Susan Granger’s review of “Pal Joey” (Roundabout Theater at Studio 54)
What’s the most disapponting Broadway show this season? “Pal Joey,” no contest. So the question surfaces: Why the producers didn’t pull the plug on this debacle when its star, Christian Hoff (Tony Award-winner for“Jersey Boys”), either quit or was fired, depending on what backstage gossip you believe?
“Pal Joey” is a revival of the racy 1940 Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart musical which launched Gene Kelly’s career and was played on-screen in 1957 by Frank Sinatra.
Set in seedy, Depression-era Chicago, it pivots around a charismatic, ambitious cad, cabaret crooner/dancer, Joey Evans, who is determined to open his own nightclub. To that end, he woos a wealthy socialite, lonely Vera Simpson, who bankrolls him while, at the same time, he’s smitten with an innocent ingénue. So much for the decadent plot.
Catapulted from understudy into the titular role, inexperienced Matthew Risch (“Legally Blonde,” “Chicago”) looks distressed, distraught, even desperate, as he mops flop sweat from his brow. Why would he make Stockard Channing “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered”? He doesn’t. So her risqué, supposedly show-stopping song falls flat. But it’s not her fault. Many of the other numbers, including Risch’s duet with Jenny Fellner, “I Could Write a Book,” and tough-talking Martha Plimpton’s satirical “Zip,” lack zip under Joe Mantello’s muted, distractingly inconsistent direction of Richard Greenberg’s recently rewritten book. Curiously, Joey’s thematic “Happy Hunting Song” is staged on a staircase like a funeral dirge, complete with black-shrouded chorus girls.
What works are Scott Plask’s seamless set design, Paul Gallo’s shady lighting, Graciela Daniele’s slinky choreography and William Ivey Long’s sparkly costumes.
So why wasn’t the troubled show tabled until a bankable star like Harry Connick Jr. or, better yet, Hugh Jackman was available? That’s the question investors must be asking themselves.