Chasing the blues away

When I was a kid, I had to listen to my father, a displaced New Yorker if there ever was one, drone on about Broadway, effervescent Broadway, magical Broadway, big time Broadway. Those were the days, he would say, when a show was a show. When actors could sing and dance and act, all at the same time. When lyricists had wit. When composers had rhythm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'd think. Then I'd start in on the Parent Modernization Program. "Broadway's a pit," I would say, cranking up the volume on a Dylan record. "Besides, these days, music isn't about wit and rhythm, It's about messages. It's about chords.

OK, so he was right. But hey, these conversations took place before I saw TheatreWorks' production of "The World Goes 'Round," which opened last weekend at Lucie Stern.

In this joyous, rousing production, the actors not only can sing, dance and act, they can roller skate. Furthermore, the lyricist not only has wit, he has messages galore, all swathed in an affectionate tolerance for human foibles. And the composer, well, let's just say he knows more about music than a few chords.

The plot of "The World Goes 'Round" can be summed in six words: 30 songs by Kander and Ebb.

Like Rogers and Hammerstein and Lerner and Loewe, the composer-songwriting team of Kander and Ebb is always referred to by their last names, although they do have first ones--Michael (Kander) and Fred (Ebb). The two have collaborated since 1963, when they wrote "My Coloring Book" for Barbra Streisand, who has laid her stamp upon the song for all time.

By now, however, even people who have had their brains wired to Nirvana know at least a few of Kander and Ebb's songs. Like "Money, Money" from "Cabaret" (or anything from "Cabaret" for that matter), "How Lucky Can You Get" from "Funny Girl," and "Kiss of the Spider Woman" from the play of the same name.

But the pleasure of this knockout revue comes as much from the lesser-known songs as from the well-known ones. The production numbers run the gamut of musical styles and human emotions, from the hilarious "Sara Lee," an ode to America's frozen pastry goddess, to the heart-breaking "Maybe This Time."

Several of the lesser-known songs had the audience shamelessly hollering and stamping like football fans, among them "Class," a song about two boorish ladies lamenting the demise of manners while passing wind, and "The Grass is Always Greener," a duet about a housewife and a famous actress who find more things to admire in each other than themselves.

There's not a weak singer-performer in the cast, and each has grand moments at center stage. Part of the reason this revue succeeds so well is that each performer's moment at stage center so perfectly suits his or her voice, age, body type and personality.

The smoky ballads go to "Beach Blanket Babylon" veteran Meg Macaky, who has the sophistication and presence to silence a room full of seventh-graders. The comic turns belong to Carl Danielsen, an all-purpose song and dance man who can make himself into a buck-toothed goofball or a dandy at the turn of a top hat. Handsome Scott Grinthal plays the perfect stud in "Arthur in the Afternoon," but really delivers on the melancholic love songs.

Nineteen-year-old Liana Young is the only non-Equity actor in the production. But if anyone can hold her own with seasoned veterans, it is Young. With a voice that carries to Tucson and an Elasto-face, Young conveys an emotional range well beyond her years. Mark my words, in a few years, we will all be saying we watched her when.

The show's naughty razzle-dazzle falls to Riette Burdick. With legs longer than most people's bodies, Burdick vamps her way through "All That Jazz" and "Arthur in the Afternoon" like Marlene Dietrich--if Deitrich only had had a sense of humor about her smoldering sex appeal.

Of course, Burdick's long legs do create their moments of tension. When she and Danielson dance a Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers-style number in "When It All Comes True," the comparatively small Lucie Stern stage doesn't seem large enough to accommodate her sprawling jetes. At one point, I put my hand over my eyes so I wouldn't have to watch the crash (it never came). Apparently director-choreographer Bick Goss can gauge these things better than I can.

At bottom, "The World Goes ''Round" isn't much more than a string of show tunes and production numbers, jazzed up with a few of the oldest stage tricks in the world. But by the time the house lights come up at the end of a show, the audience is exulting in the same high that is clearly being experienced by the cast.

The reason is clear: the play is bursting with the kind of energy, sparkle and sweat that can never be reproduced on the big screen, the small screen or the virtual reality screen. It's the kind of sparkle and sweat my dad probably had in mind when he lapsed into one of his Broadway lectures.

So make your parents happy. Heck, make yourself happy. Go see "The World Goes 'Round." Twice.