By Dale King
With a bit more than a week left in its run, the biographical comedy/musical, The Kid from Brooklyn: The Danny Kaye Story, is still drawing bounteous audiences to the Broward Stage Door Theatre in Margate.
Director and co-writer Peter Loewy premiered the tale of the multi-talented, red-haired, singer, actor, comedian and philanthropist at the West Sample Road venue a decade or so ago. The show then toured the nation before rediscovering its roots.
Loewy owns the Forum Theatre in Metuchen, N.J., but still found time to direct three shows in South Florida last year – two at the Stage Door and one for Pigs Do Fly Productions. All were recommended for Carbonell awards.
The Kid from Brooklyn is an entrancing show, though not entirely glitch-free. On the plus side, the music is excellent, and is delivered by stage-savvy actors with fine voices. The task of singing 23 songs falls to a cast of just four, but each player pitches in to make the production seem effortless.
The show taps most of Kaye’s signature songs, including “Tchaikovsky,” “By Jingo,” “Minnie the Moocher” and “Inchworm,” and features the work of songwriters Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Frank Loesser and Cole Porter, and of course, Danny Kaye’s wife, Sylvia Fine.
Lead performer Josh Kolb, making his Stage Door Theatre debut, is the epitome of Kaye, capturing the man’s multitude of moves and gyrations as well as his masterful ability to patter talk and scat sing.
Kimberly Adams does a wonderful job portraying Sylvia. It’s a tough act to pull off since her character undergoes some intense mood changes, particularly as her husband becomes more engaged with the stage and apparently less interested in being a husband and father.
“During the rehearsal process, Sylvia Fine became a personal hero of mine,” said Adams. “She was a shockingly brilliant woman who did it all. She was Danny Kaye’s wife, the mother of their child, his career manager, and the composer/lyricist of all his most famous songs. She is the reason Danny Kaye became a household name, and it’s truly an honor to bring her to life on stage.”
Well-deserved kudos go to cast members Brad Rakushin and Ashley Brooke who play a variety of characters, including Samuel Goldwyn, Cole Porter, Billy Rose, Laurence Olivier, Eve Arden, Kitty Carlisle, and Vivien Leigh. They make costume changes quickly to keep the show on track. And the outfits are wonderfully crafted by costumer Jerry Sturdefant, particularly the multicolored garb for the song, “The Maladjusted Jester,” from one of Kaye’s best films, Court Jester.
A live musical trio led by pianist David Nagy keeps the music fresh, and imbues the production with a true big stage performance quality. Nagy is joined by Nick Trotogott on drums and Martha Spangler on bass.
By most accounts, Danny Kaye was a nice guy – at least that’s how most of us remember him. There are no salacious books about him, no children coming forward to bash his memory, no National Enquirer headlines about Danny Kaye “scandals.”
But the play suggests the actor who starred in just two non-comedy films in his lifetime – the second his final film, Skokie (1981), about a Holocaust survivor who protests a neo-Nazi rally being held in his town — wasn’t perfect. Rumors abounded that he had a long-time love affair with Eve Arden, which seems to jibe with history texts.
The play is more of a musical cavalcade than a deep character study. We figure the main problem in the Fine/Kaye marriage is the Arden affair. (The pair separated for a time in 1947, but never divorced.) But perhaps the rift resulted from Fine’s growing bossiness, or Kaye’s childlike demeanor, or memories of his long-dead mother. Evidence of all theories is offered, but neither pursued nor proven.
In addition, the reasons for Kaye’s breakdown on the stage of the old Paramount Theater are not fully explained. But even in the musical, Kolb, as Kaye, complains of feeling ill and not wanting to do the show, almost forecasting the impending collapse.
There is also Kaye’s apparent desire to distance himself from both Sylvia and his daughter, Deena – another path not taken, as the production ends on a happy note.
Music, the universal antidote, does seem to save the day as Kolb renders superb versions of “Makin’ Whoopee,” “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” and “Ballin’ the Jack.” He joins with Brooke and Rakushin for “Three Little Jews” and “Bie Mir Bist du Schoen,” and all mingle their voices for the finale, “Life could not be better.”
By the way, this musical is not the same as the 1946 film, The Kid from Brooklyn, also starring Danny Kaye. In the film, he portrays a shy milkman who inadvertently becomes a championship boxer. Coincidentally, the movie also starred Eve Arden.
The Kid from Brooklyn: The Danny Kaye Story, plays through April 9 at Broward Stage Door Theatre, 8036 W. Sample Road, Margate. Tickets are $38-$42; $16 for student tickets. Call the box office at 954-344-7765 or visit www.stagedoorfl.org.