Review: GOIN' HOLLYWOOD at WaterTower Theatre

What we refer to as a golden age might produce art of the highest quality, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’d want to live in that time (by our standards, life was pretty miserable in Elizabethan England, despite the plays you could attend).  This point is made abundantly clear in Stephen Cole and David Krane’s Goin’ Hollywood, a world premiere musical that ran for two weeks in July at WaterTower Theatre, in Addison.

Alice (Alison Whitehurst) and Garson (Brian Hathaway) are a musical comedy writing team (they see themselves as a modern-day Comden and Green) struggling in New York to get producers to recognize their talent, which they know would have been highly prized in Hollywood in the late ’40s.  On her thirtieth birthday – and having just had another producer turn down the option on their latest play – Alice talks about the big party Louis B. Mayer had thrown on that very day in 1948 to celebrate 25 years of MGM’s success.  Everyone who mattered in Hollywood musicals was at that lunch.  And so, sitting in a train-car themed restaurant, Alice wishes that they could be there; more specifically she wishes to be there in 1947, so they’d have a year to earn their way into that party.  Non-spoiler alert: the restaurant is a magical train that does just that (with a ticket for a return trip that leaves exactly one later).

They are then lucky to meet AJ Engerman (Cooper Grodin), the head of MGM’s writing department, who hires them on spec, and introduces them to the writing staff (Bryan Brooks, Micah Brooks, Andrew Nicolas, and Jarrett Self).  Also on hand is Nancy Karinski, a brash New Yorker whose speech is peppered with Yiddish words and expressions, and who is trying to convince her fellow mail girls to organize a union.  Her attempts to come on to Garson are so forceful that all she does is scare him (and remember, he's from our time, while she’s from 85 years ago).  Finally, they meet the man himself: LB Mayer (Stan Graner), who in the play (and somewhat in real life) embodies everything evil or distasteful in Hollywood.

The biggest of those evils, according to the play, is anti-Communism.  In the wake of the Hollywood Ten refusing to cooperate with Congress, Hollywood studios and writers were both under enormous scrutiny.  Mayer, who was just as anti-Communist in the ’40s as he’d been anti-Nazi in the ’30s (not mentioned in the play) wanted to continue making pro-American fare (although not outright propaganda).  In this play, however, he’s a ruthless, vicious man who will stop at nothing to make money (which is his job), molest women (sadly true) and root out innocent Communists. 

The best part of this play is the performers.  Hathaway and Whitehurst sing wonderfully and act naturally together.  The ensemble, which includes not only the writers listed above, but also Michael Alonzo, Carlos Gutierrez, Jonah Munroe, and Anthony J. Ortega, each in a bunch of roles, along with Taylor Nicole Hadswell, Mikki Hankins, Mary Kim, and Ireland Reneau as various starlets (several of whom we know), secretaries, and other such roles, really shine through in their dancing and singing.

Bob Lavallee’s set is large and impressive, two stories, with a great deal of moving pieces that always seem to be in precisely the right spot at exactly the right moment (credit to the ensemble who also serve as the stagehands).   The lighting (Samuel Rushen) and sound (Mark Howard) were fine, although if you’re sitting close to the very good nine-piece orchestra (placed on the upper deck), conducted by Musical Director Lawrence Yurman, you may wish to get the headphones offered at the box office to be able to hear some dialogue over the music.  The costumes, by Sarah Mosher, were elaborate and authentic-seeming, as were the props (Jane Quetin) – where does one find so many vintage typewriters? The choreography by Ann Nieman was also very impressive, as the ensemble danced about impeccably.

The songs were pleasant, if not particularly memorable, but the book just isn’t really that strong.  The featured players did their best, but their roles were straight out of central casting: the pushy labor organizer, the writers who complain about everything (and take joy in the failure of others), the evil studio head.  They were all completely one-dimensional, saying all the things you’d expect them to say.  And as much as we might like Garson and Alice, it’s difficult to get to invested in this plot (or in them – especially with the way Alice often treats the devoted Garson – theirs is clearly not a even partnership).

And then there are other issues, some minor, some glaring.  In one of the better songs, a cabaret number Alice and Garson perform to get noticed at a party, Naming Names, Alice, having said she was testifying in the House, then refers to the members of the committee as Senators.  More significantly, there’s no consideration at all of the time-traveler’s dilemma: their actions will impact the future they plan to return to.  Whether it’s Garson surreptitiously taking pictures on his iPhone or Alice becoming the first female studio story editor, among other provocative activities, there will be repercussions.  I’ll give writer Cole a pass for not knowing Grampa Simpson’s warning to Homer on his son’s wedding day (“If you ever travel back in time, don't step on anything because even the tiniest change can alter the future in ways you can't imagine”), but has he never seen Back to the Future?

What struck me most throughout the performance – even more than the complex set and the fine singing, dancing, and acting – was how uninterested the audience seemed.  The brief, mild applause following each song told me I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t enthralled.  Moreover, despite a nearly full house for the final preview (and in spite of this age of the compulsory standing ovation), only a handful of people stood for the curtain call.  Again, I don’t think this was a reflection on the performers, but, sadly, more likely suggests that Goin’ Hollywood needs instead to go back to the writer’s room for another draft.

Photo Credit: PARIS MARIE PRODUCTIONS

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