Review: APPLAUSE at The Group Rep

It would be easy to dismiss the musical Applause as a bit of prelapsarian fluff, but how can you go wrong with something from the iconic minds of Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Charles Strouse, and Lee Adams based on the beloved film All About Eve? While Comden and Green penned the book decades after major successes like Singin’ in the Rain and On the Town would cement their places in the great American songbook, Strouse and Adams were having their hey-day, fresh off Bye Bye Birdie, with Strouse’s arguably biggest hit, Annie, still on the horizon. The musical resists the schmaltz of the golden-age, sometimes to its own detriment. An opening scene that mirrors the awards show in the film sets us off to a rocky start that doesn’t pick up momentum until “Backstage Babble” gives us a bonafide ensemble number that energizes the audience (and could serve as a stronger opening). Memorable moments from the movie feel drawn out and overdone when a quippy line like “fasten your seatbelts…” is elongated to an ensemble routine or the devastation so aptly conveyed by Celeste Holm in a single shot is exchanged for a “Good Morning”-esque trio routine. From Legally Blonde to Carrie, these problems will always flummox screen to stage adaptations, and though audiences may discern why Applause is not as regularly-performed as its more beloved contemporaries, it is impossible to consider the show a total waste of an evening. Applause has too much heart and is simply too much fun to be bogged down by its shortcomings, so audiences should take advantage of catching this gem while they can.

The production playing at The Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre in North Hollywood is  helmed by Leslie Stevens, who foregoes any impersonation of Bette Davis or Lauren Bacall to instead convey a nymphlike Margo Channing, perhaps expounding the tragedy of the aging actress if her success lies in her limber body and dance abilities. With show-stopping numbers like “But Alive” and “Who’s That Girl”, Stevens proves she has the goods and aptly carries the show. Opposite her, Damon Kirsche’s Bill Sampson is all old-school musical theatre goodness, imbuing what could be a flat character with the gravitas of Emile de Becque and holding down the fort with an earthiness that combats Stevens’ fire. As Eve Harrington, Savannah Mortenson completes the triangle with the same range that saw Anne Baxter nominated for an Academy Award. Though Eve is the character who flattens out the most in the adaptation, delivering an out of place eleven o’clock number that sees her cavorting about the stage like a gremlin in harsh red lighting, Mortenson mines the libretto for humanity and is able to conjure a stirring performance of a character who will stop at nothing for success.

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