Sail
Away
Noel Coward
 |
| Nathaniel Rothrock, Khalia Davis, Allison F. Rich, Jordan Martin & Darlene Popovic |
Looking for love in the next ten days? Or, do you just want to have a merry ol’ time
with people you’ll probably never want to see again? Got your bags all packed? Then head to 42nd Street Moon
Theatre to Sail Away on the
oh-so-fun-and-funny S.S. Coronia, a
boat full of quirky Americans (and a couple of fuddy-duddy Brits); a
happy-go-lucky captain’s crew; and one saluting, brassy, snappy-happy Cruise
Director. Oh, and behind all those wide
smiles, quick answers, and down-to-the-minute tours, she is divorced; a failed
actress (“I retired from the stage due to popular demand”); and bored with her
life of shuffleboard, Bingo, and picky tourists (and especially with snotty,
precocious kids). With a witty book,
tongue-twisting lyrics, and both gorgeous and top-tapping music, Sail Away is the last musical by the
great and prolific Noel Coward where he created all three elements. A bit like a stage version of T.V.’s Love Boat, there
is nothing serious or deep about this Coward gem but a lot to sit back and
enjoy as the 42nd Street Moon cast sing, dance, and joke away for a
fast-paced two hours, twenty-five minutes.
Allison F. Rich is the red-haired, high-strung Mimi
Paragon, the cruise “hostess with the mostest,” who commands full attention
with darting eyes as big as silver dollars and long-fingered hands always in
motion to match her non-stop, announcer-like voice. She saddles up to each passenger with gooey
niceness, hilariously showing her true feelings of mild disgust whenever their
backs are turned. (“It feels like I have spent my entire life in a super
market,” she bemoans.) All goes
according to her own plan until a tall, handsome guy (several years her
late-30s junior) starts coming on like gangbusters to conquer her heart. Ms. Rich brings a strong singing voice that
can belt in time to her wildly funny gestures; can rattle off Coward’s crazy lyrics
with ease and sparkle; and then can settle into a moving, reflective mood in
tones both smooth and romantic.
The tall, tanned Lucas Coleman is her pursuing
Johnny Van Mier, who must overcome both Mimi’s reluctance to get too involved
in a cruise-fling as well as his hovering, over-protective mother’s disapproval
(the haughty but silly Evelyn Van Mier played by Lucinda Hitchcock Cone). Mr. Coleman makes many of the right moves to
convince us and eventually Mimi that his Johnny is the real thing, and he gets
many chances to shine in solos opining about his love and determination. While his tenor voice has the needed power
and a crisp edge that at times works, there is an overall nasal quality and a
difficulty in delivering soft passages with tonal clarity that keep his
performance from reaching the full potential of what Coward provides him.
But Mimi and Johnny are not the only couple in
the making aboard the Coronia. Nathaniel
Rothrock and Khalia Davis come close to stealing the show as Barnaby Slade and
Nancy Foyle. He, like Johnny, sets his eyes
early on the woman he wants and goes after her with full gusto, while she is
more interested at first in flinging her barely twenty-year-old self onto any
ship’s uniformed crew who will give her a second look. Individually, both of these actors are good;
but put in a scene together, they alone fill the entire stage with electric
energy, sense of great mutual timing in varied dance routines, and ability to
play off each other’s every move and look. In both song and dance, they sparkle and spin
in a winning combination.
This boat is full of the peculiar, not the least
of which is the Keats and Shelley spouting, always-dramatic,
looking-for-attention author of romantic novels, Elinor Spencer-Bollard
(Nancy’s god-mother and ticket to this cruise).
Darlene Popovic is a stitch as she rattles off in dictation to Nancy as
if on stage (which of course she is) her latest, steamy story soon due to her
publisher and adoring public. Others
roam the ship decks like the never-still, always-finding-trouble youngster
Alvin Lush (played to a ‘t’ with gleeful gusto by 11-year-old Jordan Martin)
and his chasing-after-him and quick-to-spoil mom Mrs. Lush (Ashley
Garlick). Michael Patrick Gaffney is a
nose-upturned British senior (Sir Gerald Nutley) who hates loud children (and
will gladly poke them with his cane) almost as much as he does anyone and
anything American and who grumbles continuously about this awful cruise to his
equally aristocratic, but less demonstrative wife (Maria Mikheyenko as Lady
Millicent). Katherine Cooper is a
cackling, overly excitable Mamie Candijack whose timing is always just a bit
off in any conversation she seeks to enter, while her barely responsive,
bored-out-of-his-mind husband Edgar (Davern Wright) slinks along beside
her.
Steering all these merry folk through their
journey is a crew of four who sing with fun spirit and dance in a male chorus
line that “The Passenger’s Always Right,” adding in a ‘goddamned’ before the
word ‘passenger’ as the song progresses in verses. Returning as Moroccan merchants, this time
crooning with French accents about the (goddamned) customers, Andy Collins,
Stephen Vaught, Davern Wright, and Michael Patrick Gaffney (the latter two doubling
in parts) prove to be sure salesmen of song and silliness.
The small stage of the Eureka Theatre setting is
a challenge for a cast this size, but long-time Artistic Director Greg
MacKellan solves with no problem the comings and goings and interplays as he
directs the show. Brittany Danielle
pieces together snazzy choreography (especially hitting the mark with the Nancy
and Barnaby combos); and Jocelyn Leiser Herndon pulls out all stops in creating
an array of winning costumes. (Just how
many smartly fitting outfits does Mimi really wear?) And of course as always at 42nd
Street Moon, Dave Dobrusky is fleet with his flying fingers on the keyboard and
masterful in his direction of overall music.
Sail
Away is a 42nd Street journey full enough
of laughs and good sounds and sights to satisfy any stage musical lover’s dream
vacation to an evening of revival theatre.
Rating: 4 E’s
42nd Street Moon Theatre’s
season-opening Sail Away will
continue through November 15, 2015, at the Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson Street,
San Francisco. Tickets are available
online at http://www.42ndstmoon.org/sail-away
or by calling 415-255-8207.
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