THEATER REVIEW
YOU know those endless numbers on the Oscar telecasts where a bunch of dancer-singers, recapping the year’s movies, do the lives of, say, Gandhi, Lenin, Sitting Bull and Amelia Earhart in one uninterrupted stretch? You can get a slice of pizza or hit the bathroom or just watch in stupefaction. The last is the only option available at “The Gershwins’ Fascinating Rhythm,” a bookless revue in which a cast of nine young performers sing and dance some 28 tunes from the George and Ira Gershwin catalog.
The only fascinating thing here is how many ways director Mark Lamos and choreographer David Marques find to get these masterful and moving tunes wrong. The overall goal seems to be to dumb down the Gershwins and render them accessible to patrons of MTV, Madonna, “Footloose” and “The Life.” It’s like “George and Ira Go to Studio 54” – and the relentless trashing is done without humor or wit.
A lot of the early settings seem to be the mean streets of Bob Fosse. In “I’ve Got a Crush on You,” a fancy woman (the talented Sara Ramirez) in spangles cruises an open-shirted stud; she’s interrupted by a man (Darius de Haas) urging, “Lady, Be Good!” Hookers reminisce to the tunes of “Cousin in Milwaukee” and “The Lorelei.” “The Man I Love” is belted by a dame in a fur collar to a guy in a black trench coat. “Love Is Here to Stay” is danced by Michael Berresse (who can actually dance) to wholly undistinguished nightclub movements. Check out the real thing at “Chicago” or “Cabaret” or, yes, “Fosse.”
“Inclusive” is this show’s middle name. “Isn’t It a Pity” is done as lesbian torch song from a lady wearing boots and pants to a silent lady in one of those spangled dresses so dear to this production – a potentially piquant concept ploddingly executed. There are timidly male-gay flavorings to the stagings of “Embraceable You” and “Who Cares?” “I Got Rhythm” and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” are done with heavy-footed obviousness; what was wit in the Gershwins is dullness here.
“Nice Work If You Can Get It” is turned by Adriane Lenox into a kind of Lena Horne pained torcher. A second later, Patrick Wilson (who can be a fine singer) twists “But Not for Me” into a Pearl Jam rock wail; he goes into Eddie Vedder-like anguished contortions. In general, though, the performers run to the opposite vice: they smile though their songs like Miss America contestants.
There are one or two bright spots. “Just Another Rhumba,” done as a duet between a shrink and a patient, works as an old- fashioned comic turn; Patrick Wilson makes “How Long Has This Been Going On” simple and touching.
At the finale, the model has become “A Chorus Line.” All in white on black stools, the nine performers softly and powerfully render “They Can’t Take That Way from Me” as an elegy for (unspecified) losses. Leave it to this production to spoil this fragile moment; right away “Hang on to Me” pounds in the melancholy with the subtlety of a migraine.
Just typing up those Gershwin titles is a joy. To see them treated as they are here, for the most part, is a shame.