Vic and Will for the masses

(Michael Redgrave as Jack and Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism  in the 1952 film version of "The Importance of Being Earnest.")

If we defer to the dictates of Oscar Wilde's inimitable governess and authoress manque, Miss Prism, concerning the nature of literature, "The good ended happily and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means," then we must regard Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg's bombastic, anthem-laden 1985 musicalization of Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" - at PlayhouseSquare through April 17 - as a worthy endeavor. For its larger-than-life tenor hero, Jean Valjean, peddles nobility, kindness and redemption with the fervor that the Marlboro Man once endorsed smokes. His interminable goodness drives his sanctimonious nemesis, Javert, to suicide, enables him to hit ungodly high notes and causes him to spread enough sunshine to give all of Paris sunstroke.

Just around the corner at the Hanna Theatre, Great Lakes Theater Festival, for some esoteric reason, is presenting Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona." This is one of those frustrating early works that shows us the messy, nascent stirrings of what would develop into genius. Parading as a comedy, it is as dark and vicious as any ABC mini-series and demonstrates that the shallow machinations of yuppies is as eternal as halitosis. And it fails to live up to Miss Prism's standards, for the bad or eternally insipid end up in what we assume to be wedded bliss.

(The touring production of "Les Miserables" is at PlayhouseSquare.)

 The latest tour of "Les Miz" proclaims itself as a reinterpretation, but for those of you energized by the original's blend of kitsch, pseudo-opera aspirations and "Masterpiece Theatre" grandiosity need have no fear. The only significant alteration is the removal of the turntable so poetically immortalized in "Forbidden Broadway's" peerless spoof. Those with a keen ear might detect a slightly leaner and more classical orchestration, which reduces the sonic thickness. However, this audience member had the misfortune of being in dangerous proximity to the speakers, which made everything sound more shrill than it needs to be. The cast, loaded with understudies the night I attended, ranged from piercing to ineptly earnest, with the exception of Andrew Varela's vigorous Javert and Ron Sharpe's affecting Valjean. However, even with the slight remixing of ingredients, "Les Miz" still brings to mind the cheap, but overpowering tang of Old Spice.

(David Anthony Smith as Launce and his canine companion Mojo in Great Lakes Theater Festival’s production of “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” at the Hanna Theatre. Photo by Roger Mastroianni.)

Someone with a long memory at Great Lakes has noted that back in the 1970s, the rarely performed "Two Gentlemen of Verona" achieved surprising success as a do-your-own-thing ode to free love and Afros. With an infectious score by Galt McDermot (of "Hair" fame) and John Guare, this almost forgotten work took on a new reason for being. Trading on this idea, Great Lakes has taken the original script, add some jazz numbers and directed it to seem like another Friday night of swinging singles at Nighttown. The most optimistic thing you can say about a Charles Fee production of a Shakespeare comedy is the absence of bilious Three Stooges chicanery. The cast is proficient enough to make every line ring true and clear. But only two members of the cast give performances that can possibly endure past curtain calls. One of them is a homosapien, namely David Anthony Smith, as Launce, a trouble-making Shakespearean servant. The other, a glorious newcomer with an obvious pedigree, happens to be a purebred Newfoundland named Mojo in Shakespeare's only canine role. Together, Smith and Mojo have that chemistry you see in such enduring human-animal teams as Liz Taylor and Lassie and Wilbur and Mr. Ed. However, for those parched Bard-a-thons, even Shakespeare Lite makes for a nourishing brew.

"Les Miserables" runs through Sunday, April 17 at the Palace Theatre at PlayhouseSquare. For tickets, call 216-241-6000.


"Two Gentlemen of Verona" runs through Saturday, April 23 at the Hanna Theatre. For tickets, call 216-241-6000.

Broadway babies and Cleveland panties

(Daniel Radcliffe and Tammy Blanchard in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.")

Fortunately, musical rhapsodies to the glories of the Big Apple far outnumber those to Cleveland, land of the gauche anthems. At the forefront of these valentines are Kander and Ebb's "New York, New York," written for Liza Minnelli, and the opening to Leonard Bernstein's "On the Town." If you pledge your fidelity to original-cast renderings, New York is a "helluva town." If your taste runs more to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer technicolor, it's a "wonderful town." Either way, all this delicious musical froth periodically reminds us that we have to shuffle off from Cleveland-style deli to the banks of Manhattan in order to accrue knock-off purses in Chinatown, dine at Art Nouveau, Gigi-esque bistros and spend your annuity on original Broadway cast ambrosia.

Following in the footsteps of my New Testament predecessor, I will dispense some sage wisdom to my 12 followers (and whoever else may be peeking). First and foremost, forget about "The Book of Mormon." It's this decade's "The Producers," and any attempt to score tickets will cause untold humiliation waiting in cancellation lines, being mocked by condescending box-office personnel and losing your lucre, which could be better spent on weekly once-in-a-century bargains at that miracle on 34th Street, Macy's. Instead, you can achieve far more economical ecstasy by attending two sublime drag routines, one by a man (Brian Bedford) and one by an actual woman (Tammy Blanchard).

We, of course, define drag as the essence of caricaturing the foibles of a gender. Ironically, Oscar Wilde wrote the most savvy and perfect of English-language comedies in "The Importance of Being Earnest" and then was done in by the most unsavvy dictates of Victorian morality. Any well-acted production of "Earnest" would be worth the airfare to New York. But seeing Bedford, corseted and feathered, as Lady Bracknell would be worth your weight in gold, no matter how much you've cheated on your diet.

(Brian Bedford as Lady Bracknell in "The Importance of Being Earnest.")

Bedford's gender-hopping is far more than a stunt. It is one of the comic performances of a lifetime. He quivers with the indignation of Margaret Dumont being goosed by Groucho, outdoes even the great Jack Benny in feminine exasperation and positions his mouth to suggest Olympian distastefulness, showing that he has been studying hundreds of kinescopes of Milton Berle drag routines. Every imperious move and swish of his skirt evokes the comic perfection that we dream of at the Comedie-Francaise. Beyond acting, Bedford has directed one of the most performed of comedies with new insights, eschewing the expected cliches of over-dandified heroes and Victorian puppets. One of the boons of technology is that superb stage productions no longer have to disappear into the ether of time. If you are not fortunate enough to catch this gift to the gods of comedy in person,  you can experience it at your local movie theater in June.

Director-choreographer Rob Ashford is proficient in an overstated Vegas manner. But his rambunctious vulgarity cannot do in the joys of the classic "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." No, Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe does not have the wattage that Robert Morse radiated as the lead in the original 1961 production. If Morse was the human embodiment of a Hirschfeld caricature - all flashing eyes and impish smile - Radcliffe scores with a more subdued, Charlie Brown-like plaintiveness. Unlike Morse, he may not create lifetime memories, but his singing and dancing are more than winning.

What this second-row-center viewer will enshrine until senility is the crocodile smile of Tammy Blanchard as Hedy La Rue, the 60s variation on the ultimate man trap. Anyone who's seen Barbara Stanwyck play a stripper or Marilyn Monroe a gold digger will relate to this knowing spoof on sex: the self-loving twinkle as she reduces men to jelly and the radiating, palpable satisfaction as each hip twitch lands home. She pulls off the tightrope walk of making calculation lovable. Even a merely good revival of  "How to Succeed" - with its great Frank Loesser score the apogee of musical-comedy wit - will still show up most of what passes for Broadway levity today.

(Aaron Tweit and stewardesses in "Catch Me If You Can.")

The most audacious thing in "Catch Me If You Can" happens in the first five minutes, when a chase at the airport freezes and the fugitive hero comes forth to plead that a story can be re-rendered as a television spectacular - perhaps the most blatant subterfuge to turn a non-musical film into a song-and-dance show. This is one of those works that falls into the category of after-dinner mint - as forgettable as it is professional. With a score by "Hairspray's" Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, it has the same pizazz and amiability as its predecessor, as well as the feeling of an all-too-soon revival.

(Robin Williams in "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.")

Because "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" was written by a Cleveland-bred playwright, was on the Pulitzer short list and stars Robin Williams as the tiger, you may feel compelled to see it. It is another in a long line of plays that have been inspired by this generation's theatrical guru, Tony Kirshner. Yes, Williams is ferocious and funny as the ghost of a departed tiger. For those who prefer metaphysics over flesh-and-blood characters and can find pleasure in imagery worthy of Gauguin, you should be well satiated. But for those old bores who still subscribe to the well-made play with protagonists you like or identify with, you may feel your time could have been more wisely spent gazing at Rembrandts at the Frick. To be frank, perhaps because I sat in a seat made for the proportions of Mickey Rooney (and I'm well over 30), it seemed to this audience member a rather chilly but well-crafted artifact of a distant civilization called youth.

(Katie Nabors as Louis Maske in "The Underpants" at the Beck Center. Photo by Kathy Sandham.)

For those of you who do not have the plane fare at the moment, Beck Center is presenting Steve Martin's adaptation of Carl Sternheim's 19th-century Teutonic farce, "The Underpants." Farce is all about the triumph of airy artificiality. Subsequently, it is as hard to concoct as a souffle and as easily prone to fall. A recent local example of a crestfallen souffle, "The Ladies Man" at Actors' Summit, left many in the audience scurrying out in search of Pepto Bismol. However, Beck Center has imported a master chef who has figured out an ingenious way to doctor up an old script. Director Matthew Earnest has come up with the cunning gimmick of italicizing the play's mechanical gears by utilizing German expressionism, ranging from "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" to "The Threepenny Opera."

The characters are all painted in cadaver-like makeup and made to move and react like giant windup dolls. The style of acting evokes silent cinema and the ominous Grand Guignol of Sweeney Todd. The director is taking a big risk in alienating his audience with this technique, but it pays off royally. When the same work was done at the Cleveland Play House a decade ago, it played like rancid Neil Simon. Here the story of a comely German hausfrau whose panties fall in public, causing de rigueur complications of the genre, unfolds with the merry synchronicity of a giant German bell tower clock. It's an evening of joyous anarchy, proving that one can still find happiness in one's own back yard.

(Conrad Veidt in the the 1920 silent film, "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.")

"The Underpants" runs at Beck Center through Saturday, April 23. For tickets, call 216-521-2540 or go to www.beckcenter.org.

Of Plots Thick and Thin

(Scott Plate and Jeremy Kendall in "A Steady Rain.")

In Patrick Dennis' indispensable "Auntie Mame's Guide to World Cinema and Theater," we surmise from a survey of works ranging from "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" to "Zeus Surfeosis" that there are approximately eight plots to draw from in the universe. Currently in the hurly-burly of Cleveland theater, there are a total of eight exhausted performers spread throughout three economical productions, proving the validity of our madcap aunt's hypothesis.

At Dobama Theatre is Joel Hammer's peerlessly pressure-cooked production of Keith Huff's "A Steady Rain." Written and set in Chicago, it follows the violent downward spiral of two tough city cops. It reigns firmly in the category of Brotherly Betrayal 3B. This is where two emotionally ferocious men (think Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas) are bonded literally or figuratively as brothers. Gay lovers don't count. That comes under the special category The Love That Dare Not Speak It's Name Won't Shut Up. In this play's template, two macho hunks invariably cling together trying to survive in their corrupt, film-noirish universe. Consequently, strong drugs, bad broads and general malaise destroy the angrier of the two, leaving the other to eternally brood in a scalding lake of self-recrimination and jazz.

(An even more illustrious portrayal of Brother Betrayal 3B: Rod Steiger and Marlon Brando in "On the Waterfront.")

Being a sufficiently raw and poetic example of this category, we can heartily recommend the two-character play. Here, Scott Plate trades in his patented bitchy and neurotic bounce for a melancholic, macho Weltschmerz perfectly symbolized by his droopy mustache. As his partner in degeneration, Jeremy Kendall exudes angst as effortlessly as Chevalier oozes Gallic charm. Recommended for anyone who confuses the three "Godfather" movies with godliness.

(Noel Joseph Allain as Asher in "My Name is Asher Lev"at the Cleveland Play House. Photo by Roger Mastroianni.)

Chaim Potak is the pious flip side of Philip Roth. He chronicles the torments of nice Jewish boys who play hooky from Hebrew school. "My Name is Asher Lev," at the Cleveland Play House, has been skillfully adapted (by Aaron Posner) in a well-built PBS manner. It comes from Plot 4J, or, to be more precise, think "The Jazz Singer," where a well-meaning but ambitious Jewish boy is so driven by his treif art that he dares to break away from his family's Talmudic tradition. This, of course, causes his Jewish mother to wail in her apron and his fierce father to tear at his beard. The main switcheroo here is that the little pischer is interested in being a painter, rather than a jazz singer in blackface. Instead of shocking his loved ones with a hammy Mammy, Asher humiliates his parents with a painting of his mother on the cross in a creation titled "The Brooklyn Crucifixion." Both works end in a form of emotional catharsis, with the two respective men taking their mother out for lox and bagel.

Director Laura Kepley elegantly fills the Bolton stage with Chagall-like imagery with a cast that evokes authentic Yiddishkeit. Ideal for people who still look forward to attending their cousin's Bar Mitzvah.

(Al Jolson in the original 1927 movie, "The Jazz Singer," as the archetypal breakaway Jewish boy.)

Proving that you can never have too much of a grotesque thing, Great Lakes Theater Festival gives us its second production of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)." This anemic attempt to resurrect vaudeville comes from Plot 7M, where talentless comedians, such as the Ritz Brothers, the Three Stooges and cast members of various "National Lampoon" movies, endeavor to score easy laughs by desecrating the glories of writers they can only begin to comprehend through "Cliff's Notes." To get an idea of the tone of this work, imagine three drunken frat boys who, in place of finishing their term papers, decide to write what they think is a madcap spoof of Shakespeare that will get them laid. Then, envision the mortification of the audiences who have to endure the fruits of their labor. Think of these hung-over frat boys later reading what they have written to their repulsed girlfriends.

(Paul Hurley, Jason O'Connell and M.A. Taylor in "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [Abridged]." Photo by Roger Mastroianni.)

Artistic director Charles Fee thrives on 100-proof vulgarity. He directs with the delicacy of a Mixmaster set on puree. He manages to annihilate any merit that may be hiding. The script, by Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield, has been amended to include references to Tom Hanks' urinal, gay love that flourishes in Lakewood and the latest antics of Charlie Sheen, which make things only worse, if possible. The two merits that could be detected by this audience member were the Jerry Lewis-like physical grace of Paul Hurley and the visual wit of set designer Gage Williams. To quote a famous sports homily, if they do it again, "three strikes and you're out." Recommended for people who confuse the "Jackass" movies with the works of Moliere.

Dobama Theatre presents "A Steady Rain" through Sunday, March 20. For tickets, call 216-932-3396.

The Cleveland Playhouse presents "My Name is Asher Lev" through Sunday, April 3. For tickets, call 216-795-7000.

Great Lakes Theater Festival presents "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)" through Sunday, March 27. For tickets, call 216-241-6000.

How Green Was My Ogre

(Dragon and Donkey [Alan Mingo, Jr.] in the touring production of "Shrek: The Musical." Photo by Joan Marcus.)

Sometimes dashed expectations can be a many-splendored thing. It was anticipated that the road company of "Shrek: The Musical" would be cast in the template of a made-in-Tijuana souvenir of the wildly successful animated mint-green ogre, who has starred in four films. But, no. The creators and the company have conspired to disappoint. Instead of a slavish recreation, they have opted for artful transformation. Whereas the movie deliriously quoted a litany of past Disney animations, the stage version chooses to goose a passel of musicals, ranging from "Gypsy" and "Beauty and the Beast" to "Wicked," with every spoof hitting its mark. Blissfully, at PlayhouseSquare there is no trace of a second-rate touring cast or a shoddy production. For indeed it is all rendered and colored with the zest of a Mardi Gras.

For those interested in such trivialities as the score, do not worry. There's not an  iota of Hasbro elevator music. Composer Jeanine Tesori, who wrote the wonderful "Caroline, or Change," has once again displayed her limitless imagination, giving us music full of unexpected tunefulness skillfully blended with lyricist David Lindsay-Abaire's PG wit and innuendo. They have given us a work as saucy as any British panto and as infectious as any musical of the Golden Age of television, i.e. Jule Styne's "The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood."

It's hard to conceive of any living human unable to experience joy from the evening's proceedings. However, it occurs to this scribe that there are a few fictitious and deceased curmudgeons who may raise objections. For instance...

(Senator Joseph McCarthy: "That dragon looked pretty RED to me.")

(Mary Martin: "Leading ladies may fly or do cartwheels, but they may not pass gas.")

(Popeye: "It may be green, but it ain't got any spinach.")

 

 

(Walt Disney: "Don't fuck with fantasy.")

(Jack Benny: "Well!")

(Mao Zedong: "Imperalist stooge ogre!")

(Ethel Merman: "Honey, in my day, a real star would never wear a mask or paint her kisser green.")

But don't take the word of a bunch of jealous stiffs seriously. There have been multitudes of shows featuring stars who in reality were ogres. How many chances do you get to see a show about a genuine ogre who happens to be a sweetheart?

"Shrek: The Musical" runs at PlayhouseSquare through Sunday, March 13. For tickets, call 216-241-6000.

Hellacious Hijinks

(Satan, top, played by Gilgamesh Taggett, sings to Jerry [Matthew Wright] in "Jerry Springer: The Opera" at  the Beck Center for the Arts. Photo courtesy of the Beck Center.)

Since my selected deities can be found on Turner Classic Movies and Mount Olympus, I personally find it hard to understand how anyone could take offense at the Rabelaisian winks that permeate "Jerry Springer: The Opera," which is at the Beck Center through April 17. Its creators, Richard Thomas and Stewart Lee, have found a perfect gimmick to carry the show from beginning to end - a British bird's eye view of American trash culture engaged in a merry gambol with Dante Inferno paraphernalia, all sung in faux-opera fashion. I fail to see how anyone with the slightest bit of imagination couldn't nourish a crush on the work with such a Marxian (Brothers, not Karl) spirit.

Street gangs can plie through "West Side Story" Manhattan, Nixon can sing baritone in China and Ray Walston's fey vaudevillian Satan can soft-shoe through "Damn Yankees," so there's no reason why talk-show host Jerry Springer can't do shtick with Lucifer. Some of the other wonderful conceipts include a fuck fugue sung by Satan and an African-African Jesus, a requiem performed by talk-show attendees who in reality probably never heard of one, and a tap-dancing Ku Klux Klan. The score ranges from skillful opera parody to Motown sass and Broadway pizazz.

(An earlier singing and dancing Satan: Ray Walston in "Damn Yankees.")

This is a piece fueled on perpetual chutzpah. Act I is a recreation of an archetypal episode of "The Jerry Springer Show" populated with the obligatory transsexual, a crack whore, a spanking fetishist in Baby Jane regalia and a loving fiancee who wants to be treated like an infant. It all culminates with Springer getting a taste of his own medicine: an assassin's bullet. Act II begins in Purgatory and proceeds to Hell, where Springer is blackmailed by Satan into hosting an episode of his show as a phantasmagorical TV spectacular.

From the polyester sheen of the divinely tawdry wigs to the authentic holes in the fishnet stockings, Beck Center has perfectly simulated the squalor that gives the work verisimilitude. The tiny Studio Theater is an ideal simulacrum of a cramped TV studio in B-movie Hell. Director Scott Spence has had the perspicacity to collect a passel of golden-throated singers who so effortlessly imitate the denizens of your local Walmart. And once again choreographer Martin Cespedes shows his flair for using movement to reveal the psyche of his performers, including that chorus of terpsichorean KKKers. He knows where misapplied polish would not only be superfluous, but also would damage the texture so essential to the show.

As the eponymous Springer, Matthew Wright has the timing of a Borscht Belt comedian and far more elegance and charisma than the original ever could imagine. The colorfully named Gilgamesh Taggett plays Satan as the ultimate pimp gone wild.  The cast is so convincing that it's hard to believe that the actors have not spent their entire lives in preparation being spanked, pole dancing and taking master courses in spousal abuse. Even perfect were the two bedraggled protesters outside the Beck Center.

The show is not to be mistaken with the long line of "Little Shop of Horrors"-inspired bubble-gum musical parodies that have proliferated off-Broadway. Instead, some wizards have given it a brain, a heart and the courage to thrive.

"Jerry Springer: The Musical" runs through Sunday, April 17 at the Beck Center. For tickets, call 216- 521-2540.

The Church of Horton Foote

(Lizan Mitchell, left, is Carrie and Howard W. Overshown plays her son, Ludie, in the Cleveland Play House production of Horton Foote's "The Trip to Bountiful." Photo by Roger Mastroianni.) 

So far, the Cleveland Play House season has reveled in gaudy, synthetic trinkets worthy of a Times Square souvenir shop. But now it's time to toss out the hallelujahs and pour the holy wine, for this institution has rediscovered its footing by conducting a life-affirming journey through Horton Foote's "The Trip to Bountiful."

For many decades, the late Foote developed into one of our finest Chekhov-inspired regionalists, along with William Inge and Tennessee Williams. Whereas his two cohorts chronicle the melancholic crushing of sensitive souls - think Blanche in the asylum or Lola mourning her lost youth - Foote long exuded the overpowering gentleness of a yarn-spinning Unitarian minister. His forte in such works as "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Tender Mercies" and, perhaps most archetypically, "Bountiful" is dramatizing how trapped people come together and reconnect with their roots and their dignity. A villain in a Foote play is as rare as a cliche in Chekhov.

"The Trip to Bountiful" first saw the light of day as an hour-long television play for the radiant Lillian Gish as Carrie, an aged country woman smothered like a famished house plant while passing her days in the urban apartment of her well-meaning son and daughter-in-law. The work is a Whitman Sampler variation on the Odyssey as Carrie escapes the city and returns to her deserted family farm in Bountiful. Something as small as the twitter of the birds of her childhood replenishes her so that she can live the rest of her life in harmony with her family.

The Play House is making much of the fact that this is the first black production of the work. Yet the playwright's universal humanity is so pervasive that the racial tweak seems perfectly natural as directed by Timothy Douglas. Foote's beautifully tuned regional speech has the musical lilt of a Copland soundtrack, and the actors are the perfect instruments for his tender poetry. As Carrie, Lizan Mitchell scampers across the stage with the mischievous energy of a Disney chipmunk. The entire auditorium lights up along with her awe-struck face as she recalls the sweet birds of her youth.

In all of my experiences of Horton Foote on stage and screens big and small, he has proved to be the one dramatic tonic that never fails to rejuvenate.

The Cleveland Play House performs "The Trip to Bountiful" through Sunday, Feb. 27. For tickets, call 216-795-7000.

Another enchanted evening

(David Pittsinger as Emile and Carmen Cusack as Nellie in the national tour of "South Pacific." Photo by Craig Schwartz.)

The view back from more than half a century is an ideal span for testing certain truths, such as the enduring grandeur of "South Pacific." When the original road company of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic premiered on April 24, 1950, at Cleveland's Public Music Hall, it was a publicist's nirvana. The show managed to invade the front page of The Plain Dealer with not one, but two stories next to an article about President Truman's battle with Commies. The already-legendary composer and lyricist were in attendance to amp up the excitement. Hanna Theater manager Milton Krantz wailed to the media about the $738,000 of box-office lucre that had to be refunded to those tortured souls who couldn't score a ticket to Bali Hai.

On the home front, a family legend was founded on the story of this chronicler's 23-year-old mother, who had to view the impassioned wooings of Emile and Nellie reduced to ants from the last row of the cavernous Public Music Hall. It is a testament to the American dream that one generation later her son was able to view the same rapture just half-way back on the main floor at the Palace Theatre in PlayhouseSquare. To quote from William McDermott's 1950 Plain Dealer review: "The essential thing is that this performance of 'South Pacific' is first-rate by any standard. I would put it down as the best musical show and the most suitable performance since 'Show Boat' opened here many years ago preliminary to its Broadway engagement."

The 2011 touring production, based on Bartlett Sher's acclaimed Lincoln Center staging, illuminates the lasting truths of McDermott's appraisal. Sher is too canny to alter perfection. Instead, he has simply polished every nuance to set off its perpetual sparkle. Whereas other productions of "South Pacific" through the years have been star vehicles for aging matinee idols, this one makes the show itself the center of attention. When reviewing Janet Blair in the touring production in 1950, McDermott commented that "she hasn't quite got the mettlesomeness of Mary Martin. But she has a magic of her own."

(Rodgers and Hammerstein, at rear, try to wash the first three Nellies - Mary Martin, Janet Blair and Martha Wright - out of their hair in the early 1950s. Photo by Corbis-Bettmann.)

Flash forward six decades and the opposite proves true. Carmen Cusack plays Nellie in the 2011 tour with a delightful Southern mettlesomeness that would do Martin proud. There were two Nellies to be devoutly wished for: the one that happened in 1949 at the Majestic Theatre (Martin) and the one that didn't in the film version ( Doris Day). Cusack's feisty charisma makes us temporarily forget the incandescence of Martin and the loss of Day - and helps us purge the synthetic aftertaste of Mitzi Gaynor's performance in the bizarrely hued 1958 movie. Ironically, Sher's production, with its stunning transitions, lighting and texture, is far more cinematic than Joshua Logan's adequate but stiff film realization.

(Mitzi Gaynor, performing "Honey Bun" in the 1958 movie version of "South Pacific," makes one yearn for Mary Martin or Doris Day. Photo courtesy of Green Isle Productions.)

If Paulo Szot's Broadway Emile suggested a baritonal Clark Gable, David Pittsinger's sumptous basso in the touring production suggests Boris Godunov transplanted to an island just around the corner from Bali Hai. Pittsinger, with his cosmopolitan flair, contrasts splendidly with Cusack's naive buoyancy. Pound for pound, the rest of the cast equals the felicities of their Lincoln Center counterparts. For anyone who's ever failed to comprehend the magical ability of musical theater to illuminate universal human experience, one only has to watch the smitten Nellie Forbush throw her straw hat in the air and do a cartwheel while singing "I'm in love with a wonderful guy." 

It seems like a perfect synchronicity that after 40 years, Hammerstein's protege, Stephen Sondheim, accomplished equal musical euphoria out of a much darker corner of the human psyche. In "Assassins," which Lakeland Civic Theatre  is performing in Kirtland, we have the maniacal John Wilkes Booth trying to justify his nefarious act against Abraham Lincoln. Whereas "South Pacific" is musical theater as grand storytelling, "Assassins" is musical theater as a thesis about the need for attention that drives people to kill Presidents. "Assassins" is as great as it is perverse. Unfortunately, director Martin Friedman has only one trump card in his production, Scott Esposito's Booth. In every other aspect, Friedman only manages a flicker where a conflagration is needed.

"South Pacific" runs through Sunday at the Palace Theatre in PlayhouseSquare. For tickets, call 216-241-6000.

"Assassins" runs through Sunday at Lakeland Community College. For tickets, call 440-525-7526.