George M! is quite a trip, back to a time when entertainers were bigger than life, and flag-waving patriotism set off applause as easily as puppies and cute babies prompt aaahs. Broadway entertainer and eventual impresario George M. Cohan was born in Providence in 1878. Though he joined a vaudeville family while it was on the road, there might be some local loyalty in Theatre by the Sea audiences (through July 12).
This ultimate backstage Broadway musical hit the Big White Way in 1968, with book by Michael Stewart and John and Francine Pascal. It’s a two-hour celebration of the music and lyrics of the ambitious kid who came to be known as “the man who owned Broadway.” Directed here by Amiee Turner, it’s energized by a nine-piece orchestra directed by Aaron McAllister.
The show might as well be called Charisma!, focused as it is on a never-say-die personality who was fueled by excitable charm as well as talent. The captivating Joel Grey (the emcee in Cabaret) cre-ated the role on Broadway, having to compete with memories of the irrepressible James Cagney playing Cohan in the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy.
So there was a drumroll of suspense when George M! was announced for this season in Matunuck. Who’d be the beaming hoofer with the nerve to take on that competition? Well, Theater by the Sea didn’t have to go far, choosing its own managing producer Joel Kipper. Wait — don’t go! This is by no stretch of the definition a vanity production. Kipper is terrific. He’s an Equity actor who elsewhere has played Ritchie Valens in The Buddy Holly Story and Mike (“I Can Do That”) in A Chorus Line. And as a hoofer, I suspect he could keep up with Fred Astaire, even in high heels and dancing backwards.
Be forewarned. This is a show for musical-lovers rather than theatergoers. Like many a stage biography, and worse than most, George M! is terrible at its storytelling and character development, instead us-ing its time to dazzle and distract us with maximum song and dance.
Things start out on a backstage set, as the audience is addressed and told a bit about the peripatetic Cohans. Scenic designer Ray Recht provides plenty of drops, all topped with proscenium arches, depicting their frequently changing locations. The story spends the most time on George’s early and middle career. First he was a precocious little boy in the Four Cohans, with his older sister Josie (Kris-ten Quartarone), his mother Nellie (Jane Labanz), and his father Jerry (Bob Freschi). George later says that he was pushed out on the stage with a violin at age 3, and he never wanted anything more in life. We get a sense of why that is when he takes charge of the family business as a teenager, dealing with producers because he has the strongest personality. Later, his relationships with his two wives (Morgan Rose and Molly Marie Walsh) are minimally sketched.
Just about all of the performances hit their marks, but Kipper also throws in the bonus — overlooked in many musicals — of good acting. From an early moment, when George responds in annoyance to a pedestrian who yanks him away, to later scenes of conflict with George’s parents, we get actual, real live feelings, under director Turner. (But what’s with that transition-less leap from George upset over hearing that his father died to belting out his string of patriotic songs? A segue, somebody?)
