Why would an organization like the American Dance Machine settle on a moniker including the word “machine”? Why the suggestion that its productions are in some manner mechanical? The answers to the bemused questions are offered in Gotta Dance!, now at The York.
What’s on hand are 17 celebrated stage and film dances choreographed by some of the best men and women in the field: in alphabetical order, Bob Avian and Michael Bennett, Stanley Donen, Bob Fosse, Gene Kelly, Jerome Robbins, Randy Skinner, Susan Stroman, Lynn Taylor-Corbett, and Christopher Wheeldon.
More precisely, what’s offered—with only a few exceptions—are mild facsimiles of the original numbers. Yes, the numbers are mounted but for the most part, as staged, they lack the élan, the electricity, the ebullient personality with which the original creators and, of course, the original dancers infused them. (The only original choreographer working here is Randy Skinner.)
To give what are unfortunately pertinent instances, there are the paired opening pieces, “Broadway Rhythm,” Skinner arranging and choreographing, and “Broadway Melody” from Singin’ in the Rain, Kelly and Donen the choreographers. For both, Kelly was the focal onscreen figure.
That’s Gene Kelly we’re talking about. Replacing him for the opening interlude is the perfectly fine Jesse LeProtto, who, however, is not Kelly. In this presentation he radiates none of Kelly’s smilingly piercing charisma. Perhaps he has his own version but has been requested to restrain it for the occasion. Whatever or whichever, what’s on display from him is neither Kelly or his own personality and is, as a result, merely bland.
Making matters less for the Gotta Dance! get-go is that LeProtto (possibly the busiest performer during the two-act 90-minutes) is followed by Jessica Lee Goldyn. She’s been assigned to sing and dance “I’m a Brass Band” from Sweet Charity, which was introduced, of course, by Gwen Verdon. Goldyn, like LeProtto and the other ensemble members, is proficient, as staged by Stephanie Pope, but she hasn’t been endowed with Verdon’s appealing vulnerability or her intrinsically sly attitude towards life’s sillinesses.
(Perhaps this is the place to suggest that younger ticket buyers unfamiliar with Kelly, Verdon, and their peers—spectators with no comparisons from an earlier golden period—will have a grand time watching this mechanized, though not totally homogenized entertainment.)
There are exceptions to the overriding Gotta Dance! flatness. (Really? If you gotta dance, couldn’t you do it with a bit more oomph!?) They don’t, however, include the uncool redo of the West Side Story “Cool,”staged, more or mostly less, by Robert La Fosse. They do include the outstanding reconstruction of “The Music and the Mirror,” from A Chorus Line, in which Cassie (a role originated by Donna McKechnie) entreats Zach to give her a chorus job he thinks is beneath her. Here’s Goldyn again, this time transformed into a ‘star needing work’—and, more to the point, she’s been staged by the absolute right person, McKechnie herself. Maybe the always generous McKechnie encouraged Goldyn to make the number her own; maybe she didn’t. All the same, Goldyn does make it her own, dancing and singing the complex Bennett-Avian moves (and the urgent Marvin Hasmlisch music and Ed Kleban lyrics) with desperate passion.
A second stand-out is Bob Fosse’s knowingly menacing “Manson Trio” from Pippin, as recreated by Pamela Sousa on Taylor Stanley, Afra Hines, and Georgina Pazcoguin. Worth a special mention is Paloma Garcia-Lee, who takes on Cyd Charisse’s threatening allure in “Broadway Melody.”
Gotta Dance! ends, as possibly it must, with “One,” the paradoxically named A Chorus Line closing, where the entire troupe appears jubilantly, at first singly until finally comprising a full chorus line. There is an irony here, maybe needless to say, due to the musical’s intention to differentiate the unique attributes of stars from the honored proficiency of chorus members.
Along those, uh, lines, the cast includes—all deserving mention—Brandon Burks, Anthony Cannarella, Barton Cowperthwaite, Deanna Doyle, Kendall LeShanti, Drew Minard, Samantha Siegel, and Blake Zelesnikar.
Conceived by Nikki Fiert Atkins and co-directed by Atkins and Skinner, the production has a smart look. Those contributing to it are projection designer Brian C. Staton, costumer Marlene Olson Hamm, lighting designer Ken Billington (how many of the originals might he have designed?), and music director-conductor Eugene Gwozdz. An extra tip of the hat to Hamm for reviving William Ivey Long’s yellow dress from Contact, probably the most famous costume of the 2000 season.
Possibly, the overall Gotta Dance! solution is following McKechnie’s seeming lead: encouraging the dancers to take charge of the numbers not as stand-ins for the originals but as their individually stylish selves. Just sayin’.
Gotta Dance! opened December 3, 2023, at the Theatre at St. Jeans runs through December 28. Tickets and information: yorktheatre.org
