Variety.com Review - Bells Are Ringing
Review by Charles Isherwood
Variety.com
April 11, 2001
Nick at Nite lands a berth on Broadway with the new revival of Bells Are
Ringing. Tina Landau's production pays affectionate homage to the breezy,
bright musicals of the 1950s, the kind in which grouchy subway riders burst
into song at the suggestion of a smile from the ingenue. A lively, competent
staging of a sweet but creaky show, "Bells Are Ringing" will need all the
gumption of its energetic heroine to stand out amid the season's competitive
musical roster.
Although it boasts an alternately warm and bouncy score with music by Jule
Styne and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, the 1956 Bells Are
Ringing has been a tough show to revive due to the singular nature of
its original star, Judy Holliday. In Faith Prince, Holliday has at last found
a soul sister.
As Ella Peterson, the answering service operator with a yen for meddling
in her customers' lives, Prince is suitably quirky and adorable. She may
lack Holliday's natural vulnerability, but her expressive face and deft gift
for physical comedy add their own seasoning to the show. Her performance
is more in the style of Lucille Ball, in fact, than Holliday (the carrot-colored
wig, however, is a singularly unattractive one). At times the performance
is a little strenuous, but it's effective.
The show's Silly String plot has Ella falling for playboy playwright Jeff
Moss (Marc Kudisch), who can't seem to get his first act together until she
descends upon his bachelor pad to deliver a playful nudge. Ella, who today
would probably set up in business as a life coach, also tugs her other clients
toward self-fulfillment: the dentist who wants to be a songwriter (a gleefully
zany turn from a persistently airborne Martin Moran), the Brando wannabe
who needs to lose the marbles in his mouth (Darren Ritchie). Meanwhile her
boss at Susanswerphone (a crisp Beth Fowler) gets involved with a vaguely
European fellow named Sandor (David Garrison) who's secretly running a bookie
joint.
While we wait -- and wait, truth to tell -- for the carefully assorted kinks
in the plot to become unkinked, Comden and Green's book cues a series of
nifty songs. Kudisch, a standard-issue, square-jawed romantic lead, boasts
a lovely baritone that does full justice to "Just in Time," the best-known
standard from the score. Other highlights are the lilting duet "Long Before
I Knew You" and Ella's trio of solos: "The Party's Over," the mocking "Is
It a Crime?," to which Prince's slightly nasal voice adds a comically plaintive
wail, and the rousing closer, "I'm Going Back."
Landau's staging skips along as briskly as possible, given the episodic contortions
of the plot; the idea seems to be to evoke a 1950s coloring book come to
life. Men in gray flannel suits cavort with girls in capri pants, beat cops
and street sweepers have plenty of time on their hands to join in the antic
Comden and Greenery spreading cheer across pavement and park.
Jeff Calhoun's choreography draws on standard period styles, as do David
C. Woolard's costumes. Both could use a little more personality, as could
the clinical set of Riccardo Hernandez, which encases the show in an antiseptic
metallic frame. (The whole thing seems to be taking place in that dentist's
office.)
"Is it a crime to end each day with a laugh and a smile and a song?" sings
Ella, to which the answer, then as now, is a resounding no. But winning over
Broadway audiences with those humble attributes isn't the sure shot it once
was, and the nostalgia this production enthusiastically retails is hardly
a rare commodity these days either. All of which means that busy signals
may not be a problem for Bells Are Ringing, while long-distance service
is a distinct long shot.
______________________________
Sets, Riccardo Hernandez; costumes, David C. Woolard; lighting, Donald
Holder; sound, Acme Sound Partners; video, Batwin & Robin Prods.; musical
direction and vocal arrangements, David Evans; orchestrations, Don Sebesky;
musical coordinator, Seymour Red Press; production stage manager, Erica Schwartz;
incidental music, Evans, Mark Hummel; dance music arrangements, Hummel. Opened
April 12, 2001. Reviewed April 10. Running time: 2 HOURS, 35 MIN.
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