Pal Joey Review
The Roundabout Theater Company Broadway Production Begins Previews
Joey Evans is a 1930s small-bit nightclub entertainer who, after being booted from a string of other cities, alights on Chicago as the next location in which to spin his schemes and realize his dreams. In his seemingly usual opportunistic and amoral manner, he proceeds to seduce the "mom and apple pie" small town girl Linda English, only to be somewhat seduced himself by her wholesomeness, until he recognizes a way to wangle a free-meal ticket from the sumptuous socialite Vera Simpson.
Broadway Background to Being Back on Broadway
The Roundabout Theater Company has returned to Broadway this Richard Rogers and Lorenz Hart musical, which, due to its use of both glitz and grit, is sometimesconsidered to be a landmark in American Musical Theater. Based on the episodic exploits of the fictional character created in the writings of John O’Hara, who also wrote the book of the original Broadway musical, this production, like many of the revivals of the show, has revised sections of the story and score, and, in some ways, seems to aim, perhaps unintentionally, at combining the tones of the original 1940 Broadway musical with its later 1957 film version, which starred Frank Sinatra, Kim Novak, and Rita Hayworth. Because of this unsuccessfully mixed cocktail, the tone of this show seems to be at odds with itself.
Pal Joey Preview
The first act is slowly laborious in some regards, while other parts of the act are successfully entertaining. By complete comparison, the second act possesses pace and exuberance, and while through the first act the actors seem to have been instructed to control their energy, the performers are permitted to show the full force of their considerable abilities during the much more enthralling second act.
An attempt to artistically alter the mood of the musical from its original patter and purpose seems to have stripped it of its both jovial and movingly honest voice. Uncharacteristically of a production from The Roundabout Theater Company, instead of enhancing the show, at the moment, this production seems to flicker with only glimmers of its potential glow.
Although the show is tag-lined as "beguiled again," Pal Joey will be no Broadway-goer's "pal" unless during these previews the production is tightened and refined to actually beguile again and bewitch audiences.
The Cast
The talented cast seems to be short-changed by a lackluster version of the Rogers & Hart musical, which fails to convey important information and which does not succeed in staging the story and songs either poignantly or amusingly.
Christian Hoff (Joey), Stockard Channing (Vera), Jenny Fellner (Linda), and Martha Plimpton, as Gladys, a both comical and serious singer who provides the audience with some insights about Joey’s past and personality, all contribute much needed "zip" to the show, which cannot be carried by only its popular tunes, “Bewitched” and “I Could Write a Book.”
Theater and Production Information
Previews began on November 14, 2008 at Studio 54, with opening night set for December 11, 2008, but on February 15, 2009, the limited run will close as seemingly quickly as the show’s title character seems to skip town.
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