Review: BANDSTAND Breaks New Ground at Front Porch Theatricals

Front Porch Theatricals has built up a well-founded reputation for being Pittsburgh's boutique professional musical theatre company, to quote its logline. The producing team of Nancy Zionts, Bruce E. G. Smith and the late Leon Zionts typically look for underproduced chamber musicals, or the "small versions" of larger shows: past shows have included the chamber versions of The Light in the Piazza, Grand Hotel and Big Fish. To take on a big show, and to do it BIG, requires chutzpah, resources, and a great cast. Luckily, Front Porch and director/choreographer Joe Jackson have all three of those, for the Pittsburgh premiere production of the hot new swing-band show, Bandstand.

World War 2 is over, and Donny Novitski (David Toole), a musical prodigy turned serviceman, comes home with a creative ache and a case of what we now call PTSD. Desperate to make music again for a semblance of normalcy in his life, he decides to form an all-veteran big band with his fellow servicemen. The men he recruits are all musical aces like him, but the war has left them more physically and mentally scarred than Donny. Can they work through their battle-born traumas and learn to get along? Can they win the "song for America" big-band competition? And can Donny's slow-blossoming romance with war widow Julia Trojan (Marnie Quick) turn into love before they turn each other away?

David Toole has a leading man's charisma but a character actor's presence and well-burnished voice; there are shades of Brian D'Arcy James and Mandy Patinkin in his character's soliloquies. This is clearly no theatrical "little soldier boy" cliche; Toole, again and again, convinces the audience that he has, indeed, seen some shit. His counterpart, Marnie Quick, turns a role that could be a cipher on the page into a deeply three-dimensional woman, neither denying her losses nor allowing her entirety to be defined by those losses. When Quick lets loose with her enormous belt voice it's thrilling; when she reins it in for a legit soprano, it's goosebumps. Quick and Toole have great comic and dramatic chemistry together; instead of the burning passion of most musical couples, these two are fighting NOT to love each other, forever blowing on the embers to keep cool instead of giving in to their yearning.

And now we get to the really interesting part: the boys in the band. Anytime I see an actor-muso show, I'm always curious to see whether they are actors first and musicians second, or musicians first and actors second. The Donny Nova Band soloists in this production are a mix of both categories, all giving nuanced and fascinating performances both as musicians and as characters. Patrick Breiner, as reed player Jimmy Campbell, plays a wonderful straight man just as he rips on saxophone and clarinet. This is the largest role for the actor-musicians, and Breiner fills it so well that I found myself checking the playbill; surely he has to be an actor miming on sax, right? Nope- Breiner is an extremely accomplished musician making his Pittsburgh theatrical debut.

Mike Mackey, as Nick the trumpet soloist, has fantastic comic timing and a great presence, half tough-guy and half beleaguered high school teacher. He's a lovable grouch until the trumpet is in his mouth and all the pain and passion his character would never express openly just pours out. He gets his best material opposite Dylan Pal as trombone solist Wayne Wright. Pal is the only one of the actor-musos who works as an actor first and musician second, but he plays trombone with a wonderful legato, dances, and brings a stark realness to the tightly-wound veteran. Although Pal gets less chances to shine as a soloist than the other band members, his character gets the most solo stage-time, particularly in a chilling scene where he cleans his gun and struggles with intrusive thoughts.

Chris McGraw, something of a local jazz luminary, serves as the show's comedic center in the role of bassist Davy Zlatic. McGraw's Zlatic has something of a Deadpool quality: forever inebriated, cracking jokes and dashing off flirtations and going for a laugh at all moments, so he never has to stop and cry. Maybe it's the jazzman in him, but McGraw's timing as a comedic actor is just as precise as his work as a bassist. Finally, Kamran Mian gives one of the year's most interesting and nuanced performances as drummer Johnny Simpson. Physically and mentally damaged by artillery fire overseas, Simpson has a bad back, brain damage and slowed processing due to his pain meds; it's only when he is behind the drums that the old Simpson comes to life. Mian never steers into any Forrest Gump "slow Joe" cliches, even when the script occasionally tries to suggest them; instead, he imbues Simpson with a hazy, slightly detached but amiable presence that can only be described, glowingly, as Lynchian. Behind the kit, Mian isn't a Krupa wild man, he's as precise and nuanced as a clockmaker; between Mian's passionate precision and Simpson's languid otherworldliness, it's impossible to watch his performance as actor-muso and not think of the great David Byrne. 

It's not all about the band, of course; this is a show with a cast of twenty-one (plus two swings on opening night), with a band of thirteen (plus the five onstage musicians), all under the baton of music director Deana Muro. Bandstand is a huge undertaking, complete with a cast of recognizable Pittsbugh faces in the supporting roles. Local theatregoers will likely recognize Sharon Schaller from her many roles at Lincoln Park, or Dixie Surewood in a relatively rare non-drag-related performance as a gregarious club owner. This production is an all-out buffet of treats, and despite the extremely heavy subject matter, it manages to be rousing and upbeat without ever seeming tone-deaf or naive.

The theatregoer and businessman in me can't help but wonder: is this a new age for Front Porch? Are they moving into big casts and big shows, out of the chamber and into the music hall? My guess, in the crystal ball of "I see a lot of theatre" is a definite maybe, but rarely. Bandstand is exquisite, a must-see for Pittsburgh theatre fans or jazz aficionados. However, it also feels like a one-off, an experiment in "can the little company that could keep up with the big boys?" Clearly, they can, but I suspect they don't want to all the time. After all, this is a company that produced not the obscure A... My Name Is Alice, but the practically-never-produced SEQUEL to the same revue. With instincts like that, the impulse to "go Broadway," so to speak, is likely not the driving force. Godspeed, Front Porch. May you stay wonderful, stay weird, and keep winning, whether on a large or a small scale.

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