Rodgers' Newest: 'No Strings'

True to a tradition among Broadway musicals, No Strings has virtually no plot. But it does have words and music by Richard Rodgers, fine performances by Howard Keel and Barbara McNair in the lead roles, and a uniquely simple set designed by David Hays; these things are more than enough consolation for the show's plotlessness.

No Strings was a smash hit on Broadway (it closed only last Saturday), where it won the Antoinette Perry award for best musical of the year. Still, the Boston production is far superior to the New York one, thanks mostly to the new lead players. The male lead switched from Richard Kiley to Howard Keel, seasoned star of Oklahoma and Carousel, and the female lead, played by Diahann Carroll in the New York version, went to the equally beautiful but more bouyant Barbara McNair.

Samuel Taylor's rather sketchy book tells the story of David Jordon, a writer from "the rock-bound coast of Maine" and his love affair with Barbara Woodruff, the highest paid fashion model in Paris, and incidentally a Negro. David was once at the top of his profession (he had won a Pulitzer Prize for his last book eight years previously) and Barbara is at the top of hers. Europe has made Barbara what she is--in America she was just a poor girl from Harlem and George Washington High--but it has also drained David of his creative energy. Seduced by the social whirl of the Continent, he has degenerated into a "Europe-bum" who starts novels but never finishes them.

Barbara swirls captivatingly through the fashion world, and behind her Dior dresses trails David. The love affairs between the two is trite, yet touching: she gives up everything, including the wealthy "patron" for whom she serves as a decoration rather than a mistress, to run away with her lover. They sing beautiful duets together, but she cannot make him write.

Finally, after a last fling in Monte Carlo and St. Tropez, David is convinced that he must go home to Maine if he is ever to write again. Only then is the racial issue, up to then irrelevant, discreetly introduces. Barbara realizes that she cannot renounce her "safe, beautiful world" in Paris and go to Maine, where she would be a social outcast. The couple part, telling themselves "it never happened."

Barbara McNair and Howard Keel receive the support of an excellent cast. Bernice Massi plays the part of Comfort O'Connor, a tempestuous tornado from Tulsa, with show-stopping vitality. Her sizzling rendition of "Be My Host" was one of No Strings best songs. Beti Seay, a Playboy Bunny type, exudes sex as a French pastry named Jeannette Valmy.

Jane Van Duser is outstanding as Molly Plummer, the skeletal fashion editor of Vogue. Throughout much of the show she simply sits on her three-legged stool, like the narrator of Our Town, and pronounces sarcastic judgements on life. But she really perks up in her second act pantomine with the grinning Marcello Agnolotti (Marc Scott). Her performance in this scene surprised and delighted the audience. The rest of the cast, in varying degrees, was simply there.

Oh, yes, and the stagehands. All are female, and all gambol across the stage in bikinis and tights, pushing gaily colored panels before them. It's more interesting than looking at a curtain.

David Hays' sets and Joe Layton's choreography combine to produce striking visual effects. Often the stage is starkly simple, as in the first scene, when Barbara and David stand beneath their separate spotlights, shrouded in darkness and oblivious of each other. Strolling flutists and clarinetists share the stage with the singers. Among other things, No Strings represents a successful experiment in integrating music and action; all musical accompaniment occurs on stage, and often the musicians participate in the action itself.

Richard Rodgers' lyrical abilities do not come upto those of his former partners, Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein, but his songs possess a modern quality different from those he wrote with collaborators. The universality of many Rodgers and Hammerstein compositions (like South Pacific's "You Have to Be Taught") is missing in No Strings. Few of the songs, with the exception of the title song and "The Sweetest Sounds" are meaningful out of context.

No Strings lacks greatness, but it is still one of the best musicals to have come from Broadway recently. Rodgers achieves a simple, pacific beauty in "Look No Further;" "Loads of Love" and "Be My Host" are bouncy and exciting. The duet "Maine" will probably end up as that state's official song.

No Strings is drama without trauma, which may account for its success as entertainment. It is vivacious and sophisticated without being taxing. The interracial romance seems to be there not because Rodgers wants to impart a social message, but because it creates an interesting story.