Broadway

This production is a rare revival of a melodrama co-written and originally directed by George Abbott. The play premiered in 1926 and was directed by Abbott in New York again the year he turned 100. Though Abbott was known for his touch with musicals, this is a straight play in three acts, one of Abbott's earliest successes as a director and playwright. The setting is backstage in a nightclub, so we see rehearsing of musical numbers and we hear the beginnings of songs when the performers exit through an upstage curtain to go onto the club stage. Broadway is about gangsters and aspiring performers in Manhattan during the prohibition era. Abbott's characters became the archetypes for Hollywood gangster flicks with Cagney and Edward G. Robinson later on.

The language is colorful but often archaic. It's fascinating to hear how many words and figures of speech have changed since 1926 -- phrases like: "I'm strong for you," "Crack wise," and "In your hat." It helps to have some knowledge of showbiz to understand when characters refer to Texas Guinan (the speakeasy proprietor) or Jack Donahue (the hoofer.)

The leading players are Steve, a mobster who owns the club, and Roy, a dancer who directs and choreographs for the club's shows. They are antagonists because Roy is a clean-living kid who disapproves of bootlegging and because they're both interested in the same girl, Billie, who is in the club's chorus line. All the other girls make themselves available for men at Steve's late-night parties, but Billie is an innocent who goes home to her mother at closing time. Her unavailability makes Steve lust for her, while Roy sees her as his future dance partner and wife. To Abbott's credit, Steve is written with vulnerabilities that make you care about him and hope that he can outwit the cops—even after you see him shoot a man to death on stage. Abbott also gave Steve a surprising and gratifying exit.

Roy is shown to have his own frailties, so the competition between the two men is never black and white. Speaking of that, this is a color-blind staging, so we have the oddity of a white actor playing the head of the Harlem mob and a black actor playing the rival mobster who controls everything below 125th Street.

This revival is damaged by the director's decision to have everyone act too broadly. Lindsay Smiling is excellent as Steve and Lawrence Stallings is especially natural and affecting as Roy. Brian T. Delaney tears up the stage as the most colorful of the mobsters. It's a fine set and the period costumes are handsome.