From the Theater Vault Dept.: Despite my lifelong Lloyd Webber antipathy, I felt inclined to like this show just on the basis of its unusual concept. And I’m a great fan of good dance. But this one turned out to be yet another Lloyd Webber show, and reading my review of it again after all these years (the piece dates back to 1987), I now understand the root of that antipathy. It was a high-school trip to see “Jesus Christ Superstar” on Broadway. I was a senior, and at last had a girlfriend – or so I thought. We sat together on the bus heading into Manhattan, and were adjacent in the theater. But I was by then picking up this-ain’t-gonna-last vibes, and, sure enough, it didn’t. I couldn’t blame it on her – I loved her, with what must have been terrifying first-relationship fervor. I was too self-centered at that point to blame myself, so I had to blame someone. I blamed Lloyd Webber.
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| Melissa Manchester |
The two acts are divided according to the title: the first is sung; the second, danced. Emma is a Brit who comes to New York to make a success as a hat designer. But, until she gets her green card, she makes time with a succession of mercurial men, culminating in a short-lived affair with a married man from Westport who wants to leave his wife and kids for her. So she dumps him.Melissa Manchester, as Emma, gives an extremely impressive performance in the first act considering the obstacles she has to face. There is nobody to play against, a concept that must have seemed awfully neat on paper but is kind of silly onstage, and the songs she is given are a corny collection of pseudo-hip catch phrases set to Webber’s typically derivative music.
She “has never felt like this/For once I’m at a loss for words.” That’s about as introspective as it gets, folks. It’s froth, and nothing wrong with that, but froth shouldn’t be played so fortissimo. There’s just not enough profundity to justify all the cymbal crashes and roof-rattling chords that pepper the production.
The music for the “Dance” section is a set of variations on Paganini’s Caprice No. 24, a piece that probably has inspired the most sets of variations since “La Folia.” It’s one of the better things the show has going for it. Another is the fact that the song part only lasts for half of it. When the dancing takes over, it’s another story.
Well, not another plot. We follow one of Emma’s exes, Joe, a Nebraska boy who likes to wear cowboy boots and a scarlet home-state jacket. He’s pretty much as stupid as she is, so it’s no surprise that he, too, feels kind of alienated in the city.
Remember all those Gene Kelly movies that included an alienated boy sequence? They were dumb, too, but there was something innocently wonderful about the way homesick Gene would finally end up with Cyd Charisse. “Song and Dance” almost chokes on its own self-conscious coolness.
Peter Martins supplied some fast, acrobatic steps for supple Victor Barbee to weave through, although the show is stolen out from underneath him by Eugene Fleming, one of those talents that grabs the stage and doesn’t let go. He alone is worth the price of a ticket.
Look, too, for Danny Herman and Scott Wise, who provide some of the most breathtaking routines since the Nicholas Brothers.
The company brought its own sound system. That means we can’t blame the audio problems on Proctor’s this time. Besides the inevitable static of the wireless mic that Manchester wore, the reproduction was shrill and tinny.
SONG AND DANCE, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Don Black, additional lyrics and direction by Richard Maltby, Jr. Choreography by Peter Martins. Musical direction by Jerry Sternbach. Settings by Robin Wagner. Lighting by Jules Fisher. Sound by Martin Levan. Performances at Proctor’s Theatre through Sunday.
– Schenectady Daily Gazette, 24 September 1987
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