BWW Reviews: Entertaining THE BAND WAGON Nixes Nostalgia

The original movie musicals of MGM's golden age have had a rough time of it when trying to transfer to the Broadway stage. Singin' In The Rain was rather famously an uninspired copy and paste job, Meet Me In St. Louis was overwhelmed by a massive and static production and Seven Brides For Seven Brothers was divorced from the Alvin Theatre in less than a week.

Back in 2008, bookwriter Douglas Carter Beane's Broadway bound stage version of The Band Wagon, titled Dancing In The Dark, didn't make it out of San Diego's Old Globe, but now, with a title reverted back to the 1953 source movie's original, Beane's zippy new adaptation is showcased in a dandy production helmed by director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall.

Presented in concert as a New York City Center Encores! Special Event, the evening smells like a very promising pre-Broadway tryout. Give it a big, colorful set, add a bit more excitement and humor to the choreography and smooth out some second act rough patches in the book and they're good to go; especially if the terrific ensemble of eight principal actors can be retained.

The film got its title and a handful of songs from a 1931 Broadway revue that boasted a score by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz. The show's most popular standard, the hauntingly beautiful and romantic "Dancing In The Dark," was not performed by the revue's brother and sister stars, Fred and Adele Astaire.

The brother half did wind up dancing the number with co-star Cyd Charisse when he was recruited for the film. Betty Comden and Adolph Green whipped up the story of Astaire playing a washed up film star returning to Broadway to do a play, but winds up cast in a musical comedy. The show seems swell on paper until the director, a specialist in the classical repertoire, reinvents it as an "important" piece of musical drama based on Faust (This was two years before Damn Yankees.) that opens out of town as a pretentious mess. Will they fix it by turning it back into an entertaining musical comedy before hitting Broadway? Of course they will.

As is his habit with musicals based on previous sources (Xanadu, Cinderella), Beane shows little interest in relying on nostalgia for the original, and, while certainly respectful of the wit and panache of Comden and Green's screenplay, creates a new musical that gives us backstage glimpses of the 1950s in a way that movie musicals of the day avoided. Aside from the expected quips about sexual orientation ("In my day, choreographers didn't have girlfriends."), the book also reinstates Comden and Green's subplot concerning alcoholism and a possible infidelity, cut from the film.

Perhaps the most drastic change is the casting of Brian Stokes Mitchell and Laura Osnes in the Astaire and Charisse roles. Though both are capable Broadway dancers, the focus is now on singing; his smooth, masculine baritone and her crisp and energetic soprano. Both are exceptional lyric interpreters and solo moments like Mitchell's "By Myself" and Osnes' "Something You Never Had Before" are quite sumptuous.

Osnes plays the young ballet dancer hired by Tony Sheldon's deliciously gregarious director to add some modern sophistication to the proceedings, along with her artistically elite lover/choreographer, snootily played by the underutilized Michael Berresse. Marshall gets some great comic mileage out of having traditional American Songbook gems by Dietz and Schwartz interrupted by black-clad modern dancers undulating deep subtextual interpretations.

Michael McKean and Tracy Ullman offer old-school Broadway moxie as the composer and his lyricist/bookwriter wife who try and save their show while their marriage is trying to survive old demons and new jealousy. Ullman is especially winning, landing gags with her New York accent and melting hearts with her lovesick pathos. Beane writes them a terrific musical sequence where they narrate the story of their new musical, performing snippets of songs and really selling the dialogue.

In smaller roles Don Stephenson lends nicely understated sarcasm as the stage manager and Joyce Chittick is a hoot in the traditional "showgirl who can't act" part.

Music director Todd Ellison's 12-piece orchestra seems small by Encores!'s standards, but Larry Hochman's orchestrations emphasize a brassy, big band sound. And when they're playing such clever and tuneful selections like "Louisiana Hayride," "Triplets," and "A Shine On Your Shoes"... Well, as the song says, "That's Entertainment!"

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