Fine tunes

WCLO's World is a flavorable revue

by Steve Vineberg

THE WORLD GOES 'ROUND Conceived by Scott Ellis, Susan Stroman, and David Thompson. Music and lyrics by John Kander and Fred Ebb. Directed by Dennis Metro. Musical direction by Judith Bergeson Buma. Set designed by Dennis Metro. With Michael R. Celularo, Jane Grady, Neil Trahan, and Donna Wresinski. At the Worcester County Light Opera, through November 30.

In the considerable repertoire of revues built around the work of American songwriters, The World Goes 'Round is an anomaly, because John Kander and Fred Ebb, to whose work it pays tribute, haven't had many hits. Aside from Cabaret and Chicago -- now enjoying an even greater (and richly merited) success in revival than it did two decades ago -- and the relatively recent Kiss of the Spider Woman, the list of shows cited in The World Goes 'Round tests the memory of a musical-comedy aficionado. There's their debut collaboration, Flora, the Red Menace, which gave Liza Minnelli her initial leading role and linked her career with theirs. There are Zorba (which I saw as a college freshman when it tried out at the Shubert), and The Rink and The Act, The Happy Time and Woman of the Year and 70, Girls, 70 (a show about golden-agers). Dipping into other media, the revue borrows a song from Minnelli's 1972 TV special Liza with a `Z' and a handful from two movies: Funny Lady (a misbegotten sequel to Funny Girl) and Martin Scorsese's brilliant, ill-starred New York, New York.

The songs are a mixed collection, but the revue has its own integrity and its own special flavor. Most of the numbers are emotionally revealing narratives with clear dramatic throughlines, identifying distinct characters. It's a compelling musical evening -- a whole that's mysteriously better than its parts, since many of the songs have banal lyrics and forgettable melodies. Some would be terrific in just about any setting: "My Coloring Book" (the team's first hit, which anticipated their Broadway careers), "A Quiet Thing" from Flora, the Red Menace, "All That Jazz" (which opens Chicago), and of course the interpolations from Cabaret. Others probably wouldn't work in any context, like the willfully over-the-top title number from Kiss of the Spider Woman.

The World Goes 'Round was a smart choice for the Worcester County Light Opera's small-scale fall musical (they produce a big show every spring), and their version is enjoyable, though erratic. What it needs is a stronger directorial hand. Dennis Metro keeps it moving -- it's a brisk one-hour-45 -- but he doesn't maintain the easy, intimate approach that this revue, in this setting (WCLO's cozy venue on Grandview Avenue), demands. Sometimes the style seems overscaled and the show goes off balance. That's especially true of Jane Grady's songs. Grady is a very talented musical-theater performer (and a WCLO regular) with a tendency to dial up her numbers -- to melodramatize. But with a song like "And the World Goes Round" or "My Coloring Book," the emotional subtext is already so close to the surface that she'd be far more effective if she just let the lyric carry the feeling. She's best in the first half of "Maybe This Time" (from the film of Cabaret), where she takes a simpler, more pared-down approach.

Neil Trahan, on the other hand, needs to push his energy farther; on some of his songs he seems to retreat behind his wire rims and doesn't swing out and hit his stride until the final verse. Both he and Michael R. Celularo have their moments; I especially liked their back-to-back renditions of "I Don't Remember You" and "Sometimes a Day Goes By." Donna Wresinski, rounding out the quartet, is confident and skillful. She pulls off some difficult stunts, like the tonal shift on "How Lucky Can You Get" (the big number from Funny Lady), though she doesn't always catch on to the dramatic arc of a song. For instance, she begins and ends "Colored Lights," a retrospective lament from The Rink, quite beautifully, but the character gets lost in between. "Colored Lights" is a good example of how Kander and Ebb work. The lyric is trite, but it's so cleverly dramatized that you need to keep listening -- you want to find out what happened to this woman, how she got from one of the moments she recalls to the next. That's the challenge of the number, indeed of most of the numbers in The World Goes 'Round. The company has yet to think some of them through.