MUSICAL THEATRE REVIEW:
42ND STREET

JOHN COULBOURN,
Special to TorSun
30 MAY 2012
R: 4/5

Pictured: Cynthia Dale, Kyle Blair



STRATFORD — Leading lady Cynthia Dale left the Stratford Festival stage five years ago, and Tuesday, she found a route back, taking 42ND STREET, a storied boulevard that currently runs right through the Festival Theatre. Cast as leading lady Dorothy Brock in the Broadway “song and dance extravaganza” based loosely on the Warner Brothers’ 1933 musical of the same name, it is built around a collection of great tunes from Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics).

In this homage to the world of showbiz, Brock is a slightly fading leading lady, who at the height of the Great Depression is surviving on her wits and the good will of sugar daddy, Abner Dillon (Steve Ross), who is big in kiddie cars. So big, in fact that he can totally underwrite a new musical, titled Pretty Lady, directed by Julian Marsh (Sean Arbuckle) and written by Maggie Jones and Bert Barry (Gabrielle Jones and Geoffrey Tyler, respectively).

His only condition? That Dorothy be the star, which means that when leading man Billy Lawlor (Kyle Blair) stumbles across Peggy Sawyer (Jennifer Ryder-Shaw), a hot new talent fresh from Allentown — a little burg just down the road from nowhere — she doesn’t stand a chance, despite the fact she can sing and dance circles around the leading lady. But this is 42ND STREET, where it meets America’s street of dreams — and anything can happen. Mostly what happens, of course, is a whole lot of singing — We’re In the Money, The Lullaby of Broadway and, of course, 42nd Street are just a few of the score’s enduring hits — and a whole lot of top-notch tap-dancing, choreographed in high style by Alex Sanchez.

Under the direction of Gary Griffin, with an eye-catching design by Debra Hanson, 42ND STREET hits the stage under the strong musical direction of Michael Barber, firing on all cylinders and it never really stops, as Dale leads a hardworking and committed cast through the labyrinth of a book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble. And finally, there’s the rub, for while Stewart and Bramble to a bang-up job of playing musical connect the dots, their book seems a trifle short on the character development front, leaving it to the director and cast to not only flesh out the clichéd roles, but often invent them as they go along as well. And in the main, this crew does an impressive job.

There’s Dale, of course, her glow undiminished by a half-decade absence from these stages, and the always impressive Blair, who seems to be born of this era — and for Stratford fans accustomed to seeing Arbuckle in classical mode, his sure-footed turn here is certain to be a delightful surprise. Both Jones and Tyler get ample chance to prove their mettle too, not just as musical theatre performers but as character actors as well, and they both make the most of it, while a charming Rider-Shaw certainly puts the ‘new’ in ingenue, with a shine on her like a brand new penny.

There’s also impressive showings by Kyle Golemba, Naomi Costain and Dale’s one-time Street Legal co-star C. David Johnson, who shows up as her longtime love interest. But finally, despite the best efforts of Griffin, Sanchez, Hanson and the entire cast — despite very impressive singing, dazzling dancing, lavish design and committed acting — too much of this book feels like it exists simply to keep a truly impressive array of song ’n’ dance numbers from running into each other.