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| Ruth Pferdehirt in BLESS YOU ALL! A BROADWAY REVUE. Photo by Dixie Sherican |
Bless You All!, A
Broadway Revue with
sketches by Arnold Auerbach and music and lyrics by Harold Rome, originally
opened at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on Broadway to positive reviews in 1950 –
but that still didn’t prevent it from closing after only 84 performances. Now, after more than sixty years,
UnsungMusicalsCo. (UMC), is staging the show’s first ever revival off off
Broadway in a limited three-week engagement at The Connelly Theatre on East 4th
Street in downtown New York – including in it some new sketch material by
Herman Wouk.
This
revival does have a lot going for it. Some of its jazzy tunes are quite delightful;
the choreography is very impressive; and both the singing and the dancing are
memorable. I was especially impressed by
the long-legged, balletic Jennifer Lee Crowl, by Ruth Pferdehirt’s terrific rendition
of “Little Things” (which came close to being a show-stopper), and by Billie
Wildrick’s powerful and touching “You Never Know What Hit You.”
But
it wasn’t quite enough for me. The show’s
material was very uneven to begin with more than a half-century ago and,
despite the valiant efforts of Ben West, UMC’s Artistic Director, to
re-organize the show’s sketches, eliminating its weakest numbers and tacking on
the Wouk skit, it remains a very uneven production to this day. The comedy sketches, in particular – a send-up
of the snooty 21 Club, a vaudevillean slapstick pie-in-the-face routine, a caricaturish
mockery of presidential campaigning on television, and Wouk’s comedic depiction
of a corrupt judge on the lam, to name just four – were sophomoric at best and failed
Borscht Belt routines at worst.
So
here’s my bottom line: if you’re into nostalgic reminiscence of Broadway revues
of the 1940s and 1950s – including some fine song and dance – this revival of Bless You All!, A Broadway Revue might
just do it for you. But if your sights
are set somewhat higher than that, you may find yourself more disappointed than
delighted by this production.
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