Encouraged by the success of the appropriately-lauded Encores! 1997 concert version of Rogers & Hart's 1938 musical comedy, The Boys From Syracuse, the Roundabout understandably chose to re-mount it. But the concert version scrapped the book and concentrated on the music, which is, as has been once again proven, indestructible. Indeed the liltingly lovely score includes what has become one standard after another: Lush, romantic ballads, such as "This Can't Be Love," "Falling In Love With Love," and the lesser-known but beautiful "You Have Cast Your Shadow on the Sea" and "The Shortest Day of the Year," the touching "Big Brother," the saucy "Sing for your Supper" (one of the greatest classic trio for women, now inexplicably diluted as a production number, thus losing its charm somewhat), "Oh, Diogenes", "You Took Advantage of Me," and philosophical, "What Can You Do With A Man" and "He & She." Add the farcical book and direction by the legendary George Abbott, and equally revered choreographer, George Balanchine, and it would seem this theatrical gem would endure forever.
However the Roundabout evidently did not trust the material. In an ill-conceived effort to modernize this 60-year-old show, based on a Shakespeare's 16th Century farce, Comedy of Errors, in turn inspired by a 2000-year-old Roman comedy by Plautus, they chose their mischievous "enfant terrible" director Scott Ellis (who never saw a show he couldn't tamper with) and the creatively neurotic writer Nicky Silver. The show starts promisingly enough with the hard-edged, split-second timing of good old-fashioned farce as identical twin nobleman, both named Antipholus (Jonathan Dokuchitz and Tom Hewitt) and their identical twin servants, both named Dromio (Lee Wilkof and Chip Zien) narrowly miss meeting each other as they race in and out of adjacent dressing rooms while buying identical new outfits (by Martin Pakledinaz) at a shop set designer Thomas Lynch smartly labels "Togas by Narcissus.
But the pace slackens when romantic complications take over, as the unwitting wife (Lauren Mitchell) and her sister (Erin Dilly), plus the servant's wife (Toni DiBuono), fail to differentiate between them. Ellis and Silver play with the brothers' personalities so that one is a fearful, nerdy but lovelorn sissy and the other a macho, shallow womanizing (well, almost -- he mostly bores his courtesans to death) braggart. While diminishing these roles, the courtesans and their madame, TV's Jackie Harry, remain exotically sexy, flaunting their assets with the help of Rob Ashford's choreography (but one thinks reverently about what the talent of Jack Cole might have done with such pliant and promising material). The result is often funny (the mob scenes at the imminent execution of the twin's father are filled with insider show-biz commentary) but ultimately disconnected elements. There is no hint of danger between the precariously matched couples, and the farcical, hard-edged sex is softened by instantaneous acceptance.
However, the lush score, delivered by a uniformly marvelous cast (a surprise TV personality makes an eleventh hour appearance) transforms the show into a hugely entertaining evening...or perhaps this reviewer was overly receptive, having just seen the mindless, merit-less, manic, musically challenged Hairspray, but that's another story.
