A small show with a big impact, Dames at Sea offers gentle, fun satire. As if in a movie coming alive, filmed credits announce who appear in or behind the production of an early 1930s Broadway show after a small-town gal enters a big-time theater. Very soon she’ll become the show’s star. The credits follow her past intermission to gaining the romance of her life, too. All is accomplished through song, dance, and a lot of coincidence.
If you know the Ruby Keeler-Dick Powell musicals staged by Busby Berkeley, Dames at Sea is easy to follow, with its lively, if not realistically likely, plot. From the hinterlands, Ruby (Eloise Kropp, epitome of naivety) arrives backstage of a 42nd Street theater, anxious to take a lead in a musical under rehearsal. Sailor Dick (handsome, charismatic Cary Tedder) follows her inside with a suitcase she left on a bus, and ends up dancing his way (very well) into the show and Ruby’s heart. As a crisis, Wall St. financiers (supposedly vetted during the musical’s golden opening number) threaten to shut down the theater, even as the Stage Manager (John Bolton, harried) has enlisted chorus gal Joan (Mara Davis, really a sparkler) to help Ruby. Dick’s sailor pal Lucky (Danny Gardner, agile), it seems, is practiced at being with Joan as well. Established star Mona (vivacious Lesli Margherita), at first a rival for Dick, gets over him when she meets and captivates a powerful Captain (John Bolton, twice great). Everyone ends up on a Navy Battleship where, Eleanor Powell-like, Ruby taps into stardom, and all the men capture their feminine partners. The final number brings down the naval “house.” If there is a litttle weakness in the show, it is that the voice of still unglamorous Eloise Kropp’s Ruby doesn’t live up to her extraordinary tap dancing. The rest of the cast shines in every aspect of performance. Quick changes of appropriate costume and somewhat elaborate scenery deserve praise. Randy Skinner has caught every aspect of the “backstage to Broadway” filmed ‘30s musicals with his astute direction and showy choreography. At the Helen Hayes, there are Dames (and Guys) to See!
