By BART GREENBERG****Mel Miller’s Musicals Tonight! kicked off the spring portion of its 20th Anniversary Season with a joyous and very unexpected production of The Boys From Syracuse. Jonathan Cerullo, director and choreographer, has taken the classic show and decked it out in a style that mixes burlesque, musical comedy and drag. The results are surprisingly delightful, perhaps because the underpinnings of the original remain – the tight and funny book by the master of musical comedy, George Abbott (who also contributed to that other melodic farce in togas, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a definite influence on this production), and the delicious score of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Cerullo’s mix of reverence and free-wheeling invention raises the evening to a raucous new level.
Based on William Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, the hectic plot involves two pairs of twins, a long-lost father, two sisters, a courtesan and the confused citizens of Syracuse. As in all farces, if the characters just sat down and talked, the story would be over in five minutes. Instead, they rush off here and there, to homes and houses that aren’t homes, and prison, and the city square, in pursuit of romance and sex. Happily, they burst into song every few minutes, with such classics as “Falling in Love,” “This Can’t Be Love” and “Sing for Your Supper,” all sung with fervor and careful musicianship.
Josh Walden delightfully captures the crooning vocal style of the 1930s, while his “brother,” Matt Dengler, finds the perfect balance between romantic balladeer and sex pig. Twin brothers Matthew and Ian Fairlee are wonderful as knockabout clowns who wield pleasant vocal support as well. On the distaff side, Jonathan Hoover, as the unlucky-in-love and neglected wife, displays a marvelous vocal range, falling somewhere between high tenor and mezzo, in a brilliant interpretation of “Falling in Love (With Love)” that breaks the heart, while Darrell Marris, Jr. brings a sweetness to her shy bookworm sister who is suddenly confronted with an attraction to her brother-in-law. Sam Given captures the gold-plated soul of the soignee Courtesan.
But if there is a first among equals, it is Adam B. Shapiro’s riotous housekeeper. Bullying her husband (and his unknowing twin), bewailing her unsatisfying love life, sending out acerbic comments about her disloyal master, or joining in for musical duets and trios, he becomes the center of any scene he occupies. Shapiro also has a great time hauling an audience member on to the stage to serve as a “marriage counsellor,” whose “job” it is to hear and react to his musical woes.
The Boys From Syracuse will continue running through February 26, 2018 on Theatre Row in The Lion Theatre, 410 W. 42nd St. (between 9th and 10thAves.). For tickets, go to Telecharge.com or call 212-239-6200.
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