Love at Work Risky Game in "Pajama"

by James Scarborough

Gazette Newspapers

Sassy and full of “I know that one!” songs, “The Pajama Game,” directed by Steven Glaudini, with musical direction by Daniel Thomas, at the Carpenter Center for Musical Theatre West, gives new meaning to labor sleeping with management.

Written by George Abbott and Richard Bissell, with music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, the story uses labor negotiations to talk about love.

The musical opens with strike talk at the Sleep-Tite Pajama Factory. The union wants a 7-1/2 cents an hour wage increase. Boss Mr. Hasler (Nils Anderson) balks. Though on opposite sides of the dispute, factory superintendent Sid Sorokin (the shy but loveable Paul Dean) and union rep Babe Williams (Darcie Roberts) fall in love.

Though things heat up slightly between them during the wonderfully staged picnic for the factory workers, they cool down when they return to the factory where Babe, supporting a go-slow movement in the factory, destroys a machine and gets fired by Sid.

Meanwhile Hines (the delightful Nick Degruccio), the factory’s efficiency expert, has fallen in love with Gladys (Terra C. Macleod), the President’s secretary. Though now estranged from Babe, Sid realizes that labor-wise she is right. He takes Gladys to Hernando’s Hideaway to pump her for information.

He gets hold of the company’s books and discovers that Hasler had been adding 7-1/2 cents to the price of pajamas all along anyway. Sid gets Hasler to consent to the raise, thus solving his work- and his love-problem in one fell swoop. They all go to celebrate at the wonderfully-conceived Hernando’s Hideaway.

Face it, this is a story about sex. Men meet women, women flirt back, there are references to steam and pajamas, there’s love found, lost and re-found. Glaudini wants to titillate us with the foreplay energy that comes out of the workplace meeting of Hes and Shes. He does so with panache and brio. The dance numbers are fabulous, especially the magnificent “Steam Heat” and the wonderful “Hernando’s Hideaway.”

Better chemistry you’ll never see between Roberts and Dean. Like well-oiled pieces of a machine, they sizzled in their dance numbers. Likewise with Degruccio and Macleod.

With the exception of the slow-mo dancing in the slow-down protest, choreographer John Vaughan’s made the dancing fast and furious. It was a perfect way to describe life in a factory in which energy and, especially, passion, were the keywords. J. Branson’s sets gave the stage the look of a ’50s “Happy Days” soda shop while Todd K. Proto’s costumes made the place look like a sock hop.

It makes you long for a world in which things were as simple as falling in love at work and not having to worry about violating that anti-fraternization agreement you signed on your first day.

Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, 2 p.m. matinees Saturday and Sunday, and 7 p.m. Sunday. The show runs until Nov. 18.

Tickets are $25-$53. The Carpenter Center is at 6200 E. Atherton St., on the California State University, Long Beach, campus.

For more information call 856-1999, ext. 4. or visit www.musical.org.