THEATER REVIEW LA TIMES

You have to hand it to 'Applause' The smash Broadway warhorse picks up the pace in a pleasing revival production at the Freud Playhouse. By David C. Nichols, Special to The Times

Energetic professionalism marks "Applause," presented by Reprise! at the Freud Playhouse. This amiable revival of the Tony-winning musical based on the film "All About Eve" has a crowd-grabbing efficiency that is often exhilarating.

The smash of the 1969-70 Broadway season, "Applause" earned plaudits for director-choreographer Ron Field's trendy staging and headliner Lauren Bacall, whose musical debut as aging star Margo Channing won her a Tony and a second career. Showbiz sages Betty Comden and Adolph Green shrewdly updated Joseph L. Mankiewicz's screenplay, and Charles Strouse and Lee Adams placed their pop-tinged score with notable skill, some clunkers notwithstanding.

If hardly a landmark, like Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's "Company," which opened a month later, "Applause" is an agreeable mainstream vehicle. Director David Lee and choreographer Mark Esposito treat it as a period piece worth another look. After musical director Gerald Sternbach's superb orchestra nails the overture, a gold curtain rises from Evan A. Bartoletti's exposed backstage set. It is the 1969 Tony Awards, where former winner Margo (Sheryl Lee Ralph) presents the best actress prize to dewy Eve Harrington (Jean Louisa Kelly). Eve's gushing thanks goes silent, Margo's smile freezes and a snide voice-over tells us how Margo really feels.

Philip J. Lang's orchestrations chug forth as set pieces shift in Tom Ruzika's half-lights to Margo's packed dressing room a year and a half earlier. First-nighters in Randy Gardell's era costumes burble the droll nonsense of "Backstage Babble," and the principals assemble. Producer Howard Benedict (James Avery), playwright Buzz Richards (Kevin Chamberlin) and Bill Sampson (Kevin Earley), Margo's director and lover, interact with Margo's hairdresser, Duane (John Fleck), and the high-strung, warmhearted star. Buzz's wife, Karen (Veanne Cox), arrives with star-struck Eve in tow. Soon, this neophyte is indispensable to Margo, who gradually perceives that her adoring fan is a scheming viper. By the end of Act 1, Eve is Margo's understudy; by the finale, each woman has gotten what she really deserves. The staging trims ballast from Comden and Green's book, which only archivists will miss, and cuts the ballad "Hurry Back," which only Bacall will miss. Harder to miss is the ace ensemble, which sails across the Village-disco high jinks of Margo's "But Alive" and the indestructible title tune. This showstopper, with its pocket history of Broadway musicals from bottle-hatted "Fiddler" dancers to "Oh, Calcutta!" bare bottoms, benefits from soloist Scarlett Esposito's high-voltage moves and Donald Pippin's thrilling vocal charts.

Lee's colorblind casting may bother purists; that's their problem. Ralph, less arch-goddess than earth mother, at times drops lyrics and intonation. Nevertheless, she holds her own, offering an easy affinity with Earley's velvet-voiced Bill and a snarling take on "Welcome to the Theatre." Kelly's Eve would hardly be Ralph's understudy in real life. Yet, this is musical-comedy life, and Kelly builds from fawning fawn to a ferocious "One Hallowe'en" that suggests her next victim will be Patti LuPone's Evita. Avery and Chamberlin deftly underplay their pivotal parts. Cox, adroit as ever, and Fleck, channeling Thelma Ritter as gay caballero, are both sublime.

"Applause" isn't, but it's enjoyable enough, and its players should taste the sound that says love for the rest of its limited run.

Theatre Review Daily News

Jean Louisa Kelly, left, and Sheryl Lee Ralph are stage rivals in "Applause," the musical version of "All About Eve."

Welcome to the Theatre" sings Margo Channing, a bitter and suspicious stage diva addressing Eve Harrington, once Margo's confidante, now her upstart understudy. The song is a thunderous, tour de force closer to the first act of "Applause." And in Reprise's first-rate revival, the actress playing Eve (Jean Louisa Kelly) actually departs the stage a few bars in, leaving Margo alone with her real audience.

You can hardly blame her. Given the kerosene Sheryl Lee Ralph brings to the role - and to the production - I wouldn't hang around either. Sometimes heat isn't to be braved.

Playing a part that won Lauren Bacall a Tony, Ralph (an original "Dreamgirl") is vain, delusional, clutching, insecure and - in a word - magnificent. We never actually see Margo act on stage, but of course, the character is "performing" every time she enters a room: her dressing room, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, her own living room. Ralph belts and smolders; she does not mug or over-emote. It's easily one of the year's most stunning bits of acting.

And the production around her is no rinky-dink affair either.

Director David Lee expertly captures both the swinging exuberance of the 1960s (aided greatly by Randy Gardell's costumes) and the fondness for a classic Broadway age long past. "Applause" was a hit in 1970. Its creators are the ever-bankable Charles Strouse (music) and Betty Comden and Adolph Green (book). It's being revived by Reprise - which focuses on hard-to-stage or forgotten gems - because "Applause" is relentlessly old-fashioned in tone, character, plot and everything else.

Lee and his company have freshened it considerably, not through any updates or contemporizing. It's in the cheeky way Margo takes over the aforementioned bar - pairing off with leather-clad bikers - with the song "But Alive." It's in the theater gypsies extemporaneously putting on a show, explaining (through the title song) the need for "Applause." That marvelous number (choreographed with high brio by Mark Esposito) is led by Bonnie (played by single-named actress Scarlett), whose contemporary equivalent, you figure, could be found today at some watering hole. Or she could be a hopeful movie extra.

"Applause," the musical version of "All About Eve," finds the conniving and ambitious Eve insinuating herself into the confidence of aging Margo. Eve's got something - besides moxy, that is - that lets her claw her way over or through anybody to reach the top. Targets include the writer of Margo's current hit (Kevin Chamberlin), its producer (James Avery) and star director (Kevin Early) - the latter who also happens to be Margo's boyfriend. Fair game, all.

The artful thing about Kelly's work - apart from its contrast to Ralph's - is its air of mystery. Something's clearly off about Eve from the beginning, but Kelly has an earnest, Midwestern genuineness. You want her to be the real deal up to - and occasionally beyond - the moment she's plunging knives into people's backs.

The men get their time as well. Early, long the best voice in Reprise's stable, is boyish and virile as Bill the director, and John Fleck is drollness personified as Margo's bitchy wardrobe man. Evan A. Bartoletti's set suggests bar and restaurant interiors, with a nice backstage backdrop to remind us how much of a theater piece "Applause" actually is. Gerald Sternbach smartly conducts a bigger-than-usual Reprise orchestra - in full view and strongly playing a terrific score.

Overall, a wonderful package, with Sheryl Lee Ralph the ribbon, frills and wrapping paper to make it gleam.

APPLAUSE
Our rating:
In a nutshell: The production rocks. Sheryl Lee Ralph rules.

 

 

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