Fleet Week: We're Not On The Town Anymore

New York, New York. As someone very wise once said, it's a helluva town. Bronx is up. Battery's down. Yes, it's the perfect place for some good-lookin' young sailors to spend a day finding love and thwarting terrorism.

No, you didn't misread that. Toto, we aren't On The Town anymore– or maybe we are, but it's a different town than Betty Comden and Adolph Green wrote about fifty years ago. The sassy new musical Fleet Week, premiering at the Fringe, takes the basic premise of the Comden and Green classic and kicks it into the 21st century. When they are given a day's leave in New York, four naive young Coast Guard crewmen set out to find love and adventure in the Big Apple. In a Village bathhouse, however, they overhear terrorists from Martinique (no, you didn't misread that, either) plotting to blow up Lady Liberty. And if they can only figure out who this Lady Liberty is, the sailors just might be able to save her...

Don't think too hard about it. The story is really only a framework for inspired, gleeful, giddy silliness, the kind that, despite all logic, brings an idiotic grin to your face and a catchy song to your heart. Sean Williams, Jordana Williams, and Mac Rogers have created a thoroughly enjoyable loving sendup of classic musicals and modern politics, and it almost entirely works, often by pure force of will. Even a weak subplot about the Statue of Liberty's love life can't drag down the energy, and if nothing else, it gives the delightful Broadway vet Melissa Hart a chance to sing a vampy torch song, which is always welcome. But for all the weak moments– and there are a few– the cast performs with enough energy and joy to keep the Titanic afloat, much less a mostly strong script that merely needs some fine tuning.

Said cast is led by the inimitable and indomitable Rob Maitner as the ship's sweetly fey chaplain. Mr. Maitner performed in 2001's Poor Superman, one of the first Fringe shows I ever saw. His performance in that drama left me in tears. His performance here had the same effect, except this time the tears were from laughter. The man's range is incredible– why on earth has Broadway not snapped him up?? Micah Bucey, who played a bitter immortal gay muse in last year's Fringe hit The Only Thing Straight Is My Jacket, plays the innocent Seaman Stayn (say it out loud, or better yet, don't) with genuine aw-shucks charm, making Stayn's naVve farm-boy routine believable and sympathetic. Brian M. Golub and Christopher Guilmet have great chemistry as Seamen Sachs and Ravioli, and Laura Perloe is winsome and adorable as the conflicted Seaman Swallows (once again, no, you didn't misread that). Byron St. Cyr, Brian Karim, and Bruce Sabath harmonize well and have great comic timing as the fearsome Martinique terrorists (Mr. Sabath doing double duty as the ship's besotted Captain). And Marnie Klar and Renee Delio are wonderful chamaeleons as (more or less) the entire population of New York.

Mac Rogers' book is snappy and silly, reveling in its absurdities but still finding moments of poignancy to keep the show from floating completely away. Some plot points are weaker than others, but by and large, Rogers' does not have very much tightening to do on his script. Sean Williams' music is appropriately light, and with enough variety to keep the songs interesting. First-time lyricist Jordana Williams makes a very nice debut, and shows plenty of promise for future musicals. Eric Palmer's direction mostly keeps the pace at an appropriate slapstick speed (it drags once or twice, but never for long), and Paulo Seixas' set is simple and versatile, easily conjuring a city's worth of locales.

Whether you prefer Urinetown or On The Town, Fleet Week is just post-modern enough to mildly shock, and retro enough to evoke the most cheesy of old musicals. For all the graphic sex talk, this is, ultimately, a love story, complete with weddings at the end. And really, can a musical comedy get more classic than that?