What a Show!

Fiorella LOVED Georgetown's Palace Theater production of 42nd Street!  It hit all the right spots and left the audience begging for more.  Georgetown's Palace Theater has come along way from when it had to paint mustaches on high school boys and so they could pass as adults on stage.

42nd Street is a period piece, and Fio doesn't remember ever seeing it as a movie,but she did know most of the songs--notably Dames, We're in the Money, Sunny Side, Lullaby of Broadway, About a Quarter to Nine, Shuffle Off to Buffalo, Forty-second Street. The story, based on a movie based on a book, is cliche: a young, pretty hoofer comes to NY, is thrust into spotlight, and, despite setbacks, makes it big. It's a silly show biz parody in which even the villain turns sweet, but it's also somehow quite touching.

What can Fio say? The casting was great, the costumes were perfect, the settings were right-on, and the dance numbers (choreographed by Jessee Smart) were unbelievably good. Fio's favorite routines were the French farce-like scene on the sleeper car and the Agnes de Mille hooker scene at the end of the show.

Getting down to nit-picking minutia, the heroine's blonde wig turned a surprising white under "nighttime" lights, the young boy in the cast never missed a beat but seemed out of place in the sometimes bawdy musical, and Fio and her guests couldn't figure out why a happy-looking man was dressed--and danced--as a woman in the final scene.

Anyway, the show was great.  Fio's been through a lot lately and 42nd Street allowed her to escape into another world for two glorious hours. Maybe that's what show business is all about.

So-so Show

The Georgetown Palace's last presentation of the season was a musical version of The Full Monty. Fiorella loved the sweet, funny film version so she was really looking forward to the stage show.

Of course, it opened with the Palace's usual over-loud fanfare so Fiorella spent the first couple of scenes with her fingers in her ears.  Also, it seemed to her that the quick lyrics weren't always as clever as the writer obviously thought they were, and that the score was a bit show-offy.

The story itself was razzle-dazzle, completely lacking the poignancy of the movie except for lip service to the motivation of the leading man (paying child support).  Finicky Fio also didn't like the story being transferred from Manchester, England, to Buffalo, New York.  Okay, she understands that New Yorkers burst into laughter at the mere mention of Buffalo, but its humorous implications were lost on her. Which is all to say that Fiorella wasn't wild about "the book." It seemed like a caricature of the film.

What about the local performance?  The voices were great, but the dialogue seemed stilted at times, like--well--like someone was reciting a memorized speech,  (Also, why did some of the women have those NY accents, but the men didn't?)

The scenery, however, was A+, as were the costumes.  Oh, and the dancing was good--a shout-out to Jessee Smart.

All in all, Fiorella gives The Full Monty a B.  She's glad she saw the play, but wouldn't bother to see it again.  It was a one-gimmick show.

The Folly of Will Rogers

It's a little late, but Fiorella wants to register her revue of the Georgetown Palace's production of The Will Rogers Follies: it was a loser.  Despite the fact that the mikes were turned up so loud she spent most of the time with fingers in one or both ears, Fiorella had so much trouble staying awake during the first act that she left at intermission.

The singers were great, the actors were great, the dancers were great (thank you, Jessee Smart), the costumes and scenery were great, and the children's scene was delightful, but the play was b-o-r-i-n-g.  The jokes fell flat and having Flo Ziegfield booming from the back of the theater as an invisible speaker a la A Chorus Line didn't work. 

What Fiorella expected was resuscitated Vaudeville routines knit together by the character of Will Rogers, not a weak rip-off of The Buddy Holly Story.