| Blackhurst's
brassiness heats up Porter tunes in 'Red Hot and Blue!'
September 28, 2005
By Robert Hurwitt
San Francisco Chronicle
Klea Blackhurst hits a note, settles
inside it and brightens it from within. Her voice has the
broad, lively brassiness of the young Ethel Merman -- a quality
she exploited well in her 2001 Merman tribute (and CD), "Everything
the Traffic Will Allow" -- and she can modulate the tone
to sound like brass dipped in honey. When she hits a high
note, she not only sustains it but breathes new life and breadth
into it along the way.
All of which are qualities she puts to good use re-creating
the songs Cole Porter wrote for Merman in "Red Hot and
Blue!," the opening show in 42nd Street Moon's new season
at the Eureka Theatre. A typical 42nd Street staged-concert
presentation, "Red" suffers from some of the company's
usual shortcomings, particularly its uneven casting. But the
theater lights up enormously when Blackhurst wraps her voice
around a delight like "It's De-Lovely" or "Ridin'
High."
There are other strong performances, most notably from Deirdre
O'Neil, Kalon Thibodeaux and a quartet of, as the song says,
"Perennial Debutantes." Musical director Dave Dobrusky
pounds out a solid enough solo piano accompaniment that one
doesn't miss the full orchestrations so long as the singing
is good. The cast performs score-in-hand, without sets --
save for the occasional desk, chair or divan -- in attractive
period-suggestive gowns and suits by Amy Cole and Mike Figueira.
It's a strange revival in some respects, given 42nd Street's
reputation for restoring rarely performed musicals. Co-founding
Artistic Director Greg MacKellan has made more changes than
just dropping the comma after "Red" in the title
(the pun retains its meaning anyway). He's dropped a couple
of songs and rearranged the order of musical numbers, adding
two slightly later Porter songs. Presumably, he's made changes
in the Howard Lindsay-Russel Crouse book, as well as cut down
its huge cast.
It isn't all that important. "Red" -- Porter, Lindsay,
Crouse and Merman's 1936 follow-up to their huge '34 hit "Anything
Goes" (the show that made Merman a star) -- was a comparatively
minor success. The score isn't one of Porter's best. The book
is a loose compound of silly plot and light social satire.
Besides "De-Lovely" and "Ridin' High,"
it's chiefly remembered for Merman's battle with co-star Jimmy
Durante over top billing, her onstage warfare with leading
man Bob Hope (in his last Broadway show) and the character-role
debut of a former chorus girl named Vivian Vance.
Blackhurst is breezily appealing as "Nails" O'Reilly
Duquesne, a manicurist turned wealthy widow who wants to raise
funds to help ex-convicts. Her chief partners are her lawyer
Bob Hale (Steve Rhyne in the Hope role) and the con man Policy
Pinkle (Thibodeaux), who wants nothing so much as to get back
to prison, where he's captain of the polo team. Nails wants
nothing so much as Bob, but when she learns he's still in
love with his childhood sweetheart, she turns the fundraiser
into a nationwide lottery to find the long-lost "Baby."
Baby has a secret identifying mark. As a child, she'd sat
on a hot waffle iron. Which is why pretty much the entire
Senate wants to help screen the many candidates claiming her
half of a prize that has grown to the size of the national
debt. There's another problem. As Bob realizes he's in love
with Nails, Baby turns out to be closer than they'd imagined.
The comedy of that plot is only thinly developed. Much of
the '30s social satire holds up pretty well, though, from
the lampoons of prison chic expressed by a beguilingly harmonious
quartet of debutantes (Lisa-Marie Newton in the Vance role,
Tiffany-Marie Austin, Brandy Collazo and Alli McGinnis) to
a Senate trying to find revenues without raising taxes. One
of the biggest laughs comes when the Supreme Court (the last
time it was dominated by conservatives) finds something unconstitutional
"on the grounds that it might benefit the American people."
Thibodeaux is a brash, capable comic, especially on his breakout
novelty number, "A Little Skipper From Heaven Above."
O'Neil's floozy maid Peaches brings down the house on the
two interpolated songs: "I've Got My Eyes on You"
and the racy burlesque number "There's a Fan." Though
some of the songs are mere filler, the debutantes are a singing-dancing
pleasure (perky choreography by Jayne Zaban) and the ensemble
is captivating in the subversively dirgelike "Hymn to
Hymen."
Rhyne is an adequate Bob, though his solos lack verve. Blackhurst
makes up for the loss. She almost single-handedly embodies
the whole course of their romance, from her soulfully yearning
"Down in the Depths on the 90th Floor" through the
discovery of "De-Lovely" and heavenly heights of
"Ridin' High" to the triumph of the title tune finale.
Blackhurst will also give a special concert during the run,
Oct. 11, to celebrate the release of her new CD, "Autumn
in New York: Vernon Duke's Broadway." What's billed as
a benefit for 42nd Street Moon should greatly benefit the
audience as well.
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