Review - Bells Are Ringing: Charmedy Tonight

Creating new opportunities for beautiful blondes with enchanting soprano voices is a topic generally not included in discussions of non-traditional casting in the theatre, but when it was announced that Kelli O'Hara would be starring in the Encores! concert production of Bells Are Ringing instead of one of Broadway's many talented comedic actresses who might regard this weekend's performances as a public audition for the planned upcoming revival of Funny Girl, it was not, to say the least, an expected choice.

Not even O'Hara saw it coming, telling the press that before it was offered she'd never even read the script of the 1956 show - penned by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule Styne especially to showcase the unique talents of their pal, Judy Holliday - nor seen the film version; naturally more concerned with roles written for soprano ingénues. So the Theatre World was left to wonder if Kelli O'Hara had some unrealized comic chops that simply weren't utilized in musical dramas like The Light In The Piazza and South Pacific (or even in her non-comedic leading role in the musical comedy, The Pajama Game) or if director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall had simply decided to go another route with the character.

A little bit of both seems to be the answer. As Ella Peterson (Any relation to Bye, Bye, Birdie's Albert Peterson?), the answering service switchboard operator who fights the boredom of her job by vocally assuming different personas for each client and whose propensity to get involved in their personal lives, in attempts to be helpful, leads to both romance and a date with the vice squad, O'Hara plays the charm card and comes up aces. Sporting a nifty Brooklyn accent (which she unfortunately drops when singing ballads), she's a sweet girl-next-door with a realistic streak of silliness. It's not so much a comic performance as it is a good actress playing a funny person. The few moments when she indulges in shtickiness - suddenly dropping her voice for a laugh or stooping over like Groucho and flicking an imaginary cigar - are reserved for times when the character is performing, like watching your non-actor buddy imitating something she saw on television; if not exactly side-splitting, still unexpected and cute.

Composed for a star with a limited vocal range, the score doesn't give O'Hara many chances to do what she does best, but you might be surprised at how well she pulls off the scene where the convoluted plot has her donning a motorcycle jacket and a marble-mouthed voice to advise a Brando-worshiping actor (Bobby Cannavale in a spot-on spoof) to wear a suit and speak clearly at his next audition. She exudes a warm, excited girlishness as the snazzy Jeffrey Schecter gives her a cha-cha lesson as she prepares for her first date with her dream man, and when she dives into that rowdy, working-class 11 o'clock showstopper ("I'm going back / Where I can be me / At the Bonjour Tristesse Brassière Company...) she kicks up her legs and teeters her shoulders with the spunkiness of a high school cheerleader trying her darndest to show her undying spirit.

And a funny thing happens when a production of Bells Are Ringing downplays the potential for clowning in the leading role; Comden and Green's... dare I say it... message about high technology giving us ways to communicate which are more efficient but less personal, actually... I'm gonna say it... resonates strongly in today's world of social networking, where people have the opportunity to develop relationships with others they've never met in person and to reinvent themselves through virtual personalities. Musical moments like, "Hello, Hello There," where Ella convinces a subway car full of strangers to introduce themselves to one another and "Drop That Name," which throws darts at the short-hand communications of the upturned nose set, start standing out as effectively as the show's popular hits, "Just In Time," "The Party's Over," and "Long Before I Knew You."

And O'Hara isn't the only leading player going against expected type. Will Chase, whose New York roles have consisted mainly of rocker boys and blue-collar lugs in shows like The Full Monty, Lennon and High Fidelity, makes Jeffrey Moss, the struggling playwright who Ella falls in love with just by talking with him on the switchboard, a boyish ladies man, slickly groomed and with a pleasingly mellow period croon. Together, they make a playful couple and an adorable song and dance team.

Judy Kaye is required to play it straight most of the night as Ella's cousin and employer Sue, the owner of Susanwerphone, but has her moments of giddiness opposite David Pittu's Sandor, a horse-racing bookie who has romanced her into believing that the gambling hotline he's set up in her office is actually taking orders for a classical music company. With a drippingly fake accent, a knockabout comic delivery and the score's two funniest numbers, Pittu provides an ample supply of vaudevillian showmanship.

Brad Oscar's hyper-zaniness as a dentist who composes music with his air hose and spontaneously improvises lyrics out of normal conversation and Dylan Baker's humorless tenacity as a police detective suspecting that Ella's involvement with her clients might be a front for an escort service are also welcome contributions.

Robert Russell Bennett's original orchestrations, played by 31 pieces under Rob Berman's baton, are exemplary of the brash musical comedy sound of Broadway's Golden Age and Marshall matches them with dances that are both comical (a square dance on a subway train) and stylish (a tightly-grouped chorus engaged in a steadily building fury of cha-chas). This Bells Are Ringing may not be the funniest you'll ever see, but it's nevertheless a delight.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Kelli O'Hara; Bottom: Kelli O'Hara and Will Chase.

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