Me and Juliet

The one way to enjoy Me and Juliet is to forget Oklahoma, South Pacific, and The King and I. Certainly Rodgers and Hammerstein did, for their new musical is a leggy trifle, with an abundance of color and no significance. Hammerstein's characters in Me and Juliet seem cut from pasteboard to be maneuvered through a plot that's as corny as Kansas in August. But since the cast is talented and the staging fabulous, the show is a pleasant evening of lightweight entertainment.

For his settings and lighting, JoMielziner should be taking most of the bows at the final curtain. His cat walks and lighting bridges rise and lower, the entire stage shifts to the right to reveal the theatre wings, and his sets alternate between elaborate glamor and backstage authenticity. Because of his thoughtful staging, the confusing musical-within-a-musical plot is somewhat untangled.

The interior musical, also called "Me and Juliet," is a parody of all musical-comedy, with special pokes at Cole Porter and Frank Loesser. The plot of the main show, however, can only be a parody of Rodgers and Hammerstein-with all the unnatural villainies and pat romances which on occasion have plagued the team. This time, the action is so melodramatic and unreal that the audience cannot accept the characters as people.

But the book, together with the staging, does succeed in bringing the viewer backstage. Much of the humor comes from the audience's knowing that the orchestra leader hates the male singer and is attempting to drown him out, or that a lead dancer has lost his partner and is improvising wildly. Though this extreme in intimacy is the only innovation in Me and Juliet, it is a considerable one.

The cast itself has no flaws. Isabel Bigley is big and attractive in voice and frame as a chorus girl who renounces a brutish electrician for the assistant stage manager. As her suitors, Mark Dawson and Bill Hayes each have powerful stage voices but too little to do with them; the shifts between the backstage plot and the on stage musical are so frequent that none of the principals is seen often enough. This is especially true of Joan McCracken, pixie-faced little dancer whose number, "It's Me," is the show's comic high point. Helena Scott, Juliet in the sub-musical, has a fine, near operatic voice; and like all the leads, she projects each word of the lyrics distinctly.

This distinctness is not always an advantage, however. Oscar Hammerstein is one of the few top lyricists still rhyming "new moon" with "blue moon." And though his words are appropriate to the characters, they are not especially witty or unusual. Exceptions are "Keep It Gay" and "No Other, Love," both worthy of their composers. "No Other Love" would be even better if Rodger's melody did not sound so like Irving Berlin's "Something to Dance About." The only song actually bad is "The Big Black Giant," which liens theatre audiences to a large beast. A heavy, cumbersome tune coupled with a dubious simile in the lyric, it is the only dull spot in the entire performance.

With its bright, novel dances and costumes, its staging and cast, Me and Juliet deserves success. It's just hard to believe that it was written after South Pacific. ARTHUR J. LANGGUTH