Review - Enter Laughing: Spring Awakening Goes To The Bronx?

What's that? You've seen Spring Awakening 87 times and you were wondering if there were any other musicals about sex-crazed teenagers who rebel against their parents and express their innermost thoughts when time stands still and songs act as internal monologues? Well it just so happens the show for you played on Broadway, albeit briefly, over thirty years ago and is now receiving an absolutely hilarious revival at the York.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little when I compare the way Enter Laughing introduces some of its songs with the method now popularized by Spring Awakening, but it certainly seems like an inner monologue to me when our hero accidentally places his hand on an attractive woman's breast and then, as the scene freezes, sings the refrain, "Whoever You Are, I Love You." Or when time stands still after a lethal blow to the kid's ego sets off a fantasy of his own funeral, where he imagines how everyone in the world, who are obviously all against him, will suddenly repent for the cruel way they've treated him.

Enter Laughing began as a semi-autobiographical comic novel by Carl Reiner about David Kolowitz, a 17-year-old Jewish Bronx boy growing up in the 1930s who obsesses over girls and has dreams of becoming a famous actor, despite parental insistence that he goes to pharmacy school, marry a nice girl and has a safe, normal life as a druggist. Joseph Stein adapted the book into one of the hit Broadway plays of 1963 and then teamed up with composer/lyricist Stan Daniels to convert the piece into the 1976 musical, So Long, 174th Street. (This was back in the day when they actually thought up new names for musicals.) Popular wisdom says that So Long, 174th Street's mere two week run was mostly caused by the decision to go for a big star and cast significantly older than 17-year-old Robert Morse as David, playing the show as a flashback. (I suppose a lyric like "I keep undressing girls with my eyes" loses some of its innocent charm once the actor singing it hits 40.) But the eventually recorded (mostly) original Broadway cast album, featuring Morse, George S. Irving, Loni Ackerman and Kaye Ballard (added for the recording) helped the very funny score achieve cult status among collectors. Concert productions by both Musicals Tonight! and the York proved the show to be a crowd pleaser, especially when Stein revised his book to turn David back into a teenager for the whole evening. Now, with some minor tinkering on some of the songs (the sensuous delicatessen duet, "Bolero On Rye" is the only number completely removed) and a less catchy but commercially stronger title, Enter Laughing, the Musical, the York mounts its first full scale Off-Broadway revival.

While I didn't see the original production, the cast album performances and the Broadway reviews suggest it was a show with big, broad comic performances. For the intimate York Theatre, director Stuart Ross has his cast playing on a more sincere level, creating a sweet empathy for the characters without losing any laughs. This is particularly true for Josh Grisetti, whose starry-eyed awkwardness as David is warm and sympathetic throughout his misadventures both onstage and with girls. Real life married couple Jill Eikenberry and Michael Tucker play his manipulative mom and mensch of a pop, with Eikenberry beautifully underplaying her two guilt-laden songs, "My Son, The Druggist" and "If You Want To Break Your Mother's Heart." (And it takes talent to underplay a scene where you're handing your son a knife and encouraging him to stab you in the back.) One of the score's funniest numbers, a bluesy torch song where a young girl sings of the grade school boys who wronged her in her pre-teen years, is snazzily belted by Emily Shoolin, playing the nice girl who wants to encourage David to follow his dream while wishing he would marry her and go to pharmacy school instead.

But since this is a musical about actors there must be at least a couple of eccentric theatrical types. Janine LaManna is a hoot as the sex-starved actress David plays a love scene opposite. Her performance of a song added since the Broadway run, a sit-on-the-piano cabaret turn where she describes the low standards she sets for finding her dream man ("He must have skin," is one of her requirements.) is just hysterical.

And then, of course, there's musical comedy's legendary character man, George S. Irving; a veteran of over 30 Broadway productions, beginning with the original Oklahoma! Here he recreates the role of David's erudite, hard-drinking, washed-up acting teacher, which he played when So Long, 174th Street premiered over 30 years ago. At age 85 he's a bundle of sharp comedic energy; his superb and melodious timing still working its magic. The evening's show stopping highlight is when he uproariously sings "The Butler's Song," in a fantasy scene where David imagines he's become so famous that every Hollywood starlet wants to sleep with him and his butler must keep track of his busy sexual schedule. The naughty lyrics delivered by Irving's elegant and powerful voice make the number one of the highlights of this or any other season.

James Morgan's simple settings, David Toser's period costumes, Chris Robinson's lighting (which provides occasional laughs itself) and Matt Castle's music arrangements all serve Ross' playful mounting very well.

While it's far too early to tell, Enter Laughing might well wind up being the funniest, most entertaining production of a musical we'll see this season. If you miss it, consider yourself totally f***ed.

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