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©Sacramento Bee March 11, 2005 'Rain' showers stage with singin', dancin' By Marcus Crowder |
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Yes, it does rain in the new stage production of "Singin' in the Rain." But the rain on the Community Center Theater stage looks no more real than the 1952 MGM film rain and it matters just as little. Appealing lead performances from a quartet of actors carried the story's comedy and tuneful, witty songs in Wednesday night's premiere, despite the production's disjointed rhythm.
The new Broadway Series production, presented in association with 5th Avenue Theatre of Seattle, doesn't stray far from the classic film starring Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. And why should it? The film (and its stage adaptation), written by the great duo of Betty Comden and Adolph Green, is a clever satire and credible romance. The inspired idea of setting the story in 1927 Hollywood during the advent of talking pictures allows the narrative to be about something real. Don Lockwood (Michael Gruber) and Lina Lamont (Lisa Estridge) are a successful silent-screen romantic team. Their studio also has promoted the idea that Lockwood and Lamont are an offscreen duo as well. Lamont endorses the pairing but for Lockwood it's just business. When he meets ingenue singer Kathy Selden (Christina Saffran Ashford), Lockwood wants to drop the pretense about Lamont. Meanwhile, as talking pictures become the rage of Hollywood, their studio decides to turn a just-completed Lockwood-Lamont silent film into a talkie, actually a musical. But this produces comically disastrous results because Lamont's voice ranges from a screech to a scream. Selden is recruited to dub Lamont's lines and songs, an arrangement Lamont wants to make permanent but one that would mean career suicide for Selden. All of the film's well-known set pieces are re-created on stage and all work fairly well. There is, however, some raggedness in the transformation from screen to stage. Awkward transitions keep a couple of songs from being as effective as they might have been, while a few scenes were naked scenically or underdeveloped in their staging. The familiar sweet ballads and uptempo numbers were written by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed. The original choreography was by film directors Kelly and Stanley Donen. This stage version is directed and choreographed by James Rocco. You don't think you're seeing Gene Kelly, but you certainly don't mind seeing Michael Gruber in the part of Don Lockwood. It seems almost unfair to say he doesn't quite have the elegance of Kelly because no one else does, either. Gruber has a terrific, full-bodied tenor and is an adept dancer. With self-effacing charm and effortless charisma, he easily projects himself as Lockwood, the vaudeville song and dance man turned silent film star. Gruber's vocals were particularly arresting on the ballad "You Stepped Out of a Dream," and he gracefully skipped through the puddles in the title solo. Equally adept is Michael Arnold as Lockwood's longtime friend Cosmo Brown. Arnold is an exceptional dancer, and he and Gruber have fine moments together in "Fit as a Fiddle," recalling their vaudeville days, and the comic "Moses Supposes" as they get elocution lessons. Their tap dancing on both numbers was especially lively. Ashford as Kathy Selden has a strikingly clear alto voice, and she shines on the ballads "You Are My Lucky Star" and "Would You." Estridge is delightfully irritating as Lina Lamont, who definitely has no voice but more feelings and intelligence than she's given credit for. The angular Krissy Richmond takes the Cyd Charisse part in "The Broadway Ballet" segment. The musical is not the movie, but there are fine songs and performances here, making the production worth a look.
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