Because The Baby Boomers were busy in their youth with sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll – and political concerns – they passed up the floor shows that nightclubs such as The Latin Quarter, Copacabana and Diamond Horseshoe routinely used to offer.
Although those boites are long-gone, if the now-aged Boomers feel they missed something, they have a second chance to see a showgirl-studded revue – minus the dinner charge and two-drink minimum – at Trip of Love.
James Walski, who “created, directed and choreographed,” states in the program that “There was a time when Broadway was filled with many revue-style shows.” So just as we assume that he wants to give us one, Walski adds that Trip of Love “follows a young girl and her dream after falling down the rabbit hole and taking a magic mushroom. The cast of characters and story is her creation in her dream.”
Well, you could have fooled me. Is that what’s going on at Stage 42?
When a director spends a paragraph explaining the story, he’s essentially admitting that what he’s put on stage isn’t clear. Walski also takes the easy way out, for there’s no simpler platform on which to build a show than “a dream.” Anyone who complains abiut the little logical sense in Trip of Love risks getting a response from Walski of half-closed-eyes, a look of annoyance, a shrug of the shoulders and a droning “It’s a dream, for God’s sake.”
He would have been better off just doing one number after another without any pretense of a story or – as the trendy word goes – arc. Probably Walski was afraid that if he didn’t attempt something ambitious, critics and the public would describe it with those two most dreaded words in entertainment.
Cruise Ship.
Well, we do have a lot of bare-chested men with khaki pants and slightly bra’d women in sheer tights, possibly to fool those not in the front rows that the performers have nothing on below the waist. All the exposed skin allows us to see that Walski was discerning enough not to hire anyone anachronistically tattooed.
Walski mixes choreography with enough calisthenics to save every dancer a few trips to the gym. He does borrow a little from Onna White’s “A Lot of Livin’ to Do” from the Bye Bye Birdie film and perhaps from Bob Fosse’s “Rich Man’s Frug” in his second-act opener “Let There Be Drums,” where the dancers look cold and unemotional the way Beautiful People often do. Of course we see The Twist, the godsend to Boomers who could do no other dance.
Austin Miller, Laurie Wells, Kelly Felthous, Tara Palsha, David Elder, Dionne Figgins and Peter all get character names in the program: Adam, Angela, Caroline, Crystal, George, Jennifer and Peter. But no performer ever calls another by name, so what’s the point?
At least the songs that Warski chose demonstrate that the average hit of the ‘60s and ‘70s was substantially better than the musical gruel we’re fed today. Trip of Love will make a terrific original cast album, what with everything from the Beatles (“I Saw Her Standing There”) to surfer music (“Wipe Out”) and an easy-listening Oscar-winner: “The Windmills of Your Mind.”
That last one dynamically opens the show thanks to Laurie Wells, whose solid voice is of the star-making quality. She looks like a younger, un-face-lifted Stockard Channing, but her stronger voice is what makes her Walski’s choice to start the 40-minute first act. Wells has a thoughtful way with a lyric, so when she later sings “Both Sides Now,” she coveys that she isn’t going to beat herself up for her inability to “know life at all.”
Note to all those painted bare-breasted women who are crowding Times Square: Trip to Love has a role for a topless woman, so you might want to keep tabs on when she’s moving on to a better job. (Of course there is the possibility that the musical won’t be around long enough for that to happen.)
Wells sings a galvanic “If You Go Away” while two men stand on platforms high above her and strip to their skivvies. Apparently they’re not going away. But no sooner do they reveal their tighty-whiteys than they start dressing again. Does this suggest they’ve just finished a “wham, bam than-you-ma’am” activity? Don’t waste too much brain-power on this question, for the answer clearly is that This Is Just a Dream.
As is almost always the case in shows like this, the situations don’t always fit the pre-existing lyrics. In the “Up, Up and Away” sequence, we see a couple getting married. Austin Miller as the groom sings to his blushing bride, “So if by chance you find yourself loving me.” Hey, if she doesn’t “by chance” love you on the day she agreed to marry you …
Palsha comes on and sings “You Don’t Own Me,” but she’s a grown woman who’s much too old to be singing “Don’t say I can’t go with other boys.” Walski has her singing while alone on stage, but finally Calveri does arrive – just as she’s leaving, which causes him to sing “What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted?” Seeing him sincerely devastated by her walking out puts us on his side, but should we be? Did he drive her crazy by wanting to own her? But you know dreams: lots of situations and few logical answers.
Elder goes a few inches over the top on “It’s Not Unusual.” The set-up for Figgins is that she’s singing “These Boots Are Made for Walking” as her audition song for a part in a new musical. Given how wonderfully she does by it, no wonder that she gets the part.
At least we see the money on stage. Smokey Joe’s Café made do with a unit set that looked not much more ornate than the back wall of the theater, but it didn’t stop the show from running nearly five years. Trip to Love instead offers first-rate production values above and beyond expectations.
When “The Girl from Ipanema” is sung (first in Portuguese and then in English) we have a backdrop of Rio that includes the statue of Jesus with his arms extended as if he’s a baseball umpire calling a runner “Safe!” When we segue into “Dance a Go Go,” the letters spelling out its name is arranged in a pyramid so as to evoke the logo of Hullabaloo, the NBC show that managed 48 episodes in 1965-66. The ‘60s were known for the then-brand new innovation – light shows – and Trip of Love becomes one courtesy of designer Tamotsu Harada’s excellent work.
“Downtown” means New York to Trip of Love, for as Felthous, Palsha and Figgins sing, we see elaborate signage of The Automat, Hotel Taft, Loew’s State, Howard Johnson’s and — the most recent casualty — Colony Records. In case you forgot or never knew what was on that monolith at the top part of Duffy Square during this time-frame, here’s the answer: Chevrolet, Canadian Club, Admiral Television Appliances and Castro Convertible in descending order.
While it is true that the Boomers had a great deal to say and protest during the ‘60s, a show called Trip of Love isn’t really obligated to include events involving The Vietnam War. So having most everyone sing “California Dreaming” in the midst of protest signs (“Draft Beer, Not Students”) reminds us unecessarily of much unhappier times. We see G.I.s pensively singing “Blowing in the Wind” as if they’re only now thinking of the questions they should have posed before they enlisted or were drafted. Any attempt at social relevance in “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” is undercut by Felthous’ singing the line “Gone to graveyards everywhere” while smiling oh- so-broadly.
Oh, well – as James Walski would tell us, “It’s just a dream.
