On the Town

To the classic nouns of assemblage--"a gaggle of geese," "a pride of lions"--the English man of words Eric Partridge once added some modern variants--"a column of journalists," "a suavity of diplomats." In terms like these, one formula for a successful musical is a hum of songs and a garter of chorus girls. Winthrop House has combined Leonard Bernstein with Radcliffe, and On the Town results.

Bernstein and his collaborators (book and lyrics by Comden and Green) provided a solid script and score on the standard boy-meets-looses-regains-girl line. Winthrop and the 'Cliffe successfully keep the tunes moving and the legs flashing, with the gaiety and the girls only occasionally sagging.

The boys in On the Town are sailors in New York for a twenty-four hour leave, and the girl is Miss Turnstiles for the month. One tar wants to date the subway queen after seeing her picture on a poster, and the show takes off from there.

Frances Blakeslee's Hildy provides the best moments of the frenzied dash around the city which follows. A female cabby who run her man down, Miss Blakeslee extracts every heaping tablespoon of suggestiveness from "I Can Cook Too," and fills her role with splendidly wrought bits. Miss Turnstiles (Mary Ellen Klee) suffers from one of the handicaps of the boy-loses-girl gambit: she's lost for most of the second act. It's a shame, too, as she is a superb a dancer with a pleasant (if small) voice.

The Navy is around all the time, however, and must keep the evening moving. The three principal sailors are all good enough to make the show entertaining; not one of them has the spark that could have made it spectacularly memorable.

William Jacobson's direction shows that he knows his business. Ditto for John Dudley's musical direction and Christina Wilhelm's choreography. But something--perhaps opening night jitters--seemed to throw every-one off a bit. The girls grind grandly but they never quite bump with the orchestra's beat; a group of swaying subway riders slowly splits into two groups swaying in opposite directions--and not even a BMT car can produce that effect.

But these are minor matters. On the Town remains a fun show, and if it takes just a bit more trouble with details and peps up its male leads a little, it may even become zymotic. And that, clearly, is the last word.