Nice Work, But You'll Forget it!!! REVIEWS

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 4:11am

A pretty mixed bag and just what I thought it would get after seeing it 2 weeks ago.




The New York Times:

Falling in Love, Footstep by Footstep

by Ben Brantley

Every now and then, a bubble of pure, tickling charm rises from the artificial froth of “Nice Work if You Can Get It,” the pastiche of a 1920s musical featuring songs by George and Ira Gershwin. Most of this show, which opened on Tuesday night at the Imperial Theater, registers as a shiny, dutiful trickle of jokes and dance numbers performed by talented people who don’t entirely connect with the whimsy of a bygone genre.

But then, all at once, there’s a moment of delicate ridiculousness, of utterly credible improbability, that signals what Kathleen Marshall, the production’s director and choreographer, must have been aiming for. Take the case of the girl with the gun, for instance.

The girl is Kelli O’Hara, and she’s singing “Someone to Watch Over Me,” one of the Gershwins’ most exquisite ballads, in a sweet silver voice that shimmers with wistfulness. And all the while, she is cradling a rifle like someone who definitely knows how (and plans) to use it.

Portraying a suddenly love-struck, pants-wearing bootlegger named Billie Bendix, Ms. O’Hara never acknowledges the contradiction in the picture she makes. It’s up to us to infer the enchanted absurdity of that image, which would have us all laughing boisterously, except that we want to hear Ms. O’Hara sing.

Even better is the scene in which Billie and the much-married millionaire playboy Jimmy Winter (Matthew Broderick) realize that, despite their extreme differences, they were meant to be together forever. And how is this discovery made?

Why, through dancing, of course, to “ ‘S Wonderful,” another Gershwin classic. The couple moves in effortless, hypnotized harmony, covering a complete catalog of ballroom steps, while tumbling over furniture and waltzing up a staircase. Mr. Broderick and Ms. O’Hara may not have the expertise of Astaire and Rogers. (Who does?) But they summon the spirit and subtext of every transcendent mating dance from the Fred-and-Ginger movies.

Those two scenes account for perhaps 15 minutes of a show that runs 150 minutes (including intermission). And while those other 100-and-some minutes are mildly entertaining, you feel the ache of knowing that they could be so much more.

Featuring a book by Joe DiPietro (“Memphis”), “Nice Work if You Can Get It” was inspired by the nonsensical musical-comedy plots concocted by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse (the man who gave us Jeeves). This show — mostly set in a Long Island mansion, where trespassing bootleggers have stashed their crates of gin — borrows liberally from “Oh, Kay!,” their 1926 hit starring Gertrude Lawrence. But “Nice Work” is a homage to a host of Jazz Age musicals in which outlandish plots were mere pegboards for songs, dances, gags and idiosyncratic star turns.

Ms. Marshall has already proved her affinity for the crazy salad days of the American musical with last year’s Tony-winning revival of “Anything Goes,” the 1934 Cole Porter show, which also had an original book by Bolton and Wodehouse. Ms. Marshall’s “Anything Goes,” with Sutton Foster as its star (it continues to run without Ms. Foster), exuded a sassy, go-for-broke momentum that overrode all inconsistencies in logic (and, for that matter, casting).

Her approach to “Nice Work” is gentler and more tentative. I think this stems partly from the choice of Mr. Broderick, in his first musical role on Broadway since “The Producers” (2000), as the show’s leading man. Mr. Broderick’s comic persona in recent years has solidified into that of an abstracted, inhibited, adorably passive nerd, a type he exploited beautifully in “The Producers.”

Such droll, straight-faced passivity doesn’t match up as neatly with the philandering hedonist he plays here. He sings and dances pleasantly and competently, but rather vaguely, too, as if his thoughts were elsewhere. And when he proclaims that he’s possessed by “fascinating rhythm” — in a first-act curtain number that places him in the center of a bevy of lascivious flappers — you’re inclined to doubt it.

The title role played by Lawrence in “Oh, Kay!” has been reconceived for Ms. O’Hara, one of the finest musical actresses of her generation. Kay, like Billie, was a bootlegger, but she was also a titled Englishwoman. Billie is both of the people and one of the boys. This makes sense, since Ms. O’Hara has already shown a winning way with hoydenish, down-to-earth parts in the marvelous revivals of “The Pajama Game” (staged by Ms. Marshall) and “South Pacific.”

But Ms. O’Hara’s strength is in sincerity, in finding through song the soul of conflicted characters. (Her voice, for the record, is heavenly here.) Billie is a part for a sexy shtick artist who sells her own personality.

Ms. O’Hara brings professional proficiency to her comic bits, including a Cockney maid impersonation that’s a tip of the hat to Lawrence. But she’s not a natural exhibitionist. And without a real character to play, she becomes almost as recessive as Mr. Broderick. In other words, aside from that “ ‘S Wonderful” duet, don’t count on chemistry between them.

Among the supporting cast, the impeccable Judy Kaye, in the regulation role of a Prohibitionist battle-ax, manages to make something fresh of a drunken scene that requires her to swing from a chandelier. Michael McGrath brings his usual assured timing to the part of a bootlegger pretending to be a butler. And the astonishing Estelle Parsons swaggers commandingly in an 11 o’clock appearance as Jimmy’s imperious mother.

As Jimmy’s pretentious fiancée, a terpsichorean artiste named Eileen Evergreen, Jennifer Laura Thompson appears to be copying Madeline Kahn’s delicious cartoons of prissy heiresses from screwball comedies. This means that what we have here is a pastiche of a pastiche and, like much of “Nice Work” itself, it feels ersatz.

The immortal Gershwin score is done luscious justice by the orchestra. (David Chase is the music supervisor.) Derek McLane’s sets and Martin Pakledinaz’s costumes brim with flash and color. And as fluent as always in the period she means to evoke, Ms. Marshall has drilled her agile dancers to perform every possible variation on the Charleston.

Yet the alchemy that could elicit magic from these promising ingredients is only fitfully in evidence. “Nice Work” suffers from comparison not only to Ms. Marshall’s “Anything Goes” but also to the newly opened National Theater production of “One Man, Two Guvnors,” a paradigm of transporting, precision-tooled farce.

In another season, perhaps, this good-looking, amiable production would be a must-have ticket. As it is, I found myself thinking of another work about bathtub gin and flappers running wild, Billy Wilder’s great movie farce of the Roaring Twenties, “Some Like It Hot.” An alternative title for “Nice Work” might be “Some Like It Lukewarm.”

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The New York Post:

Hardly seems like `Work'

by Elisabeth Vincentelli

*** (out of 4)

There’s a lot of fun stuff in “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” a new musical made of old parts. For starters, this Gershwin jukebox is loaded with unimpeachable classics and a few brilliant obscurities. They’re strung together by a zany, Prohibition-set book inspired by the George and Ira musical “Oh, Kay!” — which premiered at the very same Imperial Theatre in 1926.

We also get the fabulous Kelli O’Hara, who after “The Pajama Game” and “South Pacific” confirms she’s among the finest interpreters of the Great American Songbook on Broadway right now.

Here, she plays Billie Bendix, a tomboyish bootlegger who croons “Someone To Watch Over Me” while wielding a rifle, and slapsticks her way through “Treat Me Rough” — she sings while executing a medal-worthy gymnastics routine. You have to wonder if there’s anything O’Hara can’t do.

She even pulls off the steps director-choreographer Kathleen Marshall cooked up, and O’Hara isn’t known for her hoofing.

Add a big bunch of ripe second bananas, swell chorus boys and girls, grand sets by Derek McLane and stylish costumes by Martin Pakledinaz, and you have nearly all the basics for a tasty Broadway show.

Except for one.

You see, Billie’s love interest is a hapless, womanizing “wealthy playboy” named Jimmy Winter. And he’s played by Matthew Broderick, in his first musical outing since “The Producers.”

It’s hard to say this delicately, so let’s just rip off the Band-Aid: This is one of the most unappealing performances of the past few years.

For us to buy Billie’s love, Jimmy has to be goofily charming. But Broderick keeps a frozen half-smile pasted on his face the entire time, so his Jimmy just looks semi-idiotic. What a catch!

And while his thin, reedy singing voice has an appropriate period feel, the star isn’t enough of a mover to pull off Marshall’s dance numbers.

Unfortunately, he has quite a few of them, including an extended pas de deux with O’Hara where you can almost see him count beats in his head, like a Week 1 contestant on “Dancing With the Stars.”

At least you can block out this problem for large chunks of the evening. Following the procedure established by Gershwin-based musicals like “My One and Only” and “Crazy for You,” book writer Joe DiPietro (“Memphis”) crammed the show with oddball characters and subplots.

There are groaners, as when fake butler Cookie (the hardworking Michael McGrath) tells Billie, “You’re smart, you’re shrewd and you got the tenacity of an Irish priest at an open bar.” DiPietro isn’t a wit, but he throws so much stuff at the wall that some of it is bound to stick.

And the primo supporting cast is talented enough to sell it all. Judy Kaye, as a temperance leader gone tipsy, literally swings from the chandelier. Jennifer Laura Thompson is a riot as “the finest interpreter of modern dance in the whole world.” Chris Sullivan and Robyn Hurder deliciously play up the loony romance between a big galoot and a ditzy chorus girl.

Even at his most leaden, Broderick can’t quite sink this ship.




Updated On: 4/26/12 at 04:11 AM

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 4:13am

Variety

Nice Work If You Can Get It
(Imperial; 1,439 seats; $136.50 top)
by Steven Suskin

A Scott Landis, Roger Berlind, Sonia Friedman Prods., Roy Furman, Standing CO Vation, Candy Spelling, Freddy DeMann, Ronald Frankel, Harold Newman, Jon B. Platt, Raise the Roof 8, Takonkiet Viravan, William Berlind/Ed Burke, Carole L. Haber/Susan Carusi, Buddy and Barbara Freitag/Sanford Robertson, Jim Herbert/Under the Wire, Emanuel Azenberg, Shubert Organization presentation of a musical in two acts with music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, book by Joe DiPietro based on material by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse. Directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall. Musical direction, Tom Murray.

Jimmy Winter - Matthew Broderick
Billie Bendix - Kelli O'Hara
Duke Mahoney - Chris Sullivan
Cookie McGee - Michael McGrath
Jeannie Muldoon - Robyn Hurder
Chief Berry - Stanley Wayne Mathis
Senator Max Evergreen - Terry Beaver
Duchess Estonia Dulworth - Judy Kaye
Eileen Evergreen - Jennifer Laura Thompson
Millicent Winter - Estelle Parsons

The newly manufactured 1920s-set musical "Nice Work if You Can Get It" crams vintage Gershwin songs into a bubbly crowdpleaser, enchantingly rendered by thesps Kelli O'Hara, Michael McGrath and Judy Kaye. Mix in staging and choreography by Kathleen Marshall ("Anything Goes") and a cheerfully screwball if somewhat creaky new book by Joe DiPietro, and you've got what might be termed a good new old-fashioned musical. If only its likable, hard-working leading man -- a miscast Matthew Broderick -- didn't seem to be painfully concentrating on his next step, all night long.

DiPietro ("Memphis") has borrowed plot and characters from the 1926 musical "Oh, Kay!" for this Prohibition-era tale of a dissipated playboy (Broderick) who falls for a distaff bootlegger (O'Hara), who illicitly commandeers his Long Island mansion to store her illegal hooch. Comic misunderstandings ensue and eventually resolve into four or five sets of happy lovers, plus lots of dancing.

Twenty-one Gershwin tunes are shoehorned in; many sparkle, some don't quite fit, and a couple of long-lost tunes don't deserve disinterment. "Nice Work" is also carpeted with underscoring pulled from George's symphonic catalog, so it's wall-to-wall Gershwin for aficionados, compiled by an uncredited music expert who clearly knows his or her stuff.

Cast is, for the most part, topnotch. O'Hara ("South Pacific") has long displayed one of the best singing voices currently on the boards, but nothing thus far has shown off her aptitude for clowning. Her tomboyish bootlegger here is not only a first-class mug but a first-class mugger, turning pratfalls with ease.

Broderick proved perfectly capable in his last musical comedy, starring opposite Nathan Lane in "The Producers." Here, though, he is given dance number after dance number, and while he's able to get his legs working, more or less, his upper body is so distressingly rigid that he dances like he's strapped into a neck brace. When "Nice Work" gets frothy, as it frequently does, he kicks up his heels in a manner that leaves one feeling sorry for the actor, which continually lets the helium out of the figurative balloon.

The supporting clowns provide plenty of joy. McGrath ("Spamalot"), an always reliable musical comedian, outdoes himself in the sort of role that used to be written for Bert Lahr. The equally accomplished Judy Kaye ("The Phantom of the Opera") has a harder time of it; her character -- Duchess Estonia Fulworth, a Prohibitionist harpy with a tender side -- is clumsily drawn, and by the second act, the author has her trilling madly and literally swinging from a chandelier. Still, Kaye pulls it off admirably.

Also on hand are Jennifer Laura Thompson ("Urinetown"), forced to give an evening-long Madeline Kahn impersonation; Robyn Hurder, as a friendly flapper; and Stanley Wayne Mathis as a G-man searching for the booze. Stepping in for the final 20 minutes playing Broderick's mother, is Estelle Parsons. This being flimsy musical comedy, she brings two major plot surprises.

Leading man aside, director-choreographer Marshall keeps "Nice Work" humming. Her dances are enjoyable, but never quite build in the manner of her other current Broadway outing, "Anything Goes" (in which she had a star, Sutton Foster, who could outdance the chorus kids). Marshall's design team from that musical -- Derek McLane (sets) and Martin Pakledinaz (costumes) -- here provide a suitably ritzy physical production that well captures the humor of the occasion.

Sets, Derek McLane; costumes, Martin Pakledinaz; lighting, Peter Kaczorowski; sound, Brian Ronan; hair and wig, Paul Huntley; orchestrations, Bill Elliott; musical supervision, David Chase; production stage manager, Bonnie L. Becker. Opened April 24, 2012. Reviewed April 20. Running time: 2 HOURS, 30 MIN.

With: Cameron Adams, Clyde Alves, Kimberly Faure, Robert Hartwell, Stephanie Martignetti, Barrett Martin, Adam Perry, Jeffrey Schecter, Joey Sorge, Samantha Sturm, Kristen Beth Williams, Candice Marie Woods.




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Entertainment Weekly:

Nice Work If You Can Get It
by Adam Markovitz

Grade: B

If you're not a musical-theater fan, Nice Work If You Can Get It will probably confirm your worst fears about Broadway. The mugging. The wigs. The wheezing one-liners. Directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall (Anything Goes) with a light-as-air book by Joe DiPietro (Memphis), the show uses a screwball love story between a Prohibition-era playboy (Matthew Broderick) and a bootlegger (South Pacific's Kelli O'Hara) as an excuse for a medley of classic George and Ira Gershwin tunes. It's as joyfully airheaded and kitschy as a drag show, which should make it a must-see for anyone with a more-is-more stance on sequins.

For the rest of us, though, the musical flits between delightful and exasperating on a second-by-second basis — boosted by terrific supporting players (especially Judy Kaye as a zealous teetotaler) and dragged down by Broderick, who waltzes alongside his costars with the good-natured boredom of a tipsy wedding guest. Luckily for him, the show has a built-in fail-safe: the Gershwin songbook, a portable fireworks kit of dazzlers ('Someone to Watch Over Me,' 'Do It Again') guaranteed to charm just about anyone, theater fan or not.


Updated On: 4/25/12 at 04:13 AM

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 4:15am

The Hollywood Reporter:

Nice Work If You Can Get It
by David Rooney

The last time Matthew Broderick headlined a major musical was opposite Nathan Lane in the instant blockbuster The Producers, the 2001 show that ushered in a new age of irreverence on Broadway and scooped up a record 12 Tony Awards. Mel Brooks’ runaway hit was sublime silliness, a giddy valentine to old-time musical theater with nothing on its mind but delirious entertainment. The same could be said of Nice Work If You Can Get It, which brings Broderick back in a disarming ball of fluff that seems tailor-made to fit his droll brand of comedy.

Having scored a huge success last season with Cole Porter’s 1934 musical Anything Goes, director-choreographer Kathleen Marshall follows by time-traveling back to the previous decade and dipping into the songbook of George and Ira Gershwin. The results are diverting, even if they don’t quite match the effervescence of that last excursion.

Broderick is winningly paired with the luminous Kelli O’Hara (South Pacific), and the leads are backed by a string of top-notch character turns. Throw in 21 tunes from two of the preeminent practitioners of the American musical and you have a cocktail that should go down easily with Broadway nostalgists. It might also draw audiences seduced by the magic and glamour of Jazz Age entertainment in this year’s Oscar-winner The Artist.

Much like previous “new” Gershwin vehicles Crazy For You (a revamp of Girl Crazy) and My One and Only (hatched out of Funny Face), Nice Work has been assembled from the bones of an existing musical, the 1926 Oh Kay!, written by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse. The book by Joe DiPietro (Memphis) credits their material as inspiration. However, the two musicals share only a couple of songs, and DiPietro has observed the earlier story only in certain loose elements. But Nice Work adheres completely to the original template of twenties musicals by combining daffy comedy, screwball characters, jazzy dance numbers and the occasional tender ballad.

Picking up from Bolton and Wodehouse’s legacy, DiPietro concocts a suitably ridiculous featherweight plot with enough genuine chuckles amongst the corn, and some delicious political digs toward the end.

Broderick plays Jimmy Winter, an idle-rich playboy about to marry his fourth wife in a bid for respectability. While her predecessors have all been cheap chorus girls, current fiancée Eileen Evergreen (Jennifer Laura Thompson) is “the finest interpreter of modern dance in the world,” as she frequently points out. But unexpected romance rears its head when Jimmy meets low-class female bootlegger Billie Bendix (O’Hara), who stashes a boatload of hooch in the cellar of his Long Island mansion while evading the Feds.

The central joke is the gender reversal of making Billie the tough guy while Jimmy is the flaky lightweight in need of rescuing. The fact that O’Hara’s creamy refinement and limpid soprano make her the last person who should be playing a common criminal just makes it funnier. And with his cheeky nonchalance, Broderick is ideally cast to play off his persona as the eternal Ferris Bueller boychik. He makes no pretence at being the greatest singer or dancer in town, but he’s game for anything, and Marshall builds the musical numbers to accommodate him. The self-aware smile that keeps sneaking across his face indicates he’s having a ball up there.

As much as the leads, the show’s pleasures are boosted by its busy cavalcade of eccentric supporting characters. There are Billie’s cohorts, Cookie McGee (Michael McGrath) and Duke Mahoney (Chris Sullivan), cornered into posing as Jimmy’s butler and chef. Then there’s Eileen’s father (Terry Beaver), a windbag Senator campaigning for re-election as a staunch prohibitionist, and his even more righteous sister, Duchess Estonia Dulworth (Judy Kaye), who crusades against the “Demon Rum” in her role as proud founder of the Society of Dry Women. There’s Jeannie Muldoon (Robyn Hurder), a gold-digging chorus girl misled to think big-hearted lug Duke is part of the British Royal Family. And finally, there’s Jimmy’s worldly-wise mother, who swans in late, swathed in leopard furs, in the irrepressible form of Estelle Parsons.

Every one of these performers hits the spot, but the chief scene-stealers are McGrath and certified musical-theater treasure Kaye. Their duel between three-quarter and four-quarter time – pitting the elegance of the waltz, “By Strauss,” against the syncopated jazz of “Sweet and Lowdown” – is an ingenious mashup.

A bunch of wild flappers and an athletic vice squad complete the confection. The absence of a tap number is disappointing, although it’s likely that after the tap-happy explosion of Anything Goes, Marshall wanted to avoid repeating herself. But while that show’s extended dance tsunamis are missed, the choreography is fun and period-appropriate, notably in the bouncy numbers that bookend intermission, “Fascinating Rhythm” and “Lady Be Good.”

There’s not much to distinguish this throwback from previous retro-fests. But hearing polished performances of standards like the title song, “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” “Do It Again,” “’S Wonderful” and “But Not For Me” is never a chore. The less familiar numbers are equally appealing, notably O’Hara doing “Treat Me Rough” and Thompson’s aptly named hymn of self-adulation, “Delishious,” performed in a bubble bath with a balletic chorus emerging from unexpected places.

In Bill Elliott’s old-fangled orchestrations under music supervisor David Chase, the songs sound glorious, and the idea of incorporating Gershwin instrumentals is a smart one. (In a running joke, every kiss prompts a surge of “Rhapsody in Blue.”) I could gripe that “They All Laughed” makes a slightly underpowered finale, but that’s just nitpicking.

The design department provides lots to love, including Derek McLane’s amusingly kitschy but beautiful sets, replete with the obligatory grand staircase in Jimmy’s humble Long Island digs; Martin Pakledinaz’sfabulous costumes; and Peter Kaczorowsi’s sparkling lighting.

The Duchess of course could be talking about the very vehicle in which she appears when she complains indignantly, “Do you know what they put on the stage nowadays? Frothy comedies! Frivolous boy-meets-girl sex farces! And the music – don’t even talk to me about the music!” The stuffy puritan eventually loosens up with the help of some gin-spiked lemonade. But for Gershwin fans, Nice Work will be intoxication enough.





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The Chicago Tribune:

Great songs and Broderick's charms in 'Nice Work,' but will you get it?

by Chris Jones

It most certainly is "Nice Work If You Can Get It," but the new Broadway musical starring Matthew Broderick and Kelli O'Hara is otherwise tough to define. It's not really a jukebox musical, since we don't associate the songs of George and Ira Gershwin with quarters or spinning discs.

One could call it writer Joe DiPietro's updating and rewriting of the 1926 musical "Oh, Kay," which is reasonably accurate, with an additional nod to the 1981 movie"Arthur," except that the songs in "Nice Work" are not just the songs in "Oh, Kay," but are Gershwin's greatest hits, reused and co-opted from a plethora of Gershwin properties. One common description in use, "hybrid musical," doesn't sound like a good time.

So, perhaps the best way to describe the whole shebang is to say that it is an attempt to pry such musical gems as "Someone to Watch Over Me," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and "I've Got a Crush On You" from textual surroundings that don't showcase them well anymore, write a new, hipper book with broader satirical appeal, and license the result for fun and (for the Gershwin estate) profit.

There is, most certainly, fun to be had at the show, courtesy not only of Broderick, whose deadpan delivery and guilelessness as Jimmy remain in fine fettle, but from Michael McGrath, who plays a bootlegger in this Prohibition-era farce about a suave-but-geeky playboy with multiple spouses who falls in love with a street-smart young gal (O'Hara), who first sets out to rob him only to fall for his upscale charms. McGrath, who steals the show, plays Cookie McGee, one of the various small-time crooks and other character-types floating around Jimmy's place. The longtime Chicago actor Chris Sullivan (who sings well, who knew?) plays another, and Jennifer Laura Thompson is also on hand for laughs.

DiPietro is at his best writing for the scrunch-faced McGrath, who at one point presides over a comic dinner that ends with Judy Kaye swinging, literally, from a chandelier.

"We've got bread, soup, salad and, if we can find the cat, fish," says McGrath's deadpan Cookie, going over the dinner menu, as Sullivan's Duke Mahoney bangs pot and pans in the rear. It's like a Marx Brothers scene.

Aside from a lithe ensemble of dancers, directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall into a highlight of the enterprise, the show's other strength is its oft-deft melding of gentle satire and what you might call warm Broadway traditionalism, exemplified by Derek McLane's 1920s-like set. "Look, there's Judy Kaye," you hear people say to their seatmates, closely followed by. "Look, Estelle Parsons!" (The much-loved theater veteran does a droll cameo at the end of a second act that's far stronger than the first.)

But for all DiPietro's stylish jokes and other amusements, and despite O'Hara's lovely voice and Marshall's fresh choreographic stylings, the show somehow doesn't hang together in a fully satisfying way. You struggle to fully buy the story, which gets fractured between too many locales and takes turns that leave you scratching your head. Overall, the book feels as if it was designed to accommodate the musical numbers. That might well have been the way the sausage was made, but we need to feel more as if it was the reverse. And everyone involved often gets caught between wanting to do something totally different with these famous songs — O'Hara, who doesn't always feel well-used, sings "Someone to Watch Over Me" while holding and cocking a gun, and "I've Got a Crush on You' is camped up mercilessly — and letting them work their natural charms.

Overall, the show is too afraid of emotional engagement, which is silly when you have these songs and O'Hara's voice and Broderick's likable self to deliver them. More truth and honesty would make the work considerably nicer — and, for the audience, easier to get.


Updated On: 4/25/12 at 04:15 AM

[Princeton Returns]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 4:15am

Even though I cant stand Broderick I actually quite fancy seeing this

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 4:17am

Associated Press:

`Nice Work' is a very enjoyable romp
by Mark Kennedy

Kelli O'Hara has admitted that she was a little reluctant at first to sing some of the classic, heavily picked-over Gershwin songs before starting on "Nice Work If You Can Get It." Thankfully that changed when he got to hold a gun.

The image of her cradling a rifle while singing "Someone to Watch Over Me" – complete with the now-ironic lyric "I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood" – is just one of dozens of inventive moments in the new musical comedy that opened Tuesday at the Imperial Theatre.

While O'Hara and Matthew Broderick are the stars on stage, the real credit for this very enjoyable romp goes to book writer Joe DiPietro and director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall.

They've managed to take about 20 songs from the George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin catalog, marry them to the skeleton of the 1926 musical "O, Kay!" and emerge with a plot that makes madcap sense with songs that feel right for the occasion. If this is a jukebox musical, this is how you do it right.

The action takes place in 1927 on Long Island with Broderick playing the wealthy playboy Jimmy who is about to marry a well-connected modern dancer (Jennifer Laura Thompson), which would be his fourth wife. Those plans go out the window when he meets a pretty, bootlegging dame played by O'Hara.

The musical includes such beautiful tunes as "Sweet and Lowdown," "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "S'Wonderful," "They All Laughed" and "Fascinating Rhythm." (Only songs from the Gerswin's "Porgy and Bess," playing in the Broadway theater next door, were off-limits to producers.)

There are visual delights in every scene, from a bunch of drunken partiers and chorus girls disappearing into a tiny shack, to a bride whose wedding veil never seems to end, to a woman literally swinging from a chandelier, to 10 dancers – six female, four male – leaping out of a small tub.

A boyish Broderick plays it all with a look of bemusement that often becomes outright giggles. Though not the world's best singer or dancer, there's something charming and self-conscious and arch about him, as if he's just another audience member along for the fun. If he doesn't take it all so seriously, why should we?

O'Hara is, as usual, strong and feminine even in men's clothes, with a voice to make you swoon. She gets to loosen up in one bedroom number in which she too-aggressively tries to seduce Broderick's playboy – in what becomes the worst strip tease in history – and ends up in a heap in the bed. Estelle Parsons makes a late appearance as the playboy's mother and almost steals the show. Fear not, everyone is happily paired off at the end.

DiPietro, who turned "Memphis" into a Tony Award winner, has massaged the script to such an extent that he has been able to slip song after song into spots like a frame over artwork. "I've Got a Crush On You" is sung by the self-important bride-to-be Thompson, "I Am Just a Little Girl" is sung by a drunken temperance activist (Judy Kaye biting into a delicious role) and "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" – the one that playful contrasts to-mato versus to-mah-to – is sung right after the star-crossed main lovers have a fight, and it even gets joined by a police officer.

Marshall, a woman at home in a zany, feel-good world, lends some of the qualities that have made her "Anything Goes" a frothy must-see: Long-limbed dancing girls waving their arms in the sky, making huge kicks and doing a bit of naughty rear end bending and shaking. In one dance sequence Broderick and O'Hara dance on top of a table, chair, couch, end table and staircase, basically any possible surface on stage.

Many members of Marshall's "Anything Goes" team have been reunited here: Costumes by Martin Pakledinaz emphasize short skirts, spats and hats, a glimpse of stocking – remember when that was shocking? – pinstriped suits and skimpy dresses. Derek McLane's sets are rich and luxurious, from a glorious veranda to a ritzy dining room.

There's a secondary love story between Jeannie the chorus girl (the not-to-be-messed-with Robyn Hurder) and a bootlegger named Duke (a teddy bearish Chris Sullivan). Other impressive turns are taken by Michael McGrath as wise guy Cookie McGee and Terry Beaver as the imperious Sen. Max Evergreen.

"Oh, enough with this song and dance," says an irritated Evergreen at one point.

Perish the thought.




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amnewyork:

Nice Work If You Can Get It
by Matt Windman

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Matthew Broderick, who hasn't enjoyed much success on Broadway since "The Producers" a decade ago, manages to redeem himself in "Nice Work If You Can Get It," a "new" Gershwin musical also starring Kelli O'Hara and other stage veterans who bring down the house in supporting comedic roles.

Just like "Crazy for You," "Nice Work You Can Get It" is a thorough reworking of a rarely seen musical comedy with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by his brother Ira, namely 1926's "Oh, Kay!" Not only has its Prohibition-era plot been altered, most of its score is lifted from other shows.

Jimmy (Broderick), a clueless but handsome bachelor, meets Billie (O'Hara), a no-nonsense bootlegger, just before his wedding to the pampered, somewhat crazed Eileen (Jennifer Laura Thompson).

Under the belief that Jimmy never uses his family's Long Island mansion, Billie decides to hide her stash of liquor there. When the pair unexpectedly meets again, they quickly fall for each other, leading to unending farcical complications and mistaken identities.

While Kathleen Marshall's crowd-pleasing production lacks the inspired showstopper choreography of her revival of "Anything Goes," it makes for nonstop giddy fun thanks to its dynamic cast, Joe DiPietro's wickedly funny dialogue and a treasure trove of timeless Gershwin favorites and rarities.

At first, Broderick seems ill at ease, especially while dancing. But soon enough he wins over the audience with his charm and thin but pleasant singing voice.

O'Hara, best remembered as Nellie Forbush in the "South Pacific" revival, proves that she can also sparkle in a silly comedy.

Her finest moments occur as she sings the classic ballad "Someone to Watch Over Me" while brandishing a rifle and, later on, pouring hot soup all over Broderick's lap while playing the part of a Cockney maid.

Other standouts include Michael McGrath, whose performance as Billie's wise guy criminal cohort brings to mind Chico Marx, and Judy Kaye as a staunch abolitionist who lets loose once she unknowingly imbibes alcohol.


Updated On: 4/25/12 at 04:17 AM

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 4:19am

New York Daily News:

Nice Work If You Can Get It
by Joe Dziemianowicz

*** (out of 5)

Swirling with bootleggers and bathtub gin, the Prohibition-era musical comedy cocktail “Nice Work If You Can Get It” is a light-hearted romp, but unfortunately, it’s not as intoxicating as you’d hope.

Yes, star turns by Matthew Broderick and Kelli O’Hara give you a buzz. Ditto the classic George and Ira Gershwin showtunes, even though many of the songs are shoehorned in. If the show was all-singing and dancing, it could get by on charm alone.

But the story by Joe DiPietro (“Memphis”), which closely mimics 1920s musicals, is a rusty antique knockoff, that sobers you up faster than a cup of black coffee. Why spend so much energy making something new that’s already old?

The complicated but still predictable plot revolves around Jimmy Winter (Broderick), a rich playboy who’s about to marry Mrs. Winter No. 4 when he collides with Billie Bendix (O’Hara), a rough-and-tumble rumrunner. You know that planned wedding is a goner.

The show plays to its stars’ strengths — Broderick’s patented goofy and wimpy demeanor and O’Hara’s lustrous voice on songs like “Someone to Watch Over Me.” She also displays deft and surprising bits of Lucille Ball-inspired physical comedy.

Dancing like Fred and Ginger to “’S Wonderful,” Broderick and O’Hara make a cute couple, which isn’t the same as saying they set off fireworks.

Also showcased are a top-shelf roster of supporting talents, including Judy Kaye, as a die-hard teetotaler; Jennifer Laura Thompson, as Jimmy’s finicky fiance; comic ace Michael McGrath, as Billie’s partner in crime, and Oscar winner Estelle Parsons, who arrives late as Jimmy’s mom to tie up the endless plot threads.

Fresh from “Anything Goes,” director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall wraps the show up in plenty of eye candy. Lavish sets go from seedy New York City docks to glamorous Long Island boudoirs, while colorful and witty costumes define characters and the period. It all gets lit in a warm glow.

Marshall's production numbers are clever and polished. The giddiest moment comes during the relatively obscure song “Delishious.” In it, a bubble bath turns into a pink fantasy production. It’s totally kooky and unexpected. Just what the nice but predictable “Nice Work” needs more of.

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USA Today:

Broderick and cast do a nice job with 'Nice Work'
by Elysa Gardner

Risk-averse nostalgists, rejoice: There's a brand new jukebox musical on Broadway.

True, Nice Work If You Can Get It (* * * out of four) doesn't use an inane story line to simply string together a beloved band or singer's catalog or a bunch of disparate rock chestnuts. Instead, it uses an inane story line to string together the timeless songs of George and Ira Gershwin.

This distinction shouldn't make Nice Work, which opened Tuesday at the Imperial Theatre, any more encouraging to people who care about keeping musical theater fresh and vital. But director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall and a stellar cast ensure that the show is as charming in execution as it is disheartening in theory.

The plot, set in the Prohibition era, involves a soft-living playboy who, on the weekend that his third marriage is scheduled, falls rather inconveniently for a hard-bitten bootlegger. Matthew Broderick, in his first Broadway musical since The Producers, is the playboy, Jimmy Winter; Kelli O'Hara is the bootlegger, Billie Bendix.

Memphis librettist/co-lyricist Joe DiPietro wrote the book, "inspired by" material by the late, great wordsmiths Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse — though that inspiration is less than steady. For every sharp line, there are a couple that will make you wince — or would, if they weren't delivered with such disarming spirit and skill.

Broderick fares predictably well in the kind of role he does best: a sweetly deadpan social doofus. He also sings breezy tunes such as 'S Wonderful and Do, Do, Do and dances with an appealingly light touch, especially when spinning his leading lady around in a witty second-act sequence.

O'Hara proves once again that there's pretty much nothing she can't do on stage. No matter that Billie's a particularly unimaginative variation on the tough girl with a tender heart; the actress makes her adorable and funny, and as usual sings gorgeously — though you may wish they had relaxed the tempo a bit on Someone To Watch Over Me or But Not For Me, and let that sumptuous soprano linger more.

Granted, a slower pace might not have suited the proceedings, which Marshall guides with the same giddy panache that distinguished her revivals of Anything Goes and The Pajama Game. One clever, frothy production number is a bath scene in which "bubble boys and girls" artfully wrap Jennifer Laura Thompson, as Jimmy's obnoxious fiancée, in an enormous towel. In another, the excellent Judy Kaye, playing a smug Prohibition advocate, sips spiked lemonade and gets flamboyantly frisky.

Other standout performers include Michael McGrath, as a cohort of Billie's who goes undercover as the world's most reluctant butler; and Estelle Parsons, in a brief but priceless turn as Jimmy's domineering yet surprisingly free-thinking mom.

In a season with few substantial new musicals, Nice Work's empty calories are a forgivable indulgence. So dig in — resistance is futile.




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Newsday:

It is 'Nice Work If You Can Get It'

by Linda Winer

Call it a Franken-musical, stitched together out of body parts from different shows. But "Nice Work If You Can Get It," which has been sewn together with a grab bag of wondrous Gershwin songs and a preposterous new-old bootlegging comedy, is a happy creature -- loose and larky and altogether comfortable in its snappily dressed patchwork skin.

Kathleen Marshall, whose award-winning direction and choreography often have struck me as more functionally admirable than lovably original, has put together a rowdy, dopey-smart, dance-driven screwball comedy that never shies from the extravagant edge of clunky silliness.

Kelli O'Hara and Matthew Broderick may not seem a likely romantic couple. But their different styles -- her crisp and sublime professionalism, his sleepy-faced cunning naiveté and low-watt skills -- spark unexpected chemistry. At least they are very sweet together.

Joe DiPietro ("Memphis") has used some outlines of "Oh, Kay," a genuine Prohibition fluff ball from 1926, for his new story. He switches the power of the illegal-hooch gang from the guys to a plucky woman in guy's clothes -- O'Hara. She tries to hide a stash in the cellar of a Long Island beach mansion, owned by the debauched, adored, multi-married playboy -- no kidding, Broderick.

There are cleverly foolish and lavish old-fashioned sets by Derek McLane and comical yet gorgeous costumes by Martin Pakledinaz (Marshall's team from "Anything Goes"). The big cast includes the terrific Michael McGrath as a fast-mouthed thug, a kind of Nathan Lane foil for Broderick's light comedy faux-sincerity.

Judy Kaye literally hangs from the chandelier as the dowager prohibitionist with the operetta belt. Estelle Parsons has a cameo as Broderick's supposedly disapproving mother, and Jennifer Laura Thompson has pinpoint comic timing as his ritzy, self-adoring fiancee.

And then there are the songs by George and Ira Gershwin, not just the title classic, but "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off," "Fascinating Rhythm,"

"'S Wonderful," and lesser-known, equally irresistible treasures. O'Hara, with a freshness and spontaneity that should contradict her meticulous vocal technique, brandishes a shotgun while wistfully singing "Someone to Watch Over Me." Broderick, with a stiff upper-body posture that suggests he's balancing an egg on his head, lets us enjoy the surprise of his easygoing accurate voice and fleet feet.

The chorus is big and healthy and lusty, with choreography that appreciates individuality as much as precision. This may not be important work, but it's much more than nice.


Updated On: 4/25/12 at 04:19 AM

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 4:23am

New York Magazine

`Nice Work If You Can Get It' Is De-Lovely
by Scott Brown

How many Matthew Brodericks does it take to anchor a Gershwin revue-sical? Just one: He stands stock-still, and the whole show revolves around him. I don’t mean this as a criticism of Nice Work if You Can Get It, the perfectly lovely pan-Gershwin amalgamation of tunes and Prohibition-era tropes cleverly assembled by director-choreographer Kathleen Marshall (Anything Goes) and book-writer Joe DiPietro (Memphis). On the contrary, I say it with admiration. Broderick, as he himself has noted on more than one occasion, is not a trained singer or dancer. His unique stage presence depends not on razzle-dazzle but on his ability to slip a dry jibe sideways to his conspirators in the audience: On some level, he’s still Ferris Bueller, and we still feel lucky to be his confidants. The leggy, lissome ensemble of Nice Work steers him from mark to mark, at one point actually rolling him on a human conveyor belt. And that more of less sums up the show: watching an
irresistible force meet an agreeably movable object. As the perma-sozzled, dimwitted, oft-married heir Jimmy Winter, Broderick — having been delivered to his marks by the tide of Marshall’s choreography and staging — proceeds to nail his gags dead-on, make it tipsily through his big dance with his towboy bootlegger love-interest Billie Bendix (Kelli O’Hara), and warble George-and-Ira’s melodies with pleasant Muppetry. Who could ask for anything more?

Well, occasionally, one could ask for perhaps just a little more: Just a tiny dram more, perhaps, of O’Hara. (Is there ever enough?) Playing the steely dame who exploits credulous Jimmy for use of his beach house (to hide a shipment of hooch from the law), then, wouldn’t ya know it, falls head over heels for the clueless party boy in spite of herself, O’Hara charms us effortlessly in her torchlit solos. She interprets songs that are more or less tattooed on the inside of our eardrums (“Someone to Watch Over Me,” “But Not For Me”) with sweet clarity and refreshingly pellucid unaffectedness, all the more memorable for being direct, strong, and sincere. Then she stretches herself in a risky physical-comedy number: Marshall has revamped “Treat Me Rough” (from Girl Crazy) as a brassily hapless vamp act, performed by a woman who’s never learned to be a “dame.” O’Hara’s not known for her pratfalls, and the wonderfully undignified
maneuvers she executes here have a noticeably studied quality to them. This isn’t her natural dance, but she more than manages, and if the number falls ever so slightly short, it’s a game attempt, the kind you want to cheer for. I could’ve used a bit more of the golden-throated stage comedienne Jennifer Laura Thompson, too. She’s Jimmy’s insufferably haughty dilettante fiancée, Eileen Evergreen, “the finest interpreter of modern dance in the whole world!” (“Why, she’s so brilliant,” brags Jimmy, “when she steps on stage, no one has any idea what she’s doing.”) Thompson is the fulcrum of Marshall’s most tangily imagined production number, “Delishious,” which involves a deceptively intimate hot tub and towel roughly the length of the proscenium. But beyond this showstopper, she’s got little to do but sulk. Nice Work is a bit of a paradox: The show’s written for a passel of genius hams, in a delicate web of mutually
assured mugging. Sometimes, a stage crowded with talent results in a bit of Mexican standoff.

But I nitpick. Nice Work is a lovely, witty diversion, thanks to some deft gag-smithing and half-serious story-spinning on the part of DiPietro. (He’s very loosely cultured his story from the protoplasm of the Gershwins’ 1926 Oh, Kay!, written by P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton.) Marshall’s musical troika (orchestrator Bill Elliott, musical director Tom Murray and music supervisor David Chase) have sculpted a swelling throughline score out of Gershwin’s songs and instrumental compositions, with judicious, occasionally rather sly quotes from Rhapsody in Blue, The Three Note Waltz, and many others. Nobody fills a big space like Marshall: She has the great Judy Kaye (as the villain of the piece, the teetotaling totally T.O.’d Duchess Estonia Dulworth) literally swinging from a chandelier at one point — and that’s not even the finale. Running the show is plucky character-actor genius Michael McGrath, who plays Cookie, a short thug with a short
fuse and a talent for managing chaos. He’s a dynamo, and the show’s driving force, its Bugs Bunny id and Daffy Duck spoiler, all in one package. (Chris Sullivan, as his big-lug sidekick Duke, is no slouch either.) Robyn Hurder takes the dumb-blonde role up a notch or five, and Stanley Wayne Mathis (who performed in a 1990 revival of Oh, Kay!) furnishes some near-surreal comedy as a suspicious yet easily misled local cop who simply won’t go away. Did I mention that Estelle Parsons is in this show? She is. Your cup runneth over. Nice Work is perfectly nice work, an old-fashioned romp with a well-deployed prop in the center ring: If the show is Jackie Chan, Broderick is the vase he’s juggling. The difference is, we’re rooting for this vase to stay intact. It doesn’t disappoint.



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Bloomberg News:

Matthew Broderick Lumbers Through Gershwins’ ‘Nice Work’
by Jeremy Gerard

* 1/2 (out of 5)

“Nice Work If You Can Get It,” which stars Matthew Broderick and Kelli O’Hara, isn’t nearly as self-important and ambitious a disappointment as “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess.”

The show, drawing hither and yon from the Gershwin songbook, demonstrates how hard it is to create the illusion of effortless whimsy.

A new book by Joe DiPietro pays heavy-handed tribute to the flimsy plots that Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse once devised for George and Ira to showcase their sublime ditties.

The result is mostly a flop-sweat inducing affair. However appealing Broderick and O’Hara are individually, as romantic leads, they’re weak sparks on damp leaves.

Fortunately, a pair of first-rate second bananas -- Judy Kaye and Michael McGrath -- partly salvage this misguided enterprise.

Set during the Prohibition, “Nice Work” has the requisite elements: Jimmy Winter, an aimless scion under the thumb of his tyrannical mother and betrothed to a society girl, falls for Billie Bendix, a spirited working-class girl.

A Greek chorus of statuesque chorines streams out of cramped places to serenade them as they court. This will all be familiar from more successful Broadway “revisals” like “Crazy for You” and “My One and Only.”

The action unfolds mostly in Jimmy’s 47-room Long Island “beach cottage,” where Billie and her gang of bootleggers have stashed their contraband.

Jimmy (Broderick) shows up unexpectedly with soon-to-be wife number four (Jennifer Laura Thompson), daughter of a senator and a modern dancer in the manner of Isadora Duncan. But Billie (O’Hara) catches his eye and soon they’re crooning the title song (far too early in the show, by the way).

There will of course be plenty of silly obstacles along their way to matrimonial bliss.

Most of the fun is provided by McGrath, as a snappish gang- member unhappily put to work as a butler on the estate, and Kaye as the senator’s Temperance-spouting sister. They do a divine duet that pairs “By Strauss” and “Sweet and Lowdown.” The unsinkable Estelle Parsons makes a delightful last-minute appearance as Jimmy’s mother.

Broderick is too long in the tooth to be relying on the boyishness that once was his signature quality, and too earthbound in his dancing and singing to put an audience, let alone his partner, at ease.

Thus abandoned, O’Hara can do little more than plaster a smile on her face and plow on through.

They do well by “Will You Remember Me?” from 1924’s “Lady Be Good,” though less so by such standards as “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” and “But Not For Me.”

In such a show nearly everyone’s work is seen in an unflattering light. Martin Pakledinaz’s costumes are unpretty; Derek McLane’s sets are just serviceable; only Peter Kaczorowski’s lighting is better than that.

I did enjoy Bill Elliott’s brisk, brassy orchestrations.

In the end, though, director/choreographer Kathleen Marshall couldn’t overcome the fatal combination of ill-matched lovers and creaky machinery. George and Ira will undoubtedly survive.


Updated On: 4/25/12 at 04:23 AM

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 4:25am

Los Angeles Times:

'Nice Work if You Can Get It' makes Roaring '20s whimper
by Charles McNulty

Anyone out there heard of George and Ira Gershwin?

Well, apparently, the brothers — long dead, if I'm not mistaken — have a "new" musical comedy, which opened Tuesday at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway. The show, which stars Matthew Broderick and Kelli O'Hara, is called "Nice Work if You Can Get It," but please don't get the idea that the songwriting legends have been granted a second coming.

The only miracle going on here is a marketing one. A treasure-trove of tunes by the Gershwin boys has been repurposed into a wobbly jukebox musical, with a hot-off-the-press book by Joe DiPietro ("Memphis") that's inspired by material by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse. That's the duo who wrote the book for "Oh, Kay!," the frolicsome 1926 Gershwin relic in which Broderick's character, the Jazz Age aristocrat Jimmy Winter, finds himself in a vaguely similar romantic jumble with a sexy fugitive bootlegger who's storing hooch at his Long Island estate.

The story has been heavily revamped, but I'd love to get Bolton and Wodehouse on the Ouija board to see what they'd make of Broderick's absentee portrayal, a performance so oddly lackluster that it's as if he isn't so much playing a role as causally trying one out for future reference.

Although he was part of one of the biggest successes in Broadway history with "The Producers," Broderick has had difficulty of late finding his stage footing. Age has at last caught up with Ferris Bueller, and the actor's patented boyish shtick doesn't seem quite as lovably hapless now that he's reached the half-century mark.

Playing a man about town who must clean up his act if he is to take over the mysterious family business, Broderick is the dead spot in a production that can't afford to have one at its center. But it's doubtful that even a more buoyant lead could make "Nice Work" tantalize like vintage champagne bubbles. The show just can't seem to work out the pastiche formula that allowed"My One and Only"(1983) and "Crazy for You" (1992) to become hit Broadway "revisals," to use the term that has been waggishly applied to this category.

Recapturing the stylistic magic of another era is tricky business, even with O'Hara, Broadway's most luscious soprano, interpreting Gershwin standards as Billie, the bootlegging beauty who sets off romantic sparks with Jimmy just as he's about to tie the knot with Eileen, an egomaniacal avant-garde dancer and the spoiled brat daughter of a senator (Terry Beaver). And though Kathleen Marshall would seem to be the ideal director-choreographer for the job (her Tony-winning revival of "Anything Goes" is still tap-dancing Broadway audiences into euphoria), the production's rhythm is more tentative than fascinating.

Not that there aren't plenty of inventive moments. The brush-stroke of Marshall's impressionistic choreography — yes, she paints with dance — is confidently brisk, especially when the chorus girls, those long-legged beauties from Jimmy's past, pop up on Derek McLane's efficient sets in search of a good time. It's a delight the way even solo turns giddily transform into ensemble numbers. As Eileen (a game Jennifer Laura Thompson) serenades herself in the bath after thinking she has been legally wed to Jimmy, dancers rise up like soap bubbles to provide whimsical choreographic enhancement.

If only the book were as assured as the marvelous Judy Kaye, who as Eileen's rabid prohibitionist aunt literally starts swinging from the chandelier after Cookie (Michael McGrath), a tough-talking bootlegger posing as a butler, spikes her lemonade. But the farce, which often has the feel of a copy of a copy, doesn't build enough zany momentum. And how can it with DiPietro tossing together more plots than can be summarized in a review, never mind effectively sorted out onstage?

Timeless Gershwin songs are shoehorned into the story with little concern for narrative relevance. Why the first act concludes with "Fascinating Rhythm" is a mystery, though my suspicion is that the creative team was trying to supply in name what was conspicuously missing in reality.

The book musical came into its own after George Gershwin's heyday, but could shows pre-"Oklahoma!" really have been this much of a chore when characters weren't belting or hoofing? The only thing holding my interest was the question of when Estelle Parsons, who plays Jimmy's mother, would finally appear. The suspense over whether this Oscar-winning veteran had been cut from the production (but not yet the playbill) surpassed even the excitement of how Jimmy and Billie's romantic fate would unfold. (Parsons does eventually come on the scene, deus ex machina style, to help resolve the impossible plot.)

O'Hara looks fetching in both the male and female costumes Martin Pakledinaz has designed for her. (When we first encounter Billie, she's disguised as a slim thug, as dangerous as she is alluring.) And, more important, she sounds as sublime as ever — her lilting renditions of "Someone to Watch Over Me" and "But Not For Me" lend the show what little authenticity it has.

During Broderick's first number, "Sweet and Lowdown," it seemed reasonable that he was underplaying out of respect for realism. The character is not only drunk but is singing and dancing alongside professional chorus girls and an equally adroit group of "society guys." The trouble is that Broderick never kicks it into high gear. His performance, like the show as a whole, makes the '20s seem not so much roaring as murmuring.

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newjerseynewsroom.com:

‘Nice Work If You Can Get It’ glows nicely

by Michael Sommers

Marginally based upon previous Broadway shows with scores by George and Ira Gershwin, “My One and Only” (1983) and “Crazy for You” (1992) were new musicals that successfully repackaged the team’s vintage songs with fresh scripts and dance-driven productions.

The latest such attraction to exploit the Gershwin catalog is “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” which opened on Tuesday at the Imperial Theater: ‘S wonderful music, ‘s marvelous time and ‘s gonna be tough to nab tickets soon for this smart, altogether lovely reincarnation of a 1920s musical comedy.

An eternally boyish Matthew Broderick shines at the top of his amiable game in a perfectly-fitting role as a mildly dumb and often sweetly intoxicated millionaire. Kelli O’Hara glows as a gamine bootlegger who secretly stows her hooch in the cellar of his ritzy Long Island villa.

Together they delightfully gambol through standards such as “Someone to Watch Over Me” and the title number while a brilliant featured company makes song-and-dance whoopee under director Kathleen Marshall’s ever-inventive guidance.

Writer Joe DiPietro wittily crafts “Nice Work If You Can Get It” out of story fragments from “Oh, Kay!” (1926) plus songs drawn from over a dozen other Gershwin works of the 1920s and ‘30s. Passages from the composer’s instrumental pieces deftly and humorously punctuate the action, as when Broderick and O’Hara share their first kiss and suddenly a splash of “Rhapsody in Blue” swells out of the orchestra pit.

Spiked with a plenitude of hearty laughs, DiPietro’s busy but nimble book involves such classic figures as the playboy’s self-absorbed fiancée (Jennifer Laura Thompson), a hoodlum who masquerades as a butler (Michael McGrath), a doughty temperance leader who giddily succumbs to demon rum (Judy Kaye), a hapless police chief (Stanley Wayne Mathis), a gold-digging chorine (Robyn Hurder) who thinks a mug named Duke (Chris Sullivan) is royalty and a puritanical Senator with a past (Terry Beaver).

None other than Estelle Parsons grandly makes a very late entrance as the deus ex machina who solves the hero’s romantic complications.

The amusing story goes down very easily, especially when rendered so expertly by everyone concerned. Musical and comedy highlights are too numerous to mention but a slapstick sequence in a dining room and a rousing “I’ve Got to Be There” dance for Broderick with a bevy of tootsies in lingerie (“Lindbergh me, ladies!”) are among the standouts. A Gershwin rarity that shimmers amid their more familiar songs is a delicate “Will You Remember Me?” duet for Broderick and O’Hara.

The two stars align brightly, with Broderick’s trademark pixilated manner contrasting very nicely with O’Hara’s brisk yet adorable ways. Loping around in Vanderbilt livery as the bogus butler, McGrath’s caustic exchanges with Kaye’s perfectly Margaret Dumont-esque dowager often strike comical gold.

Marshall, who also creates the lively vo-de-o-do choreography, wisely avoids any business that might put a campy spin on the proceedings. Further, for all of the show’s exuberance, it never seems like the performers are sweating bullets to sell the audience on what they are doing, and such consummate easiness summons up the airy quality that characterized musicals of the 1920s.

Beautiful and/or slyly humorous period costumes by Martin Pakledinaz that move well with the dancing, a procession of handsomely old-fashioned settings by Derek McLane and refulgent lighting by Peter Kaczorowski beguile the eye, while Bill Elliott’s sparkling orchestrations sound mighty authentic on the ear. Anybody who remains crushed on old-school musicals surely will revel in such joyful entertainment.

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 5:02am

[devonian.t]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 6:17am

surely he is too old to still be playing little boy lost?

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 7:49am

It's uncomfortable to watch, it really is.
This will run the length of his contact, or less, I cant see it worthy of recasting!

[mallardo]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 12:17pm

Among the many producers is Sonia Friedman Productions. Could there be a thought of bringing it to the West End?

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 12:51pm

She doesn't bring everything over!
(thank God!)

[Jonwo]

Posted: 4/25/12 at 1:48pm

I imagine she has the options to transfer the show if it is successful, same with The Book of Mormon. She's producing shows on Broadway which she didn't originally produce in the West End like One Man Two Guvnors.