Ship out

NETC misses the joke that makes Dames at Sea so funny

by Steve Vineberg

DAMES AT SEA Book and lyrics by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller. Music by Jim Wise. Directed by Michael Celularo. Choreographed by Denise Day. Musical direction by Donald Irving. Set designed by Joanne Goyette. Costumes by Paula A. Ouellette. Lighting by Christopher Gates. With Linda Johnson, Heather Darrow, David Foley Jr., Noelle LeChevalier, Eric Wefald, and Michael Walsh. A New England Theatre Company production, at Anna Maria College, through August 2.

Dames at Sea is the epitome of the '60s off-Broadway musical. A cabaret for a half-dozen performers, it spoofs the films Busby Berkeley worked on at Warner Bros. during the Depression -- especially 42nd Street, Dames, and the Gold Diggers series. In these, the prototypical backstage musical comedies, a good-humored troupe of hard-working, mostly hard-bitten singers and dancers battles the economy, impatient creditors, and the temperaments of divas and backers to put up a show.

Berkeley graduated, within a few years, from dance director to sole director, but from the outset he was behind the camera during the numbers. His movies are best-known for their idiosyncratic musical setpieces, with their elaborate narratives and kaleidoscopic ensembles and endless choruses. Generally, there were three kinds: Ziegfeld-ish exhibitions of glorified starlets (like "Dames" and "I Only Have Eyes for You"), novelty numbers conceived with a burlesque sensibility (like "Shuffle Off to Buffalo" and "Pettin' in the Park"), and dark-toned musical dramas (like "42nd Street" and "Lullaby of Broadway"), which often contained lurid, tabloid finales. Secondarily, they were known for the stock company Berkeley kept dipping into -- notably Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler as the juvenile and the ingenue, and Joan Blondell as the wised-up chorine who's usually Keeler's best pal.

George Haimsohn and Robin Miller's book for Dames at Sea sends up the hackneyed but endearing plot elements of these pictures (and throws in bits from the Astaire-Rogers Follow the Fleet for good measure). And their lyrics and Jim Wise's music tackle the great old Al Dubin-Harry Warren tunes -- as well as other movie songs from the late '20s and the '30s, like "Singin' in the Rain," "Broadway Melody," "Bill," and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man." It's an affectionate jumble. The show's premised on a single joke -- that three women and three men are reproducing a musical form that was preposterously overscaled. The notion that Broadway theaters housed the numbers we saw in Berkeley's movies was cheerfully belied by the aerial shots and dissolves and other cinematic tricks (like the reverse angle at the end of "The Shadow Waltz" that tells us we've been looking at images reflected on the surface of a pond). That's why the joke at the heart of Dames at Sea -- which originally contained a mirror number to create the impression of hordes of chorus girls -- is so funny.

The NETC revival, directed by Michael Celularo and choreographed by Denise Day, doesn't get the joke. It's performed with a great deal of energy, but since it sits on the full-sized stage at Anna Maria College's Zecco Performing Arts Center, where the set designer, Joanne Goyette, produces a new set piece for almost every number, the show feels like a big musical done on a small scale instead of a parody of a big musical done with deliberate economy. And while it's easy to admire the commitment and gamesmanship of the cast, I wished that Celularo had toned down their mugging, that Day had come up with better choreographic ideas for them, and (especially) that the costumer, Paula A. Ouellette, had dressed them more flatteringly. Heather Darrow and David Foley Jr. play the sweethearts, Ruby and Dick; Linda Johnson is the narcissistic star (meant to echo the Bebe Daniels role in 42nd Street); Noelle LeChevalier and Eric Wefald are the second bananas. And Michael Walsh is double cast -- as the director in the first act (Warner Baxter in 42nd Street mixed with Ned Sparks in Gold Diggers of 1933) and the captain of the ship -- the show-within-the-show's eventual venue -- in the second. They all have their moments, but only Foley and LeChevalier consistently exercise the kind of comic control the musical demands. Foley (who played Anthony in NETC's Sweeney Todd last summer) is completely winning, and he sports the best voice in the cast. LeChevalier is closer to Ethel Merman than to Joan Blondell, but she's relaxed and resilient -- a trouper. Overall, the production is undeniably a crowd pleaser, but I wish it had been less broad and more on target.