D.C. Review: Arena's Damn Yankees Emphasizes Brains, Talent and Heart

With more than a little brains and a little talent at its disposal, Arena Stage's Damn Yankees is a polished and pulse-raising production of the classic musical about a Faustian bargain for baseball glory.

Invigoratingly directed and choreographed—by Molly Smith and Baayork Lee, respectively—the show, unlike its bedeviled heroine Lola, is sometimes a little overdressed. Yet the two have managed to deliver to Damn Yankees the right blend of comedy, pathos, romance and sexiness that's sometimes undermined by George Abbott's funny but unfocused book.

Where better to stage Damn Yankees than at Arena Stage, where Smith and Lee can send the musical's colorful set of sluggers, baseball groupies and dancing demons to all corners of the stage and even into the audience? Rachel Hauck's electric-yellow stage, with its traps and drops, alternately functions as a living room, locker room, baseball field, courtroom and hellish lounge. Arenas sometimes accent the artifice of musicals, but here the staging is involving and inclusive. Smith enlists the audience, too, as Washington Senators fans by having the first rows hoist banners emblazoned with the name of star hitter Joe Hardy.

The plot of Damn Yankees, with its enduring score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross, has become such a musical theatre chestnut that most are familiar with its story. Real estate agent Joe Boyd (the fine Lawrence Redmond), who has left his wife Meg (Kay Walbye) a baseball widow over his obsession with the ever-defeated Senators, sells his soul to Satan—aka Mr. Applegate (Brad Oscar)—so that the team can defeat the Yankees at the World Series. It's not long before Joe, who has been transformed into strapping home run machine Joe Hardy (Matt Bogart), is regretting his hastiness and missing Meg. Although Applegate—at first aided by the sultry Lola (Meg Gillentine)—attempts to keep Joe from using his escape clause, the devil's sulfurous anger eventually reunites Joe and Meg.

The gorgeously-voiced Bogart skillfully shows the older Joe bulging through the toned physique of the younger. He displays strong chemistry with both of his leading ladies—yearning tenderness with the excellent Walbye and palpable sexual tension with Gillentine. The latter's Lola, who seems to have come to DC by way of Chicago in a Velma Kelly wig, doesn't have as much sly wit as did Gwen Verdon (whose voice and mannerisms she partially channels). Yet her vulnerable Lola is truly a lost soul—albeit a very sexy one.

As good as Bogart and Gillentine are, it's Oscar who owns the stage. Dapperly imposing, Oscar's Applegate is a fiendishly larger-than-life figure whose devilishness rises with his desperation--he reminds one of a corrupt salesman in search of a make-or-break commission on Joe's soul. Oscar is hilarious in the vaudevillian number "Those Were the Good Old Days," in which he nostalgically recalls "that glorious morn Jack the Ripper was born." However Lee's insistence on flanking him with a harem of demonic beauties proves distracting. The number is usually delivered as a center stage solo, and with a performer as charismatic as Oscar, why watch anyone else?

Lee fares better with her choreography for other numbers. The Chorus Line star, always a Michael Bennett gal, only really pays homage to the spirit of original choreographer Bob Fosse in one routine—a steamy, scarlet-hued "Two Lost Souls." Her terrific staging of "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, Mo," which wittily culminates in Joe's baseball stardom, sends the Senator leaping and flipping in a vigorous hoe-down. And her choreography for the opening number, "Six Months Out of Every Year," is especially clever and engaging as the baseball widows—clutching babies, lingerie and pie—circle around and then become entrapped by their game-crazed husbands, who have turned into zombies pushing brightly-screened TVs around the stage.

John Ambrosone's lighting is fine, and Martin Pakledinaz' costumes—some of which seem to take their palettes from '50s jukeboxes—are quite vivid, as in the case of Lola's lacy senorita ensemble during "Whatever Lola Wants." Stripped down to black lace lingerie, the costume recalls the iconic image of Verdon (although Lola's first outfit belongs in an ice rink). The production, too, might benefit from more discretion in its placing of mics. Amplified actors are fine, but Bogart's mic—especially when the actor was clad only in boxers—was so obvious that it might as well have contained his soon-to-be-lost soul.

In addition to its fine performances, design, direction and choreography, Damn Yankees heeds one of its hit songs by wearing an unabashedly big heart on its jersey-sleeves. As Smith points out in program notes, baseball and musical comedy are joined by an American sensibility that is brash, bright and joyous. The same can be said of the show.

Damn Yankees is playing at Arena Stage through February 5th, 2006.

To post a comment, you must register and login.