©leisuresuit.net
Nov. 11, 1999


Swing! on Broadway
by Kerry Douglas Dye

What is this obsession we have with our grandparents' generation? I for one couldn't give a hoot about the era when my parents were young--tie die? Woodstock? Puh-leeze. Ah, but the Forties! Supper clubs, USO dances, and men in fedoras . . . in this age of cynicism and self-reference, there's something so meta-authentic about it all. It's alien, and compelling, and makes me nostalgic for something I never knew.

Of course, I'm not the only one--young people are returning to the Forties en masse, as this recent swing dancing craze instructs us. The new Broadway show Swing!, at the St. James Theatre on 44th Street, may have been cynically conceived to cash in on the fad, but I doubt it. It's too lovingly executed, too witty, and too joyous.

I was nervous through the first couple numbers, though. The show opens with bandleader Casey MacGill alone on the stage in a striped purple suit strumming a ukulele. The song is "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)", and it's just what you'd expect. The dancers come out for some swinging, but it's conventional, if still impressive. The subsequent number introduces songwriter/cabaret star Ann Hampton Calloway. She's got a terrific voice, but I was still unconvinced.

What won me over was the song "Two and Four" (as written by Ms. Calloway) which features Laura Benanti (talented, and a cutie) as a plain girl who comes alive when she discovers the rhythm of the swing. That's a fun number, and the theme is revisited repeatedly throughout the show: swing's power to put a little jazz into the dullest of lives.

Other fun numbers are "Bli-Blip", a date between Everett Bradley and Ms. Calloway in which (almost) all the talk is in scat (I usually wait until the second date to let the conversation turn to scat, but whatever); "Billy-A-Dick" with Michael Gruber in an apartment building kept awake by drumming upstairs; my favorite bit was "Boogie Woogie Country" in which a portly yet amazingly agile chorus member by the name of Robert Royston puts on a cowboy hat, cuts loose like a motherfuck, and gets the girl. Good for him.

Which reminds me: it's not just swing on display--there's some Latin, the aforementioned country, a bit of break dancing, and even an entire ballet number (which had the tourist in the seat next to me shifting in agony). All your favorite tunes are there, like "In the Mood", "Sing Sing Sing", "All of Me", "The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", a bunch you probably aren't familiar with, and some original stuff too.

My date loved the costumes, one dance number on flying harnesses, and pretty much everything else. I dug it too--it's high energy, has some laughs, and the sleek, athletic feminine bodies on display confirmed my long held conviction that I'm one day going to marry a dancer. The leads, MacGill, Calloway, Bradley, Gruber and particularly Benanti are all terrific, as is the chorus. I haven't seen this kind of themed review on Broadway since "Forever Tango" a few years ago. Swing! certainly compares favorably to that show, and is highly recommended for fans of dancing, singing, or the happenin' era in general.


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