Reviews 2007
Reviews 2007
✭✭✭✭✩
music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin,
book by Peter Stone and Timothy S. Mayer,
directed by Michael Lichtefeld
Stratford Festival, Avon Theatre, Stratford
May 31-October 28, 2007
"’S Wonderful"
If you like tap dancing, then shuffle straight over to Stratford and see “My One and Only”. Director and choreographer Michael Lichtefeld has turned this 1983 musical based on a potpourri of George Gershwin tunes into a tap dance spectacular beyond anything ever staged at Stratford. The joyous mood is so infectious you’ll want to sign up for tap lessons the next day.
“My One and Only” started out as an attempt to revive George and Ira Gershwin’s 1927 musical “Funny Face”. Soon the original book by Fred Thompson and Paul Gerrard Smith was thrown out and replaced with a new one. After disastrous out-of-town tryouts that book was thrown out and replaced with one by Peter Stone and Timothy S. Mayer and the entire show was re-choreographed by Tommy Tune. In 1983 it opened on Broadway starring Tommy Tune and Twiggy and became a hit. The musical still retains six songs from “Funny Face”, more than any other source, including such favourites as the title song and “’S Wonderful”. To these are added songs from other Gershwin musicals (e.g., “Strike Up the Band” from 1927) and films (e.g., “A Damsel in Distress” from 1937). Michael Lichtefeld says in the programme notes that ever since he choreographed “Camelot” at Stratford in 1997 he has wanted to do the show here. His love of tap, Gershwin and the 1920s in general and of this show in particular is evident from first to last.
Most of Gershwin’s many musicals are not produced because of the fairly silly books that were in vogue at the time. It’s a bit ironic that the new book for “My One and Only” is even sillier than the old one, but it is so deliberately silly and absorbs so many iconic aspects of the 1920s that it becomes a kind of camp homage to the period. Texan daredevil pilot Billy Buck Chandler wants to be the first to make a solo flight from New York to Paris but his attention is diverted when he falls in love with English Channel swimmer Edythe Herbert, star of the European Aquacade managed by Prince Nicolai Erraclyovitch Tchatchavadze. When Edythe falls in love with Billy, Prince Nikki does all he can to thwart Edythe’s happiness.
The story is merely an excuse for an explosion of creative design and choreography. Douglas Paraschuk’s set is inspired by the abstract works of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, who painted irregular grids of black lines on white and filled in selected boxes with bright colours. Surrounds in this mode fit inside the proscenium and form a screen behind which scene changes take place. The show begins with a clever opening title sequence as in the movies projected on this screen. Throughout the show Paraschuk’s designs evoke posters of the period touting modern wonders like streamlined trains, aeroplanes and ocean liners along with famous scenes from Fred Astaire movies. Meanwhile, David Boechler’s myriad costumes call to mind Erté in the fabulous gowns for the women and Fred Astaire’s formalwear for the men. The show is remarkable for how well integrated all aspects of the design and direction are along with Kevin Fraser’s lighting and Sean Nieuwenhuis’s video design. This is most obvious in the fantastic blacklight “Aquacade” that opens Act 2 and is alone worth the price of admission. Nothing this clever has been seen on the Avon stage since the fabled Gilbert and Sullivan series in the 1980s of Brian Macdonald and Susan Benson.
Lichtefeld’s choreography is a wonder in itself. The opening number “I Can’t Be Bothered Now” is so big you wonder how Lichtefeld will be able to top himself, but he does with each big number more inventive than the last. Luckily these showpieces are interspersed with quieter numbers where one or both of the principals simply sings one of the show’s parade of great songs. Lichtefeld has the pace just right and so does music director Berthold Carrière.
In a show like this where the story is secondary to music and dance, it is really up to the actors themselves to make their cardboard characters come alive. In this area Laird Mackintosh scores a notable triumph as Billy. Mackintosh has always been dependably good, but his mastery of acting, song and dance has grown perceptibly stronger with each appearance at Stratford so that at last he emerges as the undisputed star of the show. His voice is clear and strong in “Strike Up the Band” and his dancing has a poise and finesse few can match. Maybe it is the sense of vulnerably and potential goofiness behind his handsome exterior, but Mackintosh actually makes us care about this peculiar “white tap-dancing aviator” and hope he wins the girl.
As for the girl, Edythe Herbert, Cynthia Dale is a disappointment. It is true as Walter Kerr noted in his review of the original production that the musical never gives us a good idea of what Edythe is all about. Dale doesn’t seem to have much of an idea either. Her accent switches so often between London and New York you think she’s going to be revealed as some sort of imposter. Overall she seems more concerned with striking the right pose than in conveying character or emotion. She gives a fine rendition of “How Long has This Been Going On” at the end, but it seems completely detached from the rest of the musical and she maintains such an icy demeanour Edythe seems more in love with herself than with Billy.
Otherwise, the rest of the cast is excellent. Dayna Tekatch as Billy’s tough-talking tomboy airplane mechanic Mickey is fine counter-example to all the 1920s-style the helpless Edythe and the airheaded Aquacade girls. David W. Keeley makes the Georgian Prince Nicolai, a villain you love to hate, consistently funny by playing the part with deadly seriousness when many a lesser actor would be tempted to excess. Marcus Nance is a powerful presence as Reverend J. D. Montgomery, who runs an “apostolic establishment by day and an alcoholic establishment by night”. Mark Cassius, best know to audience for his work as one of the Nylons, exudes assurance as Mr. Magix, a kind of super-makeover artist, to whom Billy comes to be transformed from a country boy to a “high hat gentleman”. In the original production the title number became a showstopping duel between Tommy Tune and Charles "Honi" Coles as new and old representative of the art of tap dancing. At Stratford neither Mackintosh nor Cassius is of that level, but Lichtefeld has nevertheless contrived a superb tap duet for them that becomes increasingly complex.
Serving as a kind of chorus are Kyle Blair, Ray Hogg and Julius Sermonia as the three New Rhythm Boys who entertain us with, guess what, more tap dancing and even a little roller-skating, while the scene changes.
Initially, you may balk at a show with such a silly plot. But the lineup of hit songs by the Gershwins, Lichefeld's incredibly inventive dance sequences and Laird Mackintosh’s delightful performance that captures the revitalizing spirit of the piece so perfectly make this a show to bring a smile to every face and a tap to every step.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Ensemble of My One and Only. ©David Hou.
2007-06-09
My One and Only