Daddy Long Legs

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Daddy Long Legs

Davenport Theatre, NYC, October 2, 2015

Reviewed by Elizabeth Ahlfors for Cabaret Scenes

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Paul Alexander Nolan & Megan McGinnis
Photo: Jeremy Daniel

With the nostalgia of straw hats and high button shoes, Daddy Long Legs, based on Jean Webster’s 1912 novel, the addition of music enlivens the correspondence between a young, bright orphan and her secret benefactor. It is a engaging tale, appealingly performed at the intimate Davenport Theatre.

Bubbly Megan McGinnis plays 18-year-old Jerusha Abbott, the oldest orphan in New England’s John Grier Home. The spunky girl has plans for the future and the opportunity to fulfill them comes when the school hears from trustee John Smith that he will provide her with a college education. In return, the benefactor asks only that she send him regular letters about her life and studies. He does not, however, plan to answer them or ever meet her. Jerusha is frustrated by his secrecy, but grateful for his generosity. She imagines him as a rich, courtly, old gentleman, privately names him Daddy Long Legs and decides to address him as “Daddy.”

Actually, the man who is reading her letters is far younger than she thinks. Played by Paul Alexander Nolan, “Daddy” is actually Jervis Pendleton, a wealthy young man, shy and insecure in the area of romance.

Directed by its librettist, John Caird, with music and lyrics by Paul Gordon, Daddy Long Legs presents a cozy, feel-good aura over the small stage, but the creative forces here are Broadway quality. Caird and Gordon worked together in Jane Eyre, McGinnis appeared as Eponine in Les Misérables and Nolan recently played Pasha in Dr. Zhivago.

With minor bumps in the narrative, Caird directs at a fluid pace as Jerusha writes picturesque letters which are as expressive as Jerusha herself, brimming with details, urging “Daddy” to meet with her. With her mass of brown curls and wearing the Edwardian dresses David Farley designed for her, McGinnis, an expressive lyric soprano, is lovely in this role, singing as she writes, inviting her benefactor into her world.

Over five years, as Pendleton reads them, the two grow closer and Nolan’s emotional tenor matches his growing feelings for Jerusha, feelings he must keep private. In duets like “The Secret of Happiness,” their voices are balanced in harmony and phrasing. Led by orchestrator Brad Haak on keyboard, Craig Magnano on guitars and cellist Jeanette Stenson accompany, the mostly lilting tunes with rhyming lyrics echo their thoughts. If the score will not take its place in the lexicon of great theater music, the two characters are well rounded by the songs they sing.

Farley’s library setting shows two levels, the lower allows Jerusha space to stretch and develop from spunky adolescent to spirited and poised young woman who has acquired a progressive bent arguing for the rights for women. Pendleton remains on the slightly higher upper level, most of the time, with his bookshelves and desk. When he later yields to his temptations to meet Jerusha, he steps down to her space, which gives him room to show his natural well-meaning, but clumsy immature appeal.

There is a lot of old-fashioned charm here to be sure. Still, there are those unsettling moments of squirminess when we hear Jerusha addressing her benefactor “Daddy” as he secretly reads the letters as young Pendleton, not as elderly Daddy Long Legs.

Elizabeth Ahlfors

Born and raised in New York, Elizabeth graduated from NYU with a degree in Journalism. She has lived in various cities and countries and now is back in NYC. She has written magazine articles and published three books: A Housewife’s Guide to Women’s Liberation, Twelve American Women, and Heroines of ’76 (for children). A great love was always music and theater—in the audience, not performing. A Philadelphia correspondent for Theatre.com and InTheatre Magazine, she has reviewed theater and cabaret for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia City News. She writes for Cabaret Scenes and other cabaret/theater sites. She is a judge for Nightlife Awards and a voting member of Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle.