Susan Granger’s review of “The Pajama Game” (American Airlines Theater)
For the most delightful romp on the Broadway, you can’t beat the revival of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross’s classic “The Pajama Game,” based on Richard Bissell’s novel “7½ Cents,” starring handsome Harry Connick Jr., lovely Kelli O’Hara and deliciously dictatorial Michael McKean. It’s the hottest ticket in town!
Making his Broadway debut, Harry Connick Jr. has the looks, the charm, the charisma and the voice to play Sid Sorokin, the new superintendent at the Sleep-Tite pajama factory, where garment workers, under the leadership of the union’s grievance committee’s rep Babe Williams (Kelli O’Hara), are striking for a seven-and-a-half-cent an hour raise back in 1954. Connick’s silky tones enliven “A New Town is a Blue Town,” as well as crooning “Hey There,” and Kelli O’Hara (fresh from “Light in the Piazza”) brings down the house with him in “There Once Was a Man.” Their sexual energy ignites! But the show-stopper is when Connick hits the keyboard in “Hernando’s Hideaway.”
Contributing greatly to the sweet smell of success is director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall, who is responsible for many of the updates, including having the musical’s famous “Steam Heat” number done not by flirtatious Gladys (Megan Lawrence) but by lovestruck Mae (Joyce Chittick) with two nimble dancers (David Eggers. Vince Pesce). That’s the famous Bob Fosse number catapulted Shirley MacLaine from Carol Haney’s understudy to Hollywood since MacLaine caught the eye of producer Hal Wallis and an agent for Alfred Hitchcock who were in the audience.
Derek McLane’s set and Martin Pakledinaz’s costumes suit the mid-’50s perfectly.
Movie lovers may remember the 1957 screen version starring John Raitt, who originated the role, as Sid and Doris Day as Babe as Babe with Barbara Nichols as “Poopsie.” But this version is the best of all. It’s giddy, great fun!