Minsky's

Mix Charles Strouse and Susan Birkenhead with most of the Drowsy Chaperone creative team and what do you get? A perfect soufflé of a musical, light and tuneful. Melody and rhyme can still be found in a Broadway-bound musical, which is debuting at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Originally set for an Ahmanson season ten years ago, the musical was sidelined due to the death of its original director, Mike Ockrent and any resurrection seemed to be further doomed by the death of its original librettist, Evan Hunter. A chance meeting between lyricist Birkenhead and Drowsy Chaperone choreographer Casey Nicholaw brought the musical back to life.

Minsky’s is a backstage story with predictable plot lines but librettist Bob Martin and director/choreographer Nicholaw bring to life an old fashioned musical with a touch so right that Drowsy Chaperone’s Man in Chair would rhapsodize lovingly about it. Billy Minsky (Christopher Fitzgerald) is fretting about dwindling audiences and dwindling finances while he is in the process of preparing a new show. He and gal Friday, Maisie, (Beth Leavel) smoothly drop in production numbers by having The Girls run through the big burlesque routines in the midst of the action.  Problems arrive in the person of Councilman Randolph Sumner (George Wendt) who is determined to close down what he regards as Minsky’s obscene show. Minsky has just met Sumner’s daughter, Mary (Katharine Leonard), however, and of course can’t reveal his true identity to her. When she eventually does find out who he is, she is determined to help her father close down the show. But true love intervenes and Mary herself, in her efforts to help Billy, ends up being the cause of the raid that closes Minsky’s.

The production numbers are a glorious mix of girls, colorful scanty costumes, imaginative sets, humorous themes and precision dances. An aptly titled “Tap Happy” serves as a rousing Act II opening number and a duet called “I Want a Life” by side characters Jason (John Cariani and Beula (Rachel Dratch) gets the show’s biggest laugh with the duo actually standing perfectly still and doing nothing. I won’t spoil the moment by alluding to the set-up for the laugh.

Christopher Fitzgerald easily handles the starring role as Minsky and Beth Leval adds punch to the proceedings whenever she appears. Katharine Leonard as Minsky’s love interest can’t quite match the vocal skills of Fitzgerald and the chemistry between them is a flicker, not a spark. Nicholaw’s direction and choreography along with Anna Louizos scenic design and Gregg Barnes’s costumes all add to the production’s magic.

(Photo: Katherine Leonard & Christopher Fitzgerald. Photo by Craig Schwartz)

Les Traub
Cabaret Scenes
January 31, 2009
www.cabaretscenes.org