Marc Kudisch and Jan Maxwell are the real stars of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but you won't know it until Act Two, when they are featured and bring the show to vivid life. The whole thing is like two different shows: Ian Fleming started it for his grandchildren, Roald Dahl adapted and finished it (they don't get any credit), and Jeremy Sams adapted it for the stage using songs by Richard M and Robert B. Sherman. Act One is a cute, simplistic children's show, amusing on an outer lever but with no real intimacy or enchantment for children or adults. The two kids in the cast are very busy acting, and that is somewhat off-putting, but Erin Dilly is a strong and attractive leading lady with good voice, looks and presence. Except for an imaginative Dream Circus number, most of the choreography (by Gillian Lynne) has everyone doing the same thing at the same time without a lot of innovation, and although the dancers are all fine professionals, with this choreography, it's useless. One boring lullaby number does its job properly -- it almost put me to sleep.
The set and costumes by Anthony Ward are terrific -- some of the best in town -- properly cartoony, sometimes reminiscent of "Alice in Wonderland." Chitty may have done well in London, but it is very far from an American sensibility; it's silly and not amusing, like mediocre community theater, with the comic Bulgarian buffoons basically incoherent and not funny. But they give us the gorgeous, magical car and sing the title song, and the audience wakes up. With a flying outhouse and a flying car, things begin to happen.
Then comes Act Two, and the show takes a major turn into the enjoyable. We have a Child-catcher (the slinky, sinister Kevin Cahoon) right out of Nosferatu, Marc Kudisch and Jan Maxwell, the villains, doing two spectacular numbers in a row that seem to be out of an entirely different, and vastly more entertaining, show, filling the theater with a sense of theatricality missing from Act One. Kudisch is powerful in brash and childish moments; Maxwell's a perfect foil and counterbalance for him. For me, they (and the flying car) are the show, and Chitty may indeed, run. Give people a strong finish with a silver foil snowstorm and a flying car, and they'll think they saw a good show.
