Here's A Chorus Line in two lines: They sing "I Can Do That." They can't.
Not all of them. Not enough of them. Not often enough.
And, minus heavy-duty professional experience, not wholly unexpected.
Director-producer Betty Sullivan-Cleary, ex-matriarch of Super Summer Theatre and its menu of musicals—and now local start-up SFS Partners—relaunches her Vegas theater career with one killer of a classic, even for the card-carrying thesps who will revive it on Broadway next year.
A Chorus Line, which previously tapped out a 15-year run in the Big Apple, demands command of three disciplines—singing, dancing and acting—from its cast. That's one whopper request to make of the non-pros who semi-sorta sing, dance and act at Summerlin's Starbright Theatre, despite their obviously full commitment.
The familiar, simple story: A hopeful band of aspiring Broadway gypsies audition for the chorus line of a new musical, each desperate to win a slot, each telling their own story at the prodding of the God-like voice of (mostly) unseen director Zach (Ralph Ohlsen).
But this Chorus Line courts trouble on first sight—let's just say they don't uniformly resemble an ensemble of minty-fresh, twinkle-toed dancers. Though the company adequately puts over opener "I Hope I Get It,'' the follow-up—presumably exuberant "I Can Do That," sung by dancer Mike (Omar Martinez)—is so sluggish, backed by a lethargic three-piece band on a caffeine low—that it plunges the show down a rabbit hole from which it never re-emerges.
Snap and subtlety are lost in a production that plays most moments with a plodding, methodical thud.
One character's recollections of being an isolated gay teen who finds solace onstage are initially touching, but quickly devolve into an overwrought monologue that stomps on its own poignancy.
And given how much time and talk are expended on the dancers' back-stories, it's shocking how little we get wrapped up in these characters—victims of rote direction and a failure to draw strong distinctions between them. (Our patience is further imposed upon by an intermission-less, 110-minute running time.)
The main subplot—veteran dancer Cassie (Rebecca Joy Raboy) auditioning for ex-lover Zach, providing the only direct dramatic conflict amid the general competitiveness—doesn't unfold until late in the show. And while Raboy emotes admirably and hoofs with heat, her singing underwhelms. As Zach, Ohlsen's disembodied-voice authority evaporates when he appears on stage, hammering out his lines with a style that favors barking over believability.
A few jolts of energy zap the tedium, including the electric dancing of Darrell Turner's Richie and Eddie Otero's Larry; the arch, attitudinal performance of Donna E. Abnathy as sassy Sheila; and the sexually charged slinkiness of Rebecca Royster as Val, recalling her childhood refrain of, "Am I ever gonna grow some tits?"
Nothing can cripple the score's legendary closers—the bittersweet beauty of "What I Did For Love" and the joyous signature song of theater gypsies everywhere, "One." They're bulletproof. But they can't rescue this show from its self-inflicted wounds.
Best intentions aside, one singular sensation this ain't. It's a Chorus that can't hold the line.
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Theatrical whiplash. That describes not only an ambulance chaser's wet dream, but the Test Market experience lately—from the invigorating Adam Baum and the Jew Movie to the stunningly awful Croquet is Okay to the simply stunning Pounding Nails in the Floor With My Forehead.
The latter, a series of savage-funny-penetrating multi-character monologues by theater's angriest/wittiest poet, Eric Bogosian (Talk Radio, Drinking in America), gets a dose of rocket fuel from dramatic missile-launcher Ernest Hemmings, giving the performance of his Las Vegas career.
A one-man act of virtuosity, Pounding Nails is a race through Bogosian's oddball landscape, littered with characters who reflect his askew view of modern life from all angles—loudmouth DJ bemoaning the loss of yesteryear's innocence; manic panhandler; saccharine motivational speaker; a druggie dismayed by a friend going "mainstream;" suburban dad drowning in his own suburbanism; a 12-step "recovering male;" and more, 11 in all.
The gifted Hemmings reveals a mastery of mimicry. Playing off his audience with a voice that even resembles Bogosian's booming, streetwise growl, he's an actor possessed, wearing and shedding personas like second, third and fourth skins. Body a herky-jerky windup toy, he prowls and rages across the small stage, sprinting, backtracking, bouncing off walls, his characters spraying ideas, invective and inventiveness like machine-gunfire, even nosediving toward dementia. The portrayals are distinct and precise, packing both hilarity and a satiric wallop underscored by Bogosian's knack for finding the sadness in madness.
Hemmings and director Erik Amblad do a mostly stellar job of pacing and modulation until the rants begin to take on a one-note drone during the final stretch, slipping into anticlimactic mode.
But that's a minor quibble amid a major triumph—a stream-of-consciousness scream that does justice to Bogosian's unapologetically acidic art.