Susan Granger’s review of “On the Town” (Lyric Theatre – 2014-2015 season)
This rousing revival of the 1944 musical by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Leonard Bernstein, based on an idea by Jerome Robbins, gets the audience to its feet immediately – with “The Star Spangled Banner” overture.
Set during W.W.II, it follows three sailors on 24-hour leave in the Big Apple. Warbling “New York, New York” with its “The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down…,” they’re searching for Ivy Smith (Megan Fairchild) – a.k.a. Miss Turnstiles – a beauty contest winner who has caught the fancy of naïve Gabey (Tony Yazbeck), who spies her face on a subway poster and immediately falls in love with her. As their quest progresses, macho Ozzie (Clyde Alves) hooks up with an aggressively amorous anthropologist, Claire de Loone (Elizabeth Stanley), who picks him up at the Museum of Natural History, confessing “I Get Carried Away,” while nerdy Chip (Jay Armstrong Johnson) rides around with Hildy Esterhazy (Alysha Umphress), a sassy, sex-starved cabby who boasts “I Can Cook Too.” Eventually, the three couples meet up for the Coney Island finale before the guys return to the pier, board their ship and head off to sea.
Exuberantly directed by John Rando (“Urinetown”) and choreographed by Joshua Bergasse (TV’s “Smash”), it’s a helluva frothy, dance-dominated show with the melancholy “Lonely Town” and memorable “Lucky to Be Me” remaining the most haunting songs. Developed last year at the Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Mass., it makes the transition to Broadway with high hopes and simplistic, candy-colored sets by Beowulf Boritt, period costumes by Jess Goldstein, and lighting by Jason Lyons.
Although whirling, twirling Megan Fairchild hails from the New York City Ballet, her dancing still cannot compare with Gene Kelly’s in the 1949 M.G.M. musical. And she can’t act. Indeed, despite their youthful enthusiasm, the Broadway cast pales in comparison with Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin, Ann Miller, Betty Garrett and Vera-Ellen. Back in 2006, this film version was ranked No. 19 on the American Film Institute’s list of best musicals.