BWW Reviews: DREAMGIRLS Hits Some of the Right Notes at Portland Center Stage

Great show tunes become classics because they rise out of a dramatic situation. They may work out of context, sung by anyone and everyone, but they start out as songs written to suit a particular character at a particular moment. Whether it's "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Send in the Clowns," or "On My Own," they each were written and performed (originally) to fill the emotion of a scene in a stage musical, and we love them because they have the depth and complexity of drama, and even on a drunken karaoke night to celebrate your birthday, the passion still shines through.

So when I tell you I just saw a terrific singer perform one of the best theater songs ever and it didn't move me at all -despite the standing ovation all around me - you're going to think I've finally seen too many shows and need to get some rest.

Dreamgirls, for those three of you who don't know, is loosely based on the story of the Supremes. It covers a lot of ground, about ten years in the lives of its characters, and brings up issues of racism and sexism in the music industry, not to mention discrimination against the overweight, the difficulty of sustaining a relationship when both people are in show business, and how hard it is to find a decent wigmaker. There's so much plot crammed into it, and so many songs (many of them performance pieces that have little to do with story or character), that it hurtles by too quickly for us to get to know the people we're watching.

Act One is particularly breezy, introducing us to its six or seven core characters; we have to meet them on the fly as they scamper around backstage at a talent show. Deena, Effie, and Lorrell are the Dreamettes (later to be known as the Dreams), just off the bus from Chicago, teenagers trying to hit the big time. The script is like a screenplay with quick cuts between scenes; a song begins in the foreground, a turntable spins the singers to the back of the stage, and a dialogue scene takes the foreground. We move from backstage to onstage to backstage again, from a tour bus to a recording studio, in the blink of an eye. But the show moves so fast that we never get to breathe, to understand who these people are and what they want. Director Chris Coleman is hamstrung by the material; he gives us an impressive display of stagecraft but very little of the human beings in front of the scenery.

Act Two slows down a bit, and we're finally able to figure out who these people are, what they've done to each other, and what they want. But even then we're watching scenery shift, lights flash, and actors change costumes so many times we can't keep track of who's who. It's impressive work from the crew and the designers, no doubt, but it doesn't tell us anything about the human condition.

Faced with these limitations, Coleman has turned the show over to the music department, which is probably the smartest thing he could have done. Dreamgirls is almost nonstop music, with many of the dialogue scenes musicalized in a sort of R&B recitative. Of course the big ballads all land. The orchestra, under the steady hand of musical director Rick Lewis, is playing continuously, and they keep the pace up without a missed note. And the vocals are phenomenal, with complex harmonies and powerful belting all night long.

The cast does what they can with limited time to establish character and motivation. An ensemble of nine jumps in and out of roles all night long, some of them playing (as best I could count) six different roles, all involving costume changes and heavy vocal work, and all of them are impressive. As manager/producer Curtis, Rodney HIcks is a proven actor, and his singing is persuasive, but Curtis is the least well-written of the leads (he's a hero at the beginning who gradually becomes a villain for no specified reason), and Hicks can't play what the writers didn't give him. Lexi Rhoades is charming as Lorrell, the backup singer who spends her life involved with the wrong man; she begins as a bubbly innocent but becomes disillusioned along the way. Mary Patton does what she can with the role of Deena Jones (the Diana Ross stand-in), but the character's development all seems to happen offstage.

David Jennings is all sex and soul as Jimmy Early, a James Brown-type star whose rise and fall is placed in contrast to that of the Dreams. He charms the women, sings his heart out, and manages to be sleazy and heartfelt all at the same time, and he even manages to sneak in some rapping in his final number. He's the one you wind up cheering for at the end.

Effie, the overweight belter who makes trouble for everyone, is played by Nattalyee Randall, and she has an undeniably powerful voice. Her second-act numbers, "I Am Changing" and "One Night Only," are beautifully sung and emotionally moving. Effie's diva attitude doesn't come naturally to Randall; she's far too nice to make everyone as uncomfortable as Effie needs to, and the rapid-fire storytelling in Act One keeps her from getting her footing. And yes, she pushes out a creditable version of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," bringing the audience to its feet just before intermission. But for me...I hadn't gotten to know Effie, had barely glimpsed her relationship with Curtis, and so the song was just a song. It didn't have any context to give it the power it needs to truly mean something. That's not Randall's fault - it lies at the feet of the men who wrote the show - but I felt unsatisfied watching her sing a powerful song without any emotional buildup.

Dreamgirls is an impressive piece of stagecraft. The designers and actors have done their jobs as well as possible. But for a musical to have the power to move us, it first has to present us with characters we can care about. I'm not sure what the folks at Portland Center Stage could have done to add depth to this material, but I wish they had.

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