‘Anything Goes’

The Villagers in Franklin Township put on a revival of the cruise ship musical.

By: Stuart Duncan
   The current production of Anything Goes at The Villagers has all the fragility we associate with 1930s musicals.
   Originally written by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, famous for writing "boutique" musicals in the ’20s, the plot was going to take place on a deserted island after a shipwreck. It was to be filled with bizarre characters. But a real-life tragedy — the burning of the Italian luxury cruise ship Morro Castle in 1934 off the coast of New Jersey — resulting in great loss of life — gave pause.
   The producers brought in the writing team of Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse, and the new version chopped the shipwreck and the desert isle, but kept the bizarre characters and the cruise ship. The show was revised in 1962, with songs added and erased, and then revised again in 1984. The Villagers are doing the 1962 version.
   One of the things community groups might well reconsider is the practice of playing overtures to their musicals. The number of members in the band never matches the number in the original pit orchestra, and no one ever bothers to re-score the music. The result is that seven or nine musicians are attempting to interpret a score originally written for 20 or more. Instruments are left out, resulting in gaps and terrible sounds.
   The orchestra for Anything Goes is no worse than any other community band; it just sounds terrible in the overture. In particular, the brass was noticeably slow.
   The show is a fragile piece, relying heavily on a pair of comics and a leather-lunged, boozy female star, played originally by a young and upcoming Ethel Merman. The Villagers have a great find in Margot Glockner, from a show-biz family — her mother, in fact, played Mrs. Harcourt in the Paper Mill production a season back.
   Ms. Glockner has the "brass" needed to play Reno Sweeney, plus the hint of vulnerability that makes it most appealing. Merman lacked that. James Fiorello is solid as Billy Crocker, the brash young romantic hero who stows away to be near his beloved. His duet with Glockner in "Friendship" is worth the entire evening. Incidentally, that song wasn’t in the ’34 version; it originally was in composer Cole Porter’s DuBarry Was A Lady, but was shifted to this show with great results.
   Greg Louis returns to the Villagers (he was Nathan Detroit last season in Guys and Dolls) and has a delicious time romping through the role of Moonface Martin, public enemy number one and trying desperately to move up. Kathleen Campbell looks and sings pretty as the society heroine, chaste and chased. Dotti Friis is outstanding as Hope Harcourt, proving she can sing and dance with the best of them.
   Unfortunately, the five "fallen angels" look far too young to have anything ready to fall from and don’t dance particularly well. Ralph Hansen, who plays the purser, can really dance, however, and steals many of the dance numbers. Richard Baker has many funny moments as the Captain, playing the role inexplicably with an English accent on an American cruise ship.
   The pace, under the guidance of director David Pacheco, stutters all evening, stopping almost entirely right in the middle of the second act in a number called "All Through The Night." Three reasons: First, the song originally was in the first act and belongs there. Second, with musical director Keith Sattely missing opening night, everything was slow; it just stopped completely in this number. And third, it is difficult to find pace in a ballad when one singer is down front in a spotlight and the other is 40 miles away, on the top level, far back to the rear of the stage in a spotlight.
   This is a show that certainly has the talent to shine. It just isn’t exciting yet.
Anything Goes plays at The Villagers, Franklin Township Munical Complex, Somerset, through Aug. 25. Performances: Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m.; Sun. 2 p.m. Tickets cost $16. For information, call (732) 873-2710.