Charles the Vapid

By T.E.K.

GOODTIME CHARLEY

Book by SIDNEY MICHAELS Music by LARRY GROSSMAN Lyrics by HAL HACKADY

If this musical runs long enough to generate word of mouth, the word is likely to be "blah." Not that Goodtime Charley is malignant; it is merely inane. It is not clear how the notion entered the producers' heads that the saga of Joan of Arc raising sword and soldiers to have the Dauphin crowned King of France (while she ultimately dies at the stake) had the makings of a musical comedy. At that crazed moment, they should have consulted an exorcist.

Charley is one of those torpid hybrids, cutesie Broadway vulgarity grafted onto the bones of history. Charley (Joel Grey), later to become Charles VII, is presented as an adolescent playboy too hot for the flesh ("I'm something else/ Unlocking chastity belts") to pursue the crown. Actually, Grey with his wistful, tot-like air acts as if he would be happier in a sandbox than a boudoir.

Joan (Ann Reinking) comes on like a female Vince Lombardi who feels she can psych Charley into a zest for winning. She sings pep talks at him like To Make the Boy a Man and I Am Going to Love (the Man You're Going to Be). But somehow he never seems to become quite the man that she is. She dominates the action, partly because playgoers cannot really forget Shaw's Saint Joan, though nothing, unfortunately, has been borrowed from G.B.S.

Both Reinking and Grey perform feats of theatrical valor, but their talents are wasted. Grey is given only one dance, which he executes with goat-footed guile, while Reinking courses across the stage like a thoroughbred in the stretch. The music races toward oblivion rather than anyone's ears. Rouben Ter-Arutunian's majestic scenery features a columned, rotunda-like set with a cascade of steps. This forces Onna White to choreograph dances in which the chorus troops trippingly, and repeatedly, up and down.

Subliminally, it all reminds one of those '30s and '40s movies in which Hollywood tried to convey its impression of what a Broadway musical was like. Sadly, Goodtime Charley is not what a good Broadway musical is now like. sbT.E.K.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.