Crazy For You
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Last week my mother, Nicole, and I went up to the Maine State Music Theatre to see the preview night of their new show “Crazy For You”. As always, I loved what I saw at MSMT. Now the first thing that will get said to me by anyone who was also there was that the Technical aspects were a mess. Yes, this is true, but there were a lot of them, and preview is not opening, it’s essentially dress rehearsal people pay to come see. The tech issues happened, the show moved on, from what I hear from other people who have seen the show since, they have worked out most if not all of the kinks, and I still enjoyed myself despite them.
Tony Yazbeck is a god. That’s really all there is to it, he takes the show, makes it his own, and truly shines on this stage. As Bobby Child/imitation Bela Zangler is hilarious, fun, and boy can the guy dance! His real-life fiancée Jessica Lee Goldyn plays the romantic lead Polly Baker. Together they take the show under their wing and guide it through a night of singing, dancing, hilarity, and Gershwin music! Oh did I mention that they were Al and Val respectively in the broadway revival of A Chorus Line? In other words, they’re pretty freaking good.
The show revolves around Bobby, a wannabe dancer who just can’t cut it with bigshot theater owner Bela Zangler (played hilariously by last year’s Jean Valjean: Dennis St. Pierre) who decides to give up his dream and work for his mother (played by Frog and Toad director Connie Shafer!) at the family bank. He’s sent to Deadrock Nevada to help foreclose on a theater which can’t pay it’s mortgage. It just so happens that the owner of the theatre has a daughter Polly (Goldyn) and Bobby Child happens to fall in love with her. [This is the point where most people who don't like Musical Theatre for its hokey plots roll their eyes, I personally love it.] He tries to help her restore the theatre and put on a show to raise the money, but when she finds out he’s with the bank she slaps him and sends him packing. So what do you do when the girl you like hates your very existence? You get a new one, one that happens to be a bigshot New York City dancer. Bobby Child dresses up as Bela Zangler and sets a whole show to help raise the money. I’d like to point out by this time in the show there have been two or three unbelievable dance numbers which took my breath away. Of course the real Bela Zangler shows up in town and the whole plan is shot (but only after the funniest number in the show where Bobby [dressed as Zangler] and Zangler get throughly smashed together and sing about women while mirroring each other’s movements. You can bet where the show goes from here, Bobby tries to help the theatre, Bela tries to win the dance captain of his dance troupe, the owner of the bar/hotel next door (Lank Hawkins played by David Hess) tries to shut down this show so he can buy the land the theater stands on, and two travel guide writers show up to do a spot on the town of Deadrock Nevada. The plot of the story isn’t what makes this show what it is. This show is driven by Tony Yazbeck, Dennis St. Pierre, and the unbelievable dance numbers. That being said, every performance in the show is a winner; I especially like the return of MSMT favorite John-Charles Kelly as Eugene Fodor and Debra Cardona (the amazing woman who played the Italian Mother in Light in the Piazza earlier this season) as Patricia Fodor; the married travel-guide writers.
I said I would mention the tech issues earlier so I will, but again it was at preview night. My friend saw it on friday night and said that the only issues he heard/saw were a couple microphone volume and placement issues, the rest was without hitches. There were microphone problems all over the place, specifically of the kind that meant the board operator was leaving the mics on when people weren’t onstage. I heard a lot of conversations/warming up in the green room through other people’s numbers. The spirit gum used to hold Yazbeck’s fake mustache/beard on was not working, not his fault or anyone else’s because that’s just one of those things. When the piano music is playing and Bobby says “what’s that?” and Lank responds with something along the lines of “the damned thing won’t stop playing”, well the piano wasn’t quite on stage yet. Which made it weird for the audience to watch. Beyond these things the only other major issue was that one of the dancers in the final number got caught in the curtain and ended up having to exit the stage and wasn’t even in the final number. My friend who saw it the other night did say that one very cool moment for Mr. Yazbeck was when he was reading the telegram, and the lights just went down and then came right back up. Without missing a beat Yazbeck announced “that was weird” and then continued the show as normal.
I will say this, go see the show if you love Musical Theatre. This is the stuff Musical Theatre was born out of, it’s light, it’s fun, it’s stupidly funny, and it’s got great music (Gershwin classics such as I Got Rhythm, Someone to Watch Over Me, Slap That Bass, and many more) and great dancing. I did like Light in the Piazza better. There I said it. But that show is gone, and this one is not, so see it! With performers like Yazbeck, St. Pierre, and Goldyn in the cast it is impossible not to enjoy yourself.
CRAZY FOR YOU runs Tuesday through Sunday at the Maine State Music Theater through July 11th with two shows on saturday. Tickets can be purchased online at www.msmt.org or by contacting their box office at (207) 725-8769.
