Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

Crazy for You

Pro­duced by Must Come See Pro­duc­tions

Mu­sic by George Gersh­win and lyrics by Ira Gersh­win; book by Ken Lud­wig

Di­rect­ed by De­bra Bou­caud-Ma­son

A re­view by Shiv­a­nee Ram­lochan

On Ju­ly 5, Queen's Hall re­sound­ed with the stomp­ing of cow­boy boots and the cho­rus calls of show­girls in the Neva­da sticks, as Must Come See Pro­duc­tions pre­sent­ed Crazy for You, a 1993 ro­man­tic Broad­way mu­si­cal. The play was co-con­ceived by Ken Lud­wig and Mike Ock­rent, and used mu­sic and lyrics writ­ten by George and Ira Gersh­win.Crazy for You was di­rect­ed by De­bra Bou­caud-Ma­son and fea­tured the mu­si­cal di­rec­tion and con­duct­ing of Jes­sel Mur­ray.Crazy for You's premise is for­mat­ted for straight-to-stage slap­stick ro­man­tic com­e­dy. It fo­cus­es on the brash Bob­by Child (played by Isa­iah Alexan­der), un­in­ter­est­ed heir to his fam­i­ly's pros­per­ous bank. Bob­by's as­pi­ra­tions lean to­wards the the­atre and he dreams of im­press­ing the dra­mat­ic pro­duc­ing mag­nate Bela Zan­gler (Michailean Tay­lor). When Bob­by is man­dat­ed by his moth­er Lot­tie (Ger­maine Wil­son) to fore­close on a derelict the­atre in the rur­al back­wa­ter of Dead­rock, Neva­da, he scarce­ly knows he'll meet the love of his life, Dead­rock's sun­ny post­mistress and plucky hero­ine, Pol­ly Bak­er (Kendra Sylvester Flo­res).

Bob­by is up against no short­age of chal­lenges in try­ing to win Pol­ly's ado­ra­tion through re­in­stat­ing Dead­rock's Gai­ety The­atre to its for­mer glo­ry: Pol­ly's irate would-be beau Lank Hawkins (An­ton Brew­ster); Bob­by's own de­mand­ing fi­anc�e Irene Roth (Kim­ber­ly Jones)–not to men­tion the spir­it­ed re­sis­tance of Pol­ly her­self. Will Bob­by be able to mar­shal his re­sources, save the Gai­ety The­atre and win Pol­ly's heart?Chore­o­graphed by Adele By­noe, the pro­duc­tion show­cased sev­er­al live­ly tap num­bers–be­gin­ning with Bob­by game­ly tap­ping his heart out in an au­di­tion for Bela Zan­gler to the song K-ra-zy for You, to the full house fi­nale in Act Two, per­formed by the en­tire com­pa­ny with cheery aplomb.If this in­di­ca­tion of a hap­py end­ing acts as a spoil­er to the events with­in Crazy for You, it re­al­ly shouldn't–noth­ing about this play presents even a mo­ment of in­tel­lec­tu­al con­ster­na­tion. Feel-good vi­tal­i­ty is what the script pos­sess­es in droves, with­out a whit of in­tro­spec­tion. The un­fold­ing of this com­e­dy of er­rors delves deep in­to slap­stick treat­ment, steer­ing clear of satir­i­cal heft or moral in­ter­jec­tions.

The cast was com­mend­ably out­fit­ted to re­flect the dis­parate so­cial stand­ings of New York glitz ver­sus Neva­da home­spun charm. Cos­tum­ing choic­es were over­seen by An­drew Seep­er­sad, who opt­ed to garb the Fol­lies, Zan­gler's bevy of cho­rus girls, in a se­ries of colour­ful and/or se­quin-stud­ded num­bers in a wise re­flec­tion of mu­si­cal the­atre's glit­tery os­ten­ta­tion.Light­ing, man­aged by Knol­ly Whiskey, al­so worked best when high­light­ing the New York/Neva­da con­trast. In the penul­ti­mate scene, a mo­rose Bob­by stands be­fore a back­drop of the Zan­gler The­atre, the light­ing an apt pur­ple hue, un­der­scor­ing his emo­tion­al low.The live ac­com­pa­ny­ing or­ches­tra, con­duct­ed by Jes­sel Mur­ray and fea­tur­ing the use of key­board, reeds, gui­tars, trum­pet, trom­bone and per­cus­sion, was in out­stand­ing form. En­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly per­form­ing the Gersh­win broth­ers' score, the band oc­ca­sion­al­ly over­pow­ered the singing ef­forts of Crazy for You's cast, no­tably those per­form­ers as­signed sup­port­ing roles.Prop­er­ty and head set builders Ani­ka Best and By­ron Joseph con­struct­ed a won­der­ful­ly in­ter­ac­tive Dead­rock Main Street, com­plete with Lank's Sa­loon and Ho­tel and the dis­used Gai­ety The­atre. Their clever use of space, in for­mat­ting a pair of build­ing store­fronts, max­imised cast in­ter­ac­tion with the set, lead­ing to sev­er­al comedic in­ter­ac­tions on its bal­cony, land­ing and shaky side steps. (How­ev­er, there was on­ly a pro­ject­ed back­ground for the New York scenes, and no set.)

As the fre­quent­ly irk­some, qua­si-love­able Bob­by Child, Isa­iah Alexan­der ex­celled, tap­ping, singing and some­times over­act­ing his heart out to the au­di­ence. His in­car­na­tion of Child was both cred­i­ble and com­i­cal, which, for a ro­man­tic mu­si­cal de­void of any sub­stan­tial an­chor­ing depth, sig­nalled a laud­able coup.The pro­duc­tion's bright­est star, how­ev­er, was un­de­ni­ably the dy­nam­ic and in­tu­itive per­for­mance of Kendra Sylvester Flo­res as Pol­ly Bark­er, a role de­cid­ed­ly less than Sylvester Flo­res' tal­ent mer­its. As an au­di­ence mem­ber ea­ger­ly re­marked dur­ing in­ter­mis­sion, Sylvester Flo­res steals every scene she's in with her pow­er­ful singing, her im­mer­sive ded­i­ca­tion to Pol­ly's gump­tion and grit, her elec­tric stage pres­ence and her poise.A less ac­com­plished Pol­ly would have dulled Crazy for You's im­pact sig­nif­i­cant­ly, ren­der­ing it a charm­ing yet for­get­table for­ay in­to fluffy the­atri­cal high jinks. Sylvester Flo­res's ren­di­tion helped pull it up short of slink­ing to­wards that fate.Crazy For You ran at Queen's Hall, St Ann's, from Ju­ly 4-7.