©The Village Voice
Dec. 15 - 21, 1999
Some Assembly Required
By Michael Feingold
Women get thrown around a good deal in Swing!, but I wouldn't say they were being victimized; they and the men who toss, flip, and drape them seem to be sharing far too good a time for that. Recycling a lot of familiar material—this makes three current shows that use "Sing, Sing, Sing" for a climax. Swing! refeathers its old hats with new numbers and lyric touch-ups by a mélange of band and cast members, plus outside hands. Director-choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett, herself supervised by Jerry Zaks, rides herd on a covey of assistant choreographers, some visible onstage. If the jumbled credits suggest a hodgepodge, the result looks more like a happy collaboration. The dancing works through all the traditional moves, and some fancy variations, without ever seeming either mechanical or artily self-conscious; the singing, particularly Ann Hampton Callaway's and Laura Benanti's, has a classy individuality. For a dance show, the evening pays exceptionally strong heed to the sense and shape of its lyrics; when the soloists of Casey MacGill's band are dragged into the action, they perk up, enlivening their scenes as onstage musicians almost never do. Taylor-Corbett's podiatric crew never loses touch with swing dancing's dual function—as a competition between couples in acrobatic inventiveness, and as a sort of airborne representation of sexual intercourse. The new songs are mostly half-formed imitations of the great old ones and the stage is sometimes cluttered with dancers when we should be watching the vocalist, but overall Swing! has a fresh, piquant style that gives it both specialness and consistency. Other Broadway shows using old music don't cook like this. A lot of the sizzle comes from Harold Wheeler's saucy arrangements, a little from William Ivey Long's costumes, which are sometimes dramatic events in themselves, and the rest from the dancers—too many first-raters to list, but Beverly Durand and Aldrin Gonzalez made me gape with amazement most often.
-------------------------------------
© The Village Voice
Dec. 15 - 21, 1999
Black Music
By Deborah Jowitt
A lone guy comes onstage, singing and plucking a ukulele. Your mind starts humming. This is the verse; what's the chorus it's simmering up to? Suddenly—bam!—the lights blaze and an art deco bandstand designed by Thomas Lynch rolls forward, swarming with musicians dressed for a sweaty, 1940s night of music. Casey MacGill rejoins his band, Gotham City Gates, as Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)" rocks the house. The audience about dies of pleasure.
The opening moments of Swing! tell you all you need to understand. This big-hearted, irresistible show, unlike Susan Stroman's Contact, makes no propositions about the redeeming power of dancing. It's too busy showing you feet playing hardball with the beat and women vaulting onto their partners and getting slung between their legs. Rhythm stars—greasing the gears of love and friendship, liberating the shy, heartening the doughboys at the USO.
Paul Kelly, who's credited with the concept, choreographer-director Lynn Taylor-Corbett, and production supervisor Jerry Zaks have turned a string of mostly great songs, new and classic, into a scenic journey through an optimistic world. Relationships and themes, reprised or skimmed past as background echoes, stitch things together. Clichés acquire a new polish. The sweet, uptight young soprano (wonderful Laura Benanti), finally schooled to snap her fingers on the "Two and the Four", yanks on her Alice-blue gown by William Ivey Long, and it flips down to reveal her costumed as a degree candidate in jazz sirendom. The partner receiving her scathing "Cry Me a River" is trombonist Steve Armour, who sweet-plays himself back into her heart. In the Ellington-Sid Kuller "Bli-Blip," Everett Bradley and Ann Hampton Callaway strike up a friendship through a witty scat dialogue—the rich, taunting cream of their voices telling you how well matched they are. Callaway delivers—marvelously—some of the evening's greatest songs: "I'll Be Seeing You," "Blues in the Night," "Stompin' at the Savoy." And Bradley, a big joyous man, lights up the stage every time he comes on.
Through it all wind the dancers: the rabid little lindyer (Geralyn Del Corso) who gradually wears down the "won't dance" codger (Keith Lamelle Thomas), the chubby loser (Robert Royston) who blossoms in "Boogie Woogie Country" into a cowboy-hatted pro, twirling Laureen Baldovi like a lariat. The partners, including pair dancers who contribute their own choreography, are all terrific. I especially enjoyed Ryan Francois with spunky Jenny Thomas; Francois looks as if his joints are coming close to melting down inside his loose suit, but he's never too mellow to nail that tickling beat.
Back to the Swing! page