Pre-golden age musical Pal Joey goes through the re-write ringer to become a Rodgers and Hart jukebox musical to mildly entertaining but forgettable overall effect.
You know you’re watching a dance show when the leading man gets dressed after a bedroom love scene and puts his tap shoes back on.
And you know a dance show is in trouble when the comic leads earn the most enthusiastic applause.
This time last year, venerable institution New York City Center, home of the iconic Encores! series, struck gold with their gala season of Parade, which transferred to Broadway and won the Best Revival of a Musical Tony Award. This year’s gala season is a splashy affair, close to fully staged and fully cast, and yet the material itself lets down the show, despite the amount of work that has clearly been expended.
Bowing on Broadway only three years before Oklahoma!, Pal Joey has long been known for a troubled book; not surprising given that book musicals were not quite invented at the time.
Based on the work of John O’Hara (in turn based on his own novel), the new book by Richard Lagravenese and Daniel “Koa” Beaty keeps the same Chicago nightclub setting and roughly the same time period, making the significant change to several lead roles, including Joey, as black characters. (The same conceit was already used last season with Some Like It Hot to more entertaining and impactful effect).
The City Centre Encores! 1995 cast recording of their Pal Joey is an all time gem, making the excising of several songs here a disappointment, not to mention the vastly reduced orchestrations, with a Big Band sound but played a by a not-very-big band. In place of the cut songs are multiple other Rodgers and Hart classics, primarily from The Boys from Syracuse and Babes in Arms (both also memorably recorded after their Encores! seasons).
The jukebox label is particularly apt given that so many of the songs are sung as performances by the night-club characters, ie not in any sort of characterful / storytelling context. Worse still, many songs are not just altered almost beyond recognition but are also frequently interrupted and cut. Only the occasional song that is allowed to really take flight lands with any value.
Joey Evans is a something of a cad, juggling romances to help himself get ahead as a nightclub entertainer. He cheats on sweet singer Linda with wealthy widow Vera Simpson, not that there is much of an impact to Linda discovering this. Mrs Simpson tries to constrain Joey to please high-paying white audiences but on the big night, surprise, surprise, he buckles and blows everything with a performance that is true to his own style.
Pal Joey is co-directed by Tony Goldwyn and tap legend Savion Glover, who also not only choreographs but also performs on stage as part of Joey’s shadowy Greek Chorus of tappers. Several dance sequences reach quite thrilling levels and yet only leave the lasting impression of watching a dance concert.
Triple threat Ephraim Sykes gives Joey his all, walking away with a very respectable lead performance.
Aisha Jackson charms in the completely underwritten role of Linda, soaring through cherished standards “Where or When” and “My Funny Valentine.”
Elizabeth Stanley plays Vera Simpson as just a little too modern and unencumbered by morals; she does, however, sing a meticulously calibrated rendition of Pal Joey’s most enduring hit “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” starting soft and low before building to a genuinely stirring climax.
Switched to a male performer, columnist Melvin Snyder provides Brooks Ashmanskas with choice cameo number “Zip,” in which he readily delights the audience.
Basically stealing the show is Broadway legend Loretta Devine, nailing every comic line and singing and dancing with her trademark lashings of infectious verve.
If this season is a bust, there is no telling when or if Pal Joey will see the stage again. At least the world still has the 1995 recording.
Pal Joey plays at New York City Center until 5 November 2023. For tickets, click here.
Photos: Joan Marcus