In various revised forms and on various continents, the touring stage version of Dirty Dancing has been on the road since 2004, without ever coming close to playing Broadway. And as seen at the Kravis Center this week, the show does have that “not ready for prime time” sense about it.
The 1987 movie from which it is drawn was a surprise hit, largely because of the chemistry between its central performers, Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey. The show, written by the story’s screenwriter Eleanor Bergstein, understandably does not stray far from the Catskills coming-of-age tale for which theatergoers are likely to have warm nostalgic feelings.
But Bergstein – and director James Powell — never bother to reimagine the Kennedy-era yarn for the stage, settling for reproducing the film’s iconic images and repeating its memorable lines. Like so many lazy movie-to-stage transfers, Dirty Dancing feels familiar without mustering a similar emotional impact.
Among the disappointing decisions made by Bergstein and the creative team was not to develop an original score for the show, settling instead for the jukebox sounds of the 1960s. That helps the nostalgia factor, but prevents the production from gaining any of the usual narrative assets of a musical. Yes, we hear nearly four dozen vintage songs, but most of them are used as mere mood music or background atmosphere.
The exception, of course, is the movie’s breakout hit tune, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life,” teased as incidental music a couple of times in the first act before getting a full-blown vocal rendering at the show’s finale. It is not, however, sung by the performers playing the resort hotel’s resident gigolo Johnny Castle and daddy’s girl Frances “Baby” Houseman but by their surrogates. For Christopher Tierney and Bronwyn Reed are both accomplished, classically trained dancers, cast for their gymnastic agility — and their resemblance to Swayze and Grey — rather than any singing skill.
But, oh my, dance they do. As you probably recall, Johnny has to teach Baby an intricate, sensuous ballroom routine when she is enlisted to fill in quickly for his usual dance partner. Much of the first act is spent on those painstaking rehearsals, in which Reed has to seem stiff and clumsy. By the show’s end, however, the two of them move together with breakneck speed and precision, (spoiler alert!) nailing the graceful lift that Baby had balked at earlier.
Otherwise, most of the rest of the second act feels pokey and extraneous. Chances are you have forgotten how thin the plot of Dirty Dancing really is. It was all I could do not to yell out, “Cut to the climactic dance already!”
Tierney and Reed carry the show, but the best dancer in the company is surely Jennifer Mealani Jones, a lithe, leggy blonde who plays Penny, the resort staffer who gets in “trouble” in the pre-Roe v. Wade days. Before that, though, when she dances dirty with Johnny, arms and legs fly about furiously, a sexy wonder to behold.
The sets by Stephen Brimson Lewis are above average for a touring production, but the story is really conveyed by the videos and projections of Jon Driscoll. One scene in particular, where Johnny dance trains Baby in an open field and then in a lake, does not really make much sense but is visually stunning.
Dirty Dancing, subtitled “The Classic Story on Stage,” is aimed directly at fans of the movie who have already worn out a few DVD copies. If you have never seen the film, however, you might have a better time staying home and catching up with the real thing.
DIRTY DANCING, Kravis Center Dreyfoos Hall, 701 Okeechobee Blvd., West Palm Beach. Through Sunday. Tickets: $27 and up. 561-832-7469.