Review: Good Theater Opens with Stylish Revue

Portland's Good Theater opened its 2015-2016 season with No Biz Like Show Biz, a stylish tribute to two legends of the Broadway stage, Ethel Merman and Mary Martin, created and directed by the company's artistic director, Brian P. Allen. The one-hundred-minute arrangement of songs associated with these legends from the decades of the 1930s-1960s focuses on the work of iconic composers and lyricists such as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Jule Styne, Jerry Herman, and Stephen Sondheim and is performed by three delightfully talented and distinctive singing-actresses.

Allen is something of a master at fashioning revue and cabaret evenings to which he brings his encyclopedic knowledge of the genre and his long attachment to the Broadway canon. This particular piece has been gestating for ten years and has metamorphosed into a polished and organic entertainment which reminds us not only of the fertile geniuses who originally wrote and performed the songs, but also the dramatic context for each of them. Stripping away the narration, Allen wisely allows the songs to speak for themselves and to flow seamlessly from one mood to the next, while he elicits from the three actresses characterful performances which are never impersonations, but rather re-interpretations of the situations and emotions in the music.

Musical Director Victoria Stubbs supplies sophisticated arrangements which further cement the individual numbers into an integrated whole, and she accompanies with élan. (One might wish to hear her excellent pianism on a better instrument than the St. Lawrence Center possesses.) Still, it is a sheer delight to listen to both piano and voice unamplified and able to fill the one hundred-seat house with ease.

Marie Dittmer, Lynne McGhee, and Jen Means make an outstanding trio. Each is an affecting singing-actress, and each possesses a different vocal timbre which complements the others. Dittmer's voice is creamy and even throughout the registers; Means has a lovely lyrical instrument and exceptional textual clarity, and McGhee enjoys a considerable range from chest to a well-placed upper register, capable of going from a hearty belt to a melodic legitimate line. All three interact with natural ease and charm and invite the audience into the comfortable living room setting, provided by set designer Craig Robinson.

Produced more lavishly than the company's annual winter revue, Robinson has created an attractive decor in green faux marble with red accents - at once green room and intimate parlor - and Iain Odlin subtly changes the moods with his colorfully nuanced lighting design. Justin Cote adds the six chic costumes in black and red, which artfully complete the visual palette.

The performance passes by so quickly and delightfully with one masterpiece of song after another that choosing highlights is very difficult, but in the first act, dominated by Cole Porter, Means delivers a coyly seductive "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," while Dittmer gives a sprightly account of "I've Got Rhythm," and McGhee captures the contrasts of "It's DeLovely" and "Ridin' High." In Act II Means captures the enchantment of Martin's Peter Pan in "Never, Never Land;" McGhee perfectly incarnates Mama Rose in "Everything's Coming Up Roses," and Dittmer is a characterful Annie Oakley in "You Can't Get a Man with a Gun." And the trio at its best combines to offer a soaring Rogers and Hammerstein medley, which includes numbers from South Pacific.

In a season which promises to be filled with a diverse lineup of plays - some provocative, some classic, some simply hilarious - No Biz Like Show Biz provides the perfect entree: warm, witty, classy, intelligent - adjectives which can easily be applied to the Good Theater in general!

Photo Courtesy of Good Theater

No Biz Like Show Biz runs at the Good Theater, 76 Congress St., Portland, ME, until October 11. 207-885-5883 www.goodtheater.com

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