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THEATER REVIEW: SHOW BOAT

THEATER REVIEW: SHOW BOAT; Classic Musical With a Change in Focus

THEATER REVIEW: SHOW BOAT; Classic Musical With a Change in Focus
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October 3, 1994, Section C, Page 11Buy Reprints
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In the popular consciousness, "Show Boat" is the great American musical about the tumultuousness of love, played out against the majestic Mississippi River and the big-shouldered city of Chicago.

Its characters -- Gaylord Ravenal, the rakish riverboat gambler in the top hat; Magnolia, the sweet innocent he marries, then deserts, and even Julie, the mulatto whose life spirals into the gutter after she is barred from the show boat -- have long passed for the most romantic of figures.

With the exception of "Ol' Man River," the most enduring songs in the score by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein 2d are those that explore love's first stirrings ("Make Believe"), love's tyranny ("Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man"), love's exquisite bliss ("You Are Love") and, of course, love gone wrong ("Bill").

So it may come as a jolt that Harold Prince's gloriously bold re-examination of the indestructible classic, which opened last night at the Gershwin Theater, is about something else: time and its inexorable ravages. No sooner has the Cotton Blossom docked at Natchez and a curious crowd gathered on the levee than Cap'n Andy (John McMartin) is introducing the members of his floating troupe as "one big happy family." Twenty scenes and three hours later, the full cast is back on that same levee, dancing a frenetic Charleston that seems to embody all the explosive forces that by then have torn the happy family asunder. Anyone looking for pure escapism had better look elsewhere; this "Show Boat" rides a river of deep disillusionment.

The cast members are never less than personable, and the starchy Elaine Stritch is, for all her gruff manner, positively endearing as Cap'n Andy's wife, Parthy. But if the singing is magnificent on nearly every front, it is the crushed-blue-velvet alto of Lonette McKee (Julie) and the volcanic bass of Michel Bell (Joe) that best express the production's brooding concerns.

A king-size budget and a cast of more than 70 have allowed Mr. Prince, still the undisputed master of the Broadway musical, to put together a sweeping panorama that embraces four decades (1887-1927) of American history, fashion and mores. His acute social conscience has prompted him, whenever and wherever possible, to emphasize the racial rift that runs the length of the musical like a fault line in an earthquake zone. But his abiding sense of life's capricious ironies is what really darkens the glittering stage pictures.

In such varied musicals as "Cabaret," "Follies," "Grind" and even "Kiss of the Spider Woman," show business has served as the distorting lens through which Mr. Prince views the world at large. It was probably preordained that he would eventually turn to "Show Boat," which was first wrested from Edna Ferber's sprawling novel in 1927. Since then, like no other American musical of its stature, the work has undergone substantial changes with each successive incarnation. (Hollywood, not to be outdone, has had its way with the piece on three occasions.). Borrowing from here and there, Mr. Prince has built the current version pretty much from the ground up.

From the 1936 film version, for example, he has taken "Mis'ry's Comin' Aroun'," the dour song of presentiment that Queenie (Gretha Boston) voices early in the first act. Scotching the usual second-act opening -- Gaylord and Magnolia drinking in the marvels of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago as they sing "Why Do I Love You?" -- he replaces it with a scene in which Magnolia gives birth to a daughter, Kim. He then hands the number over to Ms. Stritch, who barks it out with captivating tenderness to the newborn child. And instead of accentuating the reconciliation of Gaylord and Magnolia at the show's end, as does the rapturous 1951 film, Mr. Prince puts the focus instead on Kim (Tammy Amerson), a rising Broadway star by this point, and her madcap dancing friends.

The choppy second act has never been a miracle of plotting. But Mr. Prince and Susan Stroman, his gifted choreographer, fill in a lot of the blanks with two pantomimed montages. The first traces Gaylord and Magnolia's ruinous days together in Chicago. The second, a dazzling 21-year flash forward in the life and customs of the country, is a virtual March of Time newsreel, sumptuously costumed by Florence Klotz. Through it wanders Joe, a far more benign presence than the emcee in "Cabaret," perhaps, but like him, a disconcerting herald of upheavals to come.

The very fluidity of Mr. Prince's staging lends an inevitability to events that don't possess it on their own. By making "Show Boat" less episodic, he invariably makes it a sadder, wiser musical. Three generations of friends and family gather on the Cotton Blossom for the finale, but given the pain they have caused one another over the years and the losses they have suffered, only a committed optimist would consider it a happy reunion. In this production, in fact, the last word belongs to a slightly crazed old lady (Sheila Smith), who still remembers Gaylord and Magnolia's wedding celebration on that very spot and blindly congratulates them on how well the marriage turned out.

Indispensable to Mr. Prince's fatalistic vision is the work of the scenic designer, Eugene Lee, and the lighting designer, Richard Pilbrow. The sets are not just the stuff of the wide screen; they supplant one another cinematically, so that the dramatic action is rarely impeded. Take Mr. Bell's potent rendition of "Ol' Man River," which starts out on the sleepy levee. By the time the chorus joins in, he's standing before a backdrop of cotton fields at harvest time. Then, once the song is over, the field hands rebelliously rip down the backdrop to reveal the kitchen pantry of the Cotton Blossom detaching itself from the show boat and gliding downstage for the next scene. Many of the set changes are effected by the black members of the large chorus, tugging on ropes or putting their shoulders to massive pieces of scenery -- a continuing reminder of who is saddled with the dirty work in this society. At the height of New Year's Eve merriment in the second act, several white couples waltz giddily behind a curtain of multicolored streamers. Suddenly, the streamers flutter to the ground and a crew of black sanitation workers materializes to sweep up what is now refuse. In the wink of a drunken eye, an image of privileged abandon has been replaced by one of morning-after servitude.

Mr. Prince also knows when to do nothing at all. Gaylord and Magnolia (Mark Jacoby and Rebecca Luker) sing the exultant "You Are Love" on the top deck of the Cotton Blossom, with only the full moon and a dusting of stars as their witnesses. While the two performers can't always conceal the cardboard nature of their characters, locked in a tight embrace in the inky night they are the essence of full-bodied passion. (The moment may be reminiscent of "The Phantom of the Opera," but a director is permitted to borrow from himself.)

Likewise, Ms. McKee is at her most bewitching in stillness. Slumped beside an upright piano in the Trocadero nightclub, clutching a silk wrapper about her wasted frame, she pours both her languor and her pain into "Bill." The cleaning staff can't help stopping to watch. Ms. McKee, who played the role in the 1983 Houston Grand Opera production, has since acquired something she didn't have back then: the luster of a genuine star.

It is mainly in its lighter, comic aspects that this production is least successful. "Show Boat" paved the way for the serious Broadway musical, but it still pays allegiance to the old-fashioned high jinks of vaudeville and early musical comedy. When rowdy customers disrupt the melodrama on the Cotton Blossom's stage, Cap'n Andy is obliged to assume all the parts and act out the ending. Mr. McMartin, whose blond wig and flutey voice suggest a distressing kinship with the nightclub comic Rip Taylor, isn't up to the shtick. Joel Blum dances with acrobatic eccentricity, but otherwise the effervescence he and Dorothy Stanley bring to the roles of the secondary lovers, Frank and Ellie, is the most conventional kind. Mr. Prince may even find the characters a little foolish.

After all, in what amounts to a major reappraisal of the work, the fabled glamour of the show boat is merely a trick of makeup and footlights. Life on and off the wicked stage is hard. And time and the river keep rolling along. SHOW BOAT Music by Jerome Kern; book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein 2d; based on the novel by Edna Ferber; directed by Harold Prince; assistant to Mr. Prince, Ruth Mitchell; choreography by Susan Stroman; production design by Eugene Lee; costumes by Florence Klotz; lighting by Richard Pilbrow; sound by Martin Levan. Presented by Livent (U.S.) Inc. At the Gershwin Theater, 222 West 51st Street, Manhattan. WITH: John McMartin (Cap'n Andy), Elaine Stritch (Parthy), Rebecca Luker (Magnolia), Lonette McKee (Julie), Mark Jacoby (Gaylord Ravenal), Michel Bell (Joe), Joel Blum (Frank), Dorothy Stanley (Ellie), Gretha Boston (Queenie), Tammy Amerson (Kim) and Sheila Smith (Old Lady on the Levee and Mother Superior).

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section C, Page 11 of the National edition with the headline: THEATER REVIEW: SHOW BOAT; Classic Musical With a Change in Focus. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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