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Review: 'Showtune' at Hofstra

BY STEVE PARKS | steve.parks@newsday.com

January 18, 2008

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Back in the early '80s - about the time "La Cage aux Folles" was all the rage on Broadway - my wife-to-be and I attended a revue of Broadway's greatest hits in Miami Beach. Unbeknownst to us out-of-towners, the venue was a mecca for retirees. A bus brought in half the apres-dinner crowd en masse and we soon realized we were the youngest in the audience by three decades. In the middle of the second act a blue-haired lady stood up and said loud enough to be heard over the miked performers, "Oh my God, Cele, it's my favorite song!"

It was a Jerry Herman number from "Hello, Dolly!": "Before the Parade Passes By."

Cele's friend, if she were alive today, no doubt would love "Showtune," the 2003 Off-Broadway revue crisply directed by Hofstra Entertainment's Bob Spiotto. The production takes its name from the memoir by one of Broadway's most successfully square composer-lyricists, Jerry Herman. Thoroughly unhip, earnest and without an ironic bone in its musical body of work, "Showtune" will remind you of every 11 o'clock crescendo that ever thrilled you (or not).

The cast of seven, paired in boy-girl couplings, plus singing pianist/music director John Farrell, covers 39 of Herman's songs from eight of his shows cabaret-style, with minimalist props. Most poignantly represented is "Mack and Mabel," of which Herman writes in his memoir: "All the songs in the show are totally different in style and together they make the score into a bouquet of mixed colors that I think is my best work."

"M&M," ironically, was one of Herman's few flops. But it is well represented in "Showtune" with the realist's love song, "I Won't Send Roses," a wistful duet emoted by the mature couple of the ensemble, Lydia Gladstone and Michael Allen Gray.

Ryan Nolin wears a sight gag on his face as he sings "A Little More Mascara" from "La Cage aux Folles" while applying blush around his goatee. Next, he dons a white boa and tiara as he segues into "I Am What I Am" from the same show.

While Rori Nogee occasionally sounds strained on the straight songs, she makes a fine singing comedienne, delivering one of the evening's best musical-juxtaposition punch lines (I won't give it away by identifying the song that follows "It Only Takes a Moment," sweetly delivered by James Ryan Sloan).

Cheryl Galaga and Gladstone duel it out as Mame and Dolly, respectively, following up the requisite "Hello, Dolly!" title song with a new meaning to the "Bosom Buddies" number from "Mame." (Mame to Dolly, regarding the latter's age: "You're somewhere between 40 and death.")

Though the first act is somewhat laconic, the grouping of songs following intermission strikes a deft comic note, leading inevitably to the big crescendo finish. Well, it is a Jerry Herman revue after all. And if that's your kind of thing, it's "The Best of Times" - whether you're into cross-dressing or not.

SHOWTUNE. A Jerry Herman revue. Hofstra Entertainment at Monroe Hall, Hofstra University, Hempstead. Tickets $25, 516-463-6644. Seen last Friday.

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