By Eric Marchese Special to the Register
S'Millie captures Jazz Age spirit
Long Beach revival of the Tony-winning musical is glorious song-and-dance soufflé

Anyone remember "Thoroughly Modern Millie"? The path the 1967 movie musical took to becoming a stage musical is crazier than a flapper doing the Charleston, beginning with film producer Ross Hunter's signing Julie Andrews to star in the film and ending 33 years later with a smash-hit out-of-town tryout at the La Jolla Playhouse. In 2002, after many delays, "Millie" finally made it to Broadway, snagging dozens of Drama Desk and Tony Award nominations and, at the Tonys, six awards, including best musical.

Consider yourselves fortunate if you're in a position to catch Musical Theatre West's new production. While it's clear that "Millie" isn't the greatest musical ever written, it's also clear, through Troy Magino's staging at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center, that "Millie" is a lighthearted lark with the genuine flavor of the Jazz Age and a heart as big as Manhattan. That fabled town is where Millie Dillmount (Kate Fahrner) alights after leaving Salina, Kan., in 1922. Her goal: to transform herself into a "thoroughly modern" (read: flapper) girl who finds a wealthy tycoon and, in "modern" fashion, marries him for convenience, not love.

Of course, no audience could warm to a cold gold digger - and, of course, the libretto by Richard Morris (who wrote the original screenplay) and Dick Scanlan teaches her that lesson while embroiling Millie and her new pal, heiress Dorothy Brown, in a white slavery ring run by a trio of (who else?) Chinese immigrants.

As one would expect, that latter element is given a political-course correction. The ring's head is made into a failed American actress, Daisy Crumpler, who poses as "Mrs. Meers," a Chinese matron running a seedy hotel for would-be starlets, while her two henchmen, a pair of Chinese brothers, are given hearts of gold.

While the last portion of "Millie" bogs down in this subplot's silliness, the rest of the show is a positively glorious soufflé of romance, light comedy and a score of two songs from the film (including the title number by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen), nine all-new songs by Scanlan and composer Jeanine Tesori and four standards from the 1920s.

The jazzy score keeps "Millie" humming, with plenty of big song-and-dance numbers balanced by solos. The song scenes, music-directed by Dennis Castellano and choreographed by Magino, capture the verve and spirit associated with the Roaring '20s. The expansive title number expresses the essence of the show's philosophy: That "modern" (new) '20s customs equal tolerance and freedom, which equal exciting possibilities. As a den of iniquity, the speak-easy scene roars with energy, morphing from a syncopated treatment of "The Nutcracker Suite" into a sultry, sinewy dance number, then a wild party, while the steno pool tap-dance number delivers high hilarity.

Magino and Castellano have all the horses they need, and then some, to deliver a Broadway-style "Millie," beginning with a versatile, dynamite ensemble of seven men, nine women. Fahrner's Millie is enchanting in a lighthearted way - wholesome and winning, yet with a sassy edge, a plucky heroine in a new world. Her solid comic timing helps, too. With a mellifluous tenor, Kurt Robbins' Jimmy Smith, Millie's on-again, off-again beau, isn't your conventional leading man. He's more an average Joe who, like Millie, can live by his wits. The pair's graceful pas de deux on a skyscraper ledge is outright sweet.

As famous, monied jazz singer Muzzy Von Hossmere, Reva Rice combines touches of Eartha Kitt with urban sass and quiet wisdom. Cynthia Ferrer gives Rosalind Russell-style pizazz to her Mrs. Meers, gleeful in her evil deeds, contemptuous of her young tenants for their lack of the thespian talents she's sure she has in spades.

Jill Townsend's Dorothy provides Millie a loyal pal from the high-society side of the tracks. She's well matched with Robert J. Townsend's buttoned-down Mr. Graydon, the attractive steno pool boss Millie loves, but who loves Dorothy. Unlike the turmoil of Millie and Jimmy's affair, theirs is lightly campy, zinging the conventions of movie romance. Daniel May and Arthur Kwan speak Chinese throughout, with English supertitles, the highlight being their rendition of "Muquin" (Donaldson, Lewis and Young's famed "My Mammy"), while Kami Seymour has a Jim Carrey zaniness, her Miss Flannery looking like something out of Dr. Seuss.

The sleek, streamlined art deco sets, by Music Theatre of Wichita, and the costumes, by Theatrical Costume Management, create a feel-good jazz-era vibe that bolsters the material. .

10/30/2006

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