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The East Hampton Press & The Southampton Press
Inspired and inspiring revival of 'Dames at Sea' at Bay Street Theatre
By Lee Davis
Aug 18, 2009
Tony Award-winner Peg Murray once averred that all the world’s troubles began when Hollywood stopped making tap dancing movies. Well, the world’s in a hell of a mess today, but there’s a cure available: Get over to Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, where the dancing feet of “Dames at Sea” is currently tapping away the blues and the rain.
Bay Street has taken this sunny spoof of Busby Berkeley musicals of the 1930s—which introduced a young talent named Bernadette Peters in its Off-Broadway premiere—and has made of it an inspired and inspiring revival that’s guaranteed to wipe away the frown of even the most grumpy.
Audiences flocked to the Warner Brothers 1930s musicals, which were tuneful escapes from the fear and sadness of the Great Depression. And so, it was a compassionate and fortuitous decision on the part of the powers at Bay Street when they scheduled “Dames at Sea” to round out this summer of recession.
The show’s book and lyric writers, George Haimsohn and Robin Miller, took “42nd Street,” “Dames,” and “Follow the Fleet,” added their own original period material, and folded it all together for a lighthearted and tasty soufflé that contains just the right combination of spoofing and re-creation. And Jim Wise’s tuneful score manages to capture the feeling of the Harry Warren-Al Dubin melodies that, in the 1930s, withstood the multiple reprises Busby Berkeley gave them.
The lyrics of “Dames at Sea” are intelligent and bright, daring such rhymes as “idea/panacea,” and, in “There’s Something About You,” maintaining originality while cleverly duplicating the spirit of a Cole Porter catalogue song. And the music more than matches the words in its graceful proportions of originality and imitation.
At Bay Street, the combination of freshly conceived choreography layered upon Berkeley devices by Shea Sullivan and the complementary, absolutely on-target direction of Ray Roderick leave no cliché unturned, nor no original twist untwisted. The concept is not to bury the past in heavy satire, but to treat it affectionately. There’s spoofing galore, but it’s done with no hard edges and very much sweetness. It’s a beautiful, tight, tasty production from overture to finale. Still, all these responsible creative forces would be for naught in “Dames at Sea” without a dynamic cast. There’s an amazing cast at Bay Street, knit into a dynamo of spirit and skill and charm. In fact, there’s enough energy on stage in Sag Harbor to light a big city or a small country. Dancing, romancing, cavorting, and being touching when the moment demands, every one in this cast is a hardworking star.
“Dames at Sea” produces its quotient of echoes in its characters. There are the romantic lovers Ruby (Keeler) and Dick (Powell), the wisecracking, hard as buffed nails Ginger Rogers character, the comic lovers, one of whom is named “Lucky” (the Fred Astaire character’s moniker in “Swing Time”), and the older couple, who combine with the other two, in true musical comedy lore, for a triple marriage in the finale.
Laurie Wells is golden voiced and funny as Mona Kent, the demanding leading lady who will conveniently take sick so that Ruby can go on for her. Ms. Wells and Stuart Marland, who doubles as the fey producer in act one and the gruff and vulnerable captain of the ship in the second act, unite for a hilarious beguine, which is choreographed to within an inch of its life.
Joyce Chittick cracks wise with glee and sings up a storm as Joan, the Ginger Rogers character. Her uniting with Patrick Wetzel, as Lucky, in “Choo Choo Honeymoon” (guess what that sends up? Word clue: Buffalo) is a delight. And the dancing of both Ms Chittick and Mr. Wetzel is, well, sensational.
As is that of Kristen Martin as the super naïve Ruby. No clunking Ruby Keeler pseudo tapping for Ms. Martin. She tears down the house with her tapping and acrobatics in the super patriotic production number “Star Tar.” And, when Xavier Cano, as Dick, the combination ingratiating gob and genius composer, is on hand, she unites with him for the show’s two sweetest scenes and beautiful melodies, “It’s You,” and “There’s Something About You.”
Choreographer Shea Sullivan and director Ray Roderick could have given in to sending up the show’s love songs, but in a reflection of the constant good taste of the production, they let them play out for themselves, as with “Raining in My Heart,” Ruby’s heartbreak number. Even after surrounding its second chorus with a Berkeley device of circling cellophane umbrellas, the song and the sweetness emerge unscathed, and the chuckles they arouse in the audience are ones of recognition.
Musical director Rick Hip-Flores conducts a trio of musicians, hidden behind the set except for a pretty violinist, with verve and sensitivity. Charlie Morrison’s lighting design, true to the period, is heavy on ambers and pinks and blues and brightness.
Howard Jones’s set design, with its enclosing proscenium, is also full of memories. And David Lawrence’s costumes are absolutely evocative.
I could go on talking about the trunkful of Busby Berkeley sendups in this production. But I leave them for your delightful discovery when you see—and you must see—this seminal, intoxicating revival of “Dames at Sea.”
