At one point in 42nd Street, the production number-heavy backstage musical about a Depression-era Broadway tryout, Julian Marsh, the director of Pretty Lady — the fictional show-within-the-show — calls it “the biggest musical this town has seen in two decades.”
While that is true, he could also be referring to what the Maltz Jupiter Theatre has lovingly assembled on a jaw-dropping scale. With tongue-in-cheek wit and plenty of heart, the show looks at what putting together a musical was like some 90 years ago. While that is interesting enough, the storyline is really just an excuse to get us to the next tap-happy song-and-dance.
Theatergoers who are understandably tired of the understandable tendency of area theaters to cut back on cast sizes, sets and musical accompaniment should make a point of seeing this 42nd Street before it gets packed away on March 31. It is hard to imagine another South Florida production as entertaining in the foreseeable future.
As movie buffs know, 42nd Street came into being first in 1933 as a huge slice of Depression-era escapism, directed by spectacle-meister Busby Berkeley, who literally taught the movies how to move. Then fast-forward almost a half century, to another period of economic downturn, when another brilliant director-choreographer, Gower Champion, brought the saga of spunky ingenue Peggy Sawyer, fresh off the bus from Allentown, Pa., and improbably — But this is a fairy tale, right? — into the cast of Pretty Lady.
Perhaps because Peggy is younger, prettier and a better dancer than headliner Dorothy Brock, Brock takes an instant dislike to the girl. She even blames Peggy when an onstage collision during previews sidelines Dorothy with a broken ankle. Whoever will they get to fill in for Dorothy and save the show? Need you ask?
Like the movie but more so, the stage version of 42nd Street is loaded with songs by the prolific team of Al Dubin and Harry Warren. You may not know their names, but you know such songs as “You’re Getting To Be a Habit with Me,” “We’re in the Money,” the second act show-stopper “Lullaby of Broadway” and, of course, the title tune.
From the show’s iconic opening moment — a slow curtain rise that reveals a stageful of tapping feet in audition — choreographer Kristyn Pope delivers a textbook history of dance moves reliant on those rat-a-tat metal plates on shoe bottoms. Fortunately, she has a legion of capable tappers led by Christian Probst, a veteran of several 42nd Street productions.
Still, the show is Peggy Sawyer’s story and it succeeds or fails on the performer in that star-making role. Director Jennifer Werner still had plenty of staging traffic to worry about, but she was well on the way to the winner’s circle with the casting of Taylor Quick as Peggy. She is the winsome triple threat required, leading to her stellar turn in the hit-clinching 42nd Street dance finale, essentially a knockoff of Slaughter on 10th Avenue. Write down her name and put it in a time capsule. You may be seeing a genuine star in the making.
As her taskmaster, Julian Marsh, John Preator manages to inject the role with a humanity that softens his desperation to mold Pretty Lady into a hit. If the show has a villain, it is probably Dorothy Brock, but adapters Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble are savvy enough to bring back Angie Schworer for an 11 o’clock truce with Peggy on “About a Quarter to Nine.” Also lending solid support are Michelle Ragusa and Scott Cote as the writers of Pretty Lady, who double as performers on the amusing but extraneous “Shuffle Off to Buffalo.”
Like the rest of the production, the design elements are top-notch. Nathan W. Scheuer’s photo-realistic projection backdrops lend a period authenticity and Kirk Bookman’s lighting keep matters musical comedy bright. And April Soroko comes up with eye-popping costumes for the 20-member cast, both onstage and off.
It is hard to fathom any other area theater company being able to amass the talent and skill to pull off a 42nd Street like this. Intended to indulge in excess, the Maltz’s production does exactly that and you wouldn’t want it any other way.
42ND STREET, Maltz Jupiter Theatre, 1001 W. Indiantown Road, Jupiter. Through Sunday, March 31, $50-$120. Call 561-575-2223 or visit jupitertheatre.org.