Hollywood Swingin'
By Robert Faires, Fri., June 4, 1999
The silver screen offers further evidence of how long ago the Thirties were. Today, moviegoers line up to see one supercharged action picture after another, cosmos-spanning space operas brimming with bloodthirsty beasties, crime thrillers bristling with nova-like blasts of orange flame and hyperrealistic discharges of blood and viscera. We're up to our projector lenses in explosions, car crashes, and graphic duels to the death. Meanwhile, in the Thirties, thrill-seeking audiences flocked to the cinema to see ... musicals. They found at least some of their excitement in frothy little tales of eager-beaver teens scheming to save the family farm by putting on a show; sweet little bonbons in which a moppet with a thousand curls tapped her way into the heart of some crusty old miser; fizzy little cocktails with a starry-eyed starlet-to-be and a top-hatted playboy twirling across an urban fairyland into each other's arms. Stepping out of The Matrix and onto 42nd Street makes the latter feel about as with-it as a Middle Ages madrigal.
Given that kind of cultural chasm, how much of a feel for Thirties movie musicals should one expect of youth coming of age in the Nineties? What relevance to their lives could they find in that black-and-white world of dreamy melodies and creamy voices, of perfect partners, on the dance floor and in life? Wouldn't the men and women of that world strike them as hopelessly naive? Simplistic? Asexual? You'd think that the young people of our seething, cynical decade would be too far removed from these effervescent film fantasies to feel any kinship to them, much less be able to re-create their innocence and charm on a stage.
But sometimes the world defies your expectations and drops in your lap a surprise, one that flies in the face of conventional wisdom and does it just as pleasantly as you could please. Earlier this spring, when the Mary Moody Northen Theatre presented A Day in Hollywood ... A Night in the Ukraine, the world handed me just such a surprise. Here was a show that would have proved challenging to a corps of musical veterans, even one with a solid schooling in Hollywood's earliest contributions to the form: The show combines a one-act revue celebrating cinematic musicals of the 1930s through both songs of the period and original numbers that affectionately parody them and a one-act homage to the movies of the Marx Brothers, complete with roles for Groucho, Chico, and Harpo, plus all their trademark schtick served up in an atmosphere of comic chaos. The pitfalls are obvious; with the former, you have obscure material that requires a specific sense of style and a light touch to make it work (not to mention the skill to tweak it gently for a laugh) and with the latter, you have a copy of material that's exceedingly familiar and demands performers who can mimic the comedic personas of some of the cinema's greatest clowns. Either way, you squeeze just a bit too hard, and the material deflates, landing with a dull thud. It's daunting stuff for experienced artists, yet here was the Mary Moody Northen staging it with a company of students from St. Edward's University. It seemed unlikely to work, but when the lights dimmed and those students took the stage, something remarkable happened.
Here was a chorus line of young men and women, dressed as ushers for one of the grand moviehouses of the day -- Grauman's Chinese Theatre -- and under their smart pillbox caps, their faces were beaming -- beaming with the very enthusiasm and optimism and joy that you'd find on the faces of young people on the silver screen 60 years ago. These were the kids surrounding Mickey Rooney in those Andy Hardy pictures, eagerly vowing to back him up on some harebrained plan he was hatching before the big game. These were the kids standing behind Judy Garland in pictures like Babes in Arms, egging her on to sing something for them, then listening blissfully as she crooned some ballad or other. From their fresh-scrubbed countenances and chipper, mile-wide smiles, in their friendly patter and zippy dance steps shone the same irrepressible can-do spirit that was a part of every teen on the screen in the Thirties and, just as when you saw it in the movies, that feeling lifted your spirits and made you believe anything was possible.
Somehow these students transcended the gulf in time between the Nineties and the Thirties and connected with the spirit of that earlier decade. If any apathy or nihilism dogged them in their daily existence, it was undetectable here in the sanctuary of "Grauman's Chinese." Here, it was all upbeat, all happy endings ... it was the sunny side of the street, it was blue skies, it was over the rainbow. And this was true throughout the cast, across the board. In every number, every face was open, a beacon of undiluted, unchecked exuberance. For its radiance alone, this ensemble was a joy to behold.
But there was more joy still in the group's handling of the material. These kids were as in tune with the singular sensibilities of the Thirties' comedy and romance as they were its joyful spirit, and they conjured it with a delicacy beyond their years. Early on, we could see it in a solo number built around the relationship between Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy in their string of popular cinematic operettas. Not the most familiar of subjects to an audience today, but you'd never have known it from Shirley Reynolds' delivery. Leaning on a cardboard Mountie -- the embodiment of the ever-stiff Eddy -- the St. Ed's senior breezed through the number with an easy confidence, tossing off the number's numerous digs at Eddy with disarming little winks and smirks that made the piece a pleasure no matter what your knowledge of the subject matter was; you came away feeling as if you'd seen all those pictures. Other soloists -- such as Tara Battani and Cory Cruser -- may have been given more dramatic songs, but their work was no less engaging for that; they had the sense of lovely longing that inhabits so much Thirties romance and delivered it to us deftly, blowing us little bubbles of yearning that landed with sweetly wistful pops. And even when the numbers were big -- such as the climactic Hays Code piece, in which the infamous guidelines governing sexual conduct onscreen were chanted in unison by the entire cast while performing an intricate tap routine -- the company's connection with the Thirties didn't falter. Even as they hoofed their way through the complicated steps of Scott Thompson (who guest-choreographed the number), these young artists sustained and projected as one an attitude of old-fashioned jubilation.
Of course, given the very different demands of the first and second halves of this "musical double feature," the show might have managed a glorious Day in Hollywood and blacked out during its Night in the Ukraine. But the effusiveness and ensemble approach that served the company so well in Act One continued to benefit them in Act Two. Led by an inspired trio of "Marxes," the cast succeeded in providing a stylish salute to the Brothers' one-of-a-kind brand of comedy, presented with the kind of frenzied irreverence that marked the Marxes at their best. Kevin Archambault's Groucho, while somewhat longer of leg and sweeter of voice than the original, barged through the one-act as if he owned it -- which in a sense he did; Groucho was the engine that drove the Brothers' vehicles, and it was his quips, his business, his reactions that dominated them. In this Marxist assault on Anton Chekhov's The Bear, it's no different, and Archambault led the charge, snapping out wisecracks and duck-walking around, across, and over the furniture like some madcap general. His focused movements not only suggested the great Groucho but also reminded us how much of a physical comedian he was.
Providing Archambault with more than able support were his two "lieutenants," Kristen Michelle Ensrude and Sacha Bodner. Ensrude's Harpo echoed the original's loopy charm, but with an accent on innocence; the character's mischief seemed to spring more from a sprite than an imp. Bodner's Chico was almost uncanny, capturing the comic Italian in not just his expressions and thick accent but in his underrated comic timing and the hilarious density he gave to his characters; Bodner made it seem like the space between his ears was occupied by nothing but a 30-pound rock. And in the role of foil for this trio, Shirley Reynolds proved herself a worthy heir to Margaret Dumont, evoking the actress' inflated matronly dignity and laughable susceptibility to Groucho's backhanded flattery with aplomb. This was, to coin a phrase, a Night to remember.
No doubt the credit for this memorable trip back in time belongs in many hands: those of Dick Vosburgh and Franks Lazarus, the creators of the show; those of Michael Costello, who staged this production of it, and Lyn Koenning, who directed its music; those of the multi-talented Kevin Archambault, who in addition to performing, provided the bulk of the choreography; those of designers Gary van der Wege, Sara Medina-Pape, Michael McBride, and Melissa Livingston; and, of course, the cast. Working out who was responsible for what is a fool's game, especially when so much has been drawn from the work of artists long gone. In the end, what matters is the feeling of the work, what comes from the stage and what it inspires in the hearts of those watching. Here, that feeling was elation -- a light delight from a long time ago that perhaps makes no sense in our time but is welcome whenever it shows up. And it showed up here in a manner most appropriate and appealing: as a crew of energetic and hopeful young performers going up against the odds and putting on a show.
Too often in theatre, such delights disappear before everyone who might appreciate them have had a chance to enjoy them. This month, the Mary Moody Northen Theatre is reviving its production Hollywood ... Ukraine as a special summer treat. It's certainly deserving of a wider audience. Anyone wishing to measure anew how long ago the Thirties were -- and how close they still can be -- would do well to spend a day in this Hollywood, a night in this Ukraine.
A Day in Hollywood ... A Night in the Ukraine runs June 10-20 at the Mary Moody Northen Theatre, St. Edward's University campus.
