending of the two traditions. And he is a real treasure, the way that Gene Kelly was.
Every laugh landed, every sentiment was true and deeply felt. John Rando directed and the energy of the piece was sexy and funny and sweet, appropriate to the period and yet it still felt fresh--an almost-impossible combination of qualities to pull off.
I left exhilarated, thinking how thrilled Lenny and Jerry and Betty and Adolph would have been--not just to hear the music so beautifully played and sung and danced to, not only to hear Betty and Adolph's sometimes corny jokes made funny again, but to witness the re-blossoming of their youthful spirits of hope and fear and loneliness and love.
And everyone in this thread can just shut up about the size of the theater. Yeah, we get it. It's a barn, a big barn. But you know what?
This is a big show.
