Lady, Be Good! – Encores! – New York City Center

Tommy Tune in the Encores! production of Lady, Be Good! at New York City Center. Picture: Carol Rosegg

Lady, Be Good!, an Encores! production, continues at New York City Center until 8 February.

Star rating: 4 stars ****

It’s almost worth the price of admission just to hear the orchestra of some 30 musicians romp through the overture of Lady, Be Good!, the 1924 musical that’s being joyfully resurrected as the first offering in the current three-show season of Encores! at New York City Center. Moving from the lilting evergreen title tune to the galvanising ‘Fascinating Rhythm’, it simply bathes you in Gershwin musical luxury.

And the show that follows, replete with other great – if not as familiar – tunes from the George and Ira Gershwin canon, is also a delight, even if you have to put up with the show’s creaky book. Furthermore, there’s an extra plus in that the production brings back to the stage Broadway legend Tommy Tune, doing two speciality numbers.

The story centres on the adorable but unfortunate brother and sister Dick and Susie Trevor, who have just been evicted from their apartment and face living on the street.

Dick’s solution to their problem: he will propose to the wealthy Josephine Vanderwater, who just happens to be throwing a garden party that very evening. It’s a solution that upsets Susie, because she knows Dick is really in love with her gal pal Shirley Vernon.

But then who should come bouncing along the street looking like a handsome hobo? Nobody but Jack Robinson, back from a failed expedition to Mexico to make his fortune, and you can probably guess early on that he’s going to figure mightily in the siblings’ future. But not before we get mixed up with a wisecracking, crooked lawyer and other assorted, supposedly entertaining characters.

As you may have guessed, the book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson is pretty much uninspired nonsense, and director Mark Brokaw and the concert adaptation by Jack Viertel, Encores! artistic director, do little to disguise the fact. It‘s played out pretty straight; take it or leave it. And my guess is you’ll want to take it, because along with it, you get a cornucopia of song and dance performed flawlessly by a company of top-notch talents.

Danny Gardner and Patti Murin endow the Trevor siblings with their own individualistic panache, seemingly unperturbed that the roles were created some 90 years ago for and by Fred and Adele Astaire. Murin‘s Susie is a perky charmer, and Gardner is an affably earnest fellow and a dynamic dancer who pretty much stops the show with has tap solo to ‘The Half of It, Dearie, Blues’. The applause is also appreciative for the pair’s several duets in such numbers as ‘Swiss Miss’ and ‘I’d Rather Charleston’ (the latter song has lyrics by Desmond Carter).

Also prominent in the cast is Douglas Sills as the shady lawyer, a role that’s loaded with a lot of questionable laugh lines but nevertheless gets to sing the title song both to Susie and a bevy of chorus beauties, with baritone grandiosity, reflecting the show’s original era. Others gamely shooting for laughs are Jeff Hiller and Kirsten Wyatt as the traditional second comic couple, and Colin Donnell as the aforementioned Jack Robinson.

Randy Skinner’s choreography, lovingly replicating a host of vintage moves, is another big asset, as are the orchestrations, aiming at the 1920s scoring, and their realisation under music director Rob Fisher. Notable is the highlighting of twin pianos, which were said to be a sensation in the original production.

As for Tommy Tune, it’s a special pleasure to have him sing and dance his way in tomato-red suiting and with easy scintillation through ‘Fascinating Rhythm’. After his solo turn, he brings on with locked arms ten more dancers, who take over the stage with a more emphatic style. At the finish, they are joined again by Tune, who winds things up with a series of graceful spot turns.

In Act II, Tune gets another opportunity to demonstrate his beguilingly easy style with a cheery amble through ‘Little Jazz Bird’. It’s another bonbon on this show’s tray of goodies, and apart from its moldy script, it’s hard to see how this Lady, Be Good! could be better.

Ron Cohen

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