The devil himself, in the form of a human male, transforms a tired old geezer into a paragon of youth, vigor, and beauty, promising to make all his dreams come true in return for eternal possession of his soul.
This may sounds like the plot description of a new soft-core porn TV series from the people who brought you "Dante's Cove" and "The Lair," but it's actually the set-up of the age-old "Faust" legend. That legend has inspired countless works of art - including the 1955 musical, Damn Yankees, which may now be seen in an imperfect yet thoroughly entertaining, limited-run revival at New York City Center.
With a buoyant score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, and a conventional but solid book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop (based on Wallop's wittily titled novel, "The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant"), old-favorite Damn Yankees tells the tale of rabid Washington Senators fan Joe Boyd, who sets the plot in motion when he rashly states that he'd sell his soul to help the Senators trounce the Bronx Bombers.
Complete with signature choreography by the great Bob Fosse, reproduced at City Center by Mary MacLeod, it's a fun show with surprising emotional resonance - which is exactly why it's so beloved.
The casting of this revival is almost completely beyond reproach. Sean Hayes, who won an Emmy and four Screen Actors Guild awards for his work as the fabulously flamboyant Jack McFarland on "Will and Grace," is perfection in the much more subtle role of Mr. Applegate (i.e., Satan). He holds the City Center audience in the palm of his hand with his expert comic timing and his sure sense of just when to hold back and when to let loose, this despite the fact that his stage experience is very limited. (Well, Will and Grace was filmed before a live audience, so it wasn't all that different from theater except for the starting and stopping.)
To my knowledge, Jane Krakowski has not previously had an opportunity to fully show off the dancing talent she so thrillingly displays as Applegate's secret weapon, Lola, a role that was created on stage and re-created on film by the legendary Gwen Verdon. Krakowski is also utterly winning here as both an actress and singer, and she looks like at least 10 million bucks - especially when wearing black scanties in the classic seduction number "Whatever Lola Wants."
Then there's Cheyenne Jackson as Joe Hardy, the young, virile, post-transformation version of Joe Boyd. Apparently, Jackson wasn't first choice for the part, but it's doubtful anyone could have been much better in it. His laid back sex appeal and low-key sense of humor serve him in great stead; his bari-tenor voice sounds beautiful in the ballads, "A Man Doesn't Know" and "Near to You"; and, as another reviewer noted, this may be the first production of Damn Yankees in which the hunk playing Joe Hardy receives more audience whoops and whistles for his hot bod than the knockout playing Lola. (I guess that says as much about the audience as it does about Jackson!)
Randy Graff is all anyone could ask for in the tricky role of Joe's wife, Meg. A woman whose husband abruptly leaves her with no real explanation and who takes him back months later with no questions asked, Meg can seem like something of a dishrag if not well played, but in Graff's hands she's warm, witty and wise. P.J. Benjamin, who appeared with Graff decades ago in the notorious mega-flop musical Sarava, makes the most of his brief stage time as Joe Boyd.
Megan Lawrence is a brassy, belting, ball of fire when leading the big hoedown number, "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, MO," in the role of Gloria Thorpe, an aggressive sportswriter. Robert Creighton, Jimmy Smagula, and Jimmy Ray Bennett score big-time as the ball players who belt out the immortal anthem "Heart." And as Meg's friends Sister and Doris, Veanne Cox and Kathy Fitzgerald prove that great comic actors don't need to be cast in large roles in order to stop a show with roll-them-in-the-aisles hilarity.
Presumably, director John Rando is largely responsible for all this brilliant casting and thus deserves great praise for it, but his actual direction of the show is marred by erratic pacing and little sense of natural flow from scene to scene. For example: When Michael Mulheren, as Senators' coach Van Buren, tests one of his players on the meaning of hand signals, the sequence drags because the timing is off considerably. Though many of the scenes play beautifully, others are sabotaged by weird little pauses, as if Rando had attended the Arthur Laurents School of Directing. And the applause for "Two Lost Souls" is killed because this full-out production number ends not with a blackout on the musical button but, inexplicably, with a drop coming down in front of the dancers during the last few measures of the song.
Damn Yankees is being presented by City Center as part of the Encores! "Summer Stars" series, initiated last year with a production of Gypsy (directed by the aforementioned Laurents and starring Patti LuPone) that transferred to Broadway.
In terms of its design elements, particularly John Lee Beatty's scenery, the sophomore effort has more of a feel of a full production than the first. Several colorful drops help capture the authentic feel of a '50s musical, as do William Ivey Long's spot-on costumes (love those fire-engine-red socks on Applegate!)
As was the case with Gypsy, the 25-piece Damn Yankees orchestra takes full focus for the show's overture and entr'acte, otherwise remaining hidden or obscured upstage behind drops or scrims.
Expertly led by Rob Berman, the musicians have a high time with the infectious melodies and rhythms of the Adler-Ross score, but one can't help feeling that the orchestra would more effectively be placed in the pit for these full-production City Center shows.
On the other hand: The producers of recent revivals of classic musicals seem to feel it's justifiable to spend big bucks on large orchestras as long as the audience gets to see as well as hear where the money went. If that's the way it is - and if other high-end production values have to be eschewed in order to allow people to hear these scores the way they were meant to be heard, until someone figures out a way to give us both without charging $200 a ticket - then so be it.
For its most recent Broadway revival, Damn Yankees was damagingly rewritten and rearranged, so it's great to have the original version back on stage. That revival also suffered from Bebe Neuwirth's lack of warmth in the role of Lola, but there's no such problem here, given Krakowski's wonderfully engaging performance. If you can manage it, get to City Center by July 27, 2008 and catch this blast from the past.
