Never Gonna Dance - what happened?

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 11:47am

Just wondering why it flopped. This isn't like my Jane Eyre or my many Lestat threads. What was wrong with it? That's basically all I want to know.

[theatregeek2]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 11:52am

I don't know BUT i did enjoy the show!

[Roscoe]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 11:53am

It wasn't a bad idea for a show. It just had a very very very bad book, filled with painfully unfunny dialogue. I remember more than once the cast delivered what were clearly supposed to be Big Laugh Lines, and they wound up standing there expecting Big Laughs that just plain never materialized. It got kind of uncomfortable after a while.

And there was no chemistry at all between the two leads, who I understand really disliked each other intensely offstage.

There have been worse shows.

Updated On: 2/19/08 at 11:53 AM

[mmousefan]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 11:57am

I heard it did really well regionally in California afterwards, maybe two or three seasons later. I think the female lead was off...good dancer, not much of a singer or actress. The rest of it I liked a lot, including the physical production. Choreography was amazing. Supporting roles terrific....and Noah not bad at all as Astaire.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 12:10pm

Mistake #1 was changing the title from snappy "Swing Time" to dreary "Never Gonna Dance".

[allofmylife]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 12:23pm

Let's face the music...
Who can really dance like Fred Astaire?

And be serious here. Don't list the guy from "Jersey Boys."

[theatregeek2]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 12:34pm

I thought Noah Racey was really good and he was charming as Lucky Garnett

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 1:03pm

Noah Racey and Nancy Leminager are great talent. But leads?

[TulitaPepsi]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 1:14pm

Roscoe is right. The book was witless.

The wonderful Peter Bartlett was wasted.

And Noah wasn't ready to be a lead yet. He "needed saeasoning". Since then, he's gotten better and better. More stage presence and more confidence. Of course he's one of the best male dancers on Broadway now. He's got the chops to do NEVER GONNA DANCE now.

I would have cast the zingy Meredith Patterson opposite him.

The biggest problem was everytime sassy Karen Ziemba or sinously feline Diedre Goodwin appeared on stage, they stole the show away from the leads. It was only in the second act, when Ziemba showed these kids what to do by tearing the house down during "Shimmy With Me", that the show had any pizazz.

Updated On: 2/19/08 at 01:14 PM

[jv92]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 1:25pm

It wasn't BAD, but it wasn't good either. It was mediocre, though some of the dances were amusing and some of the sets were pretty.

[leefowler]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 1:26pm

Who's the audience for something like this?

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 1:26pm

No, it was BAD. Bad, bad, bad. The only good thing about the entire show was Karen Ziemba.

[jv92]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 1:29pm

Ziemba was a bright spot, that's for sure.

[MaronaDavies]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 1:47pm

What everyone's saying. The choreography was outstanding, and Karen Ziemba was amazing as always, but there was nothing else there.

[mmousefan]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 3:40pm

I'd agree that Ziemba and Goodwin were terrific. Also one of the comic sparkplugs currently (but not much longer) in IS HE DEAD, the highly underrated David Pittu (very easy on the eyes as well).

[Broadwaylady]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 6:31pm

I enjoyed the show. A lot of people who attend these shows are overly critical. It was an entertaining show.

[D2]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 6:40pm

Another mistake they made was having Lucky and Penny like each other immediately. One of the charms of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers pairing was that one or the other (usually Ginger, sometimes both) loathed the other on sight, and the fun was watching them slowly but surely fall in love. There was no dramatic tension in NEVER GONNA DANCE because we all knew right from the beginning these two were going to get together.

[mmousefan]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 6:52pm

I also got the feeling that there might have been a semi-concept that the central couple would express themselves musically mainly through dance, while the supporting characters would carry the singing load. If so, an interesting idea, but maybe if the central couple did not sing at all might have made the premise more relatable...or when they finally came to accord with one another, sang for the first time.

[ashley0139]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 7:18pm

Let's face the music...
Who can really dance like Fred Astaire?

Obviously, no one is Fred Astaire, but I have heard multiple people say in interviews that Racey is the only current "heir to Astaire."

[jbdc]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 8:33pm

I always take Brantley with a grain of salt--but he really got it right on this one.....


'Never Gonna Dance,' which opened last night at the Broadhurst Theater, is not one of those screen-to-stage conversions that make you want to run screaming for the nearest Buddhist monastery. It stands out as an inoffensive, gracefully danced and pleasantly sung diversion, a quieter answer to the current revival of '42nd Street.'

But that's about as lavish as praise can be for this spiceless production, directed by Michael Greif ('Rent') and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell ('Hairspray,' 'The Full Monty'). Like 'Swing Time,' this show celebrates dance as a love potion, in a universe fueled by the swoon-making melodies of Jerome Kern and set in an Art Deco never-never land of Depression-era Manhattan.

Mr. Mitchell's choreography doesn't build from one emotional state to another, despite Lucky's initial pretended awkwardness. The same paradoxical sense of kinetic stasis pervades the show. A couple of numbers break the monotony, but overall, the individual dances aren't shaped to go anywhere or tell a story. They're mostly happy tap routines that could be inserted pretty much anywhere.

It doesn't help that the characters have been reconceived in flatteningly generic terms, without the oddball quirks that defined their prototypes. A similarly ersatz quality comes through in Robin Wagner's sets, which translate Manhattan glitter into mostly two-dimensional painted backdrops.

The story is no sillier than that of the original 'Swing Time.' But it has to be enacted with a certain conviction -- so that a sparkly surface becomes a self-contained reality with its own depths -- for the audience to care whether Lucky and Penny wind up together. And Mr. Greif has led his cast into casual, throwaway performances that lack the conviction of either sincerity or all-out spoof. Only Peter Gerety and the wonderful Karen Ziemba -- in variations on the best-friend roles played by RKO character actors like Helen Broderick, Victor Moore and Edward Everett Horton -- evoke a 1930's-style comic whimsy and tartness.

Give due consideration to the brave, likable young dancers who have taken on the Astaire and Rogers roles, Noah Racey and Nancy Lemenager. They move and sing with an effortless-seeming assurance. They are refreshingly free of that show-off aggressiveness that is so common to Broadway performers these days and would be fatal to the aspiringly insouciant charms of a show like this one.

Mr. Racey, in particular, has the makings of an elegant and original character dancer. In his solo numbers, he glows with a wonderfully goofy, free-wheeling glee that gives spontaneity to his meticulously choreographed steps, bringing to mind a baby-faced Ray Bolger.

But whenever he and Ms. Lemenager dance together, the flame sputters out. They look tasty and soigné in William Ivey Long's custom-fitted period costumes. But a couple of lyrical moments aside, their teamwork is a matter of the bland leading the bland. Astaire and Rogers were worldly figures, though there was nothing jaded about them. Mr. Racey and Ms. Lemenager, for all their technical proficiency, have the dewy, unformed look of ingénues. They would be lovely second leads -- as one of those vulnerable young couples on the run whom the stars shepherd into romantic safety -- but they don't give the show its much-needed core of Personality with a capital P.

Theatergoers hoping for a glimmer of the old Astaire-Rogers magic, in which dance is the language of love, won't be entirely disappointed. In the climactic pas de deux, if you squint, you can even believe that Mr. Racey and Ms. Lemenager are worthy substitutes for Fred and Ginger. By that point, though, you should be well beyond having to squint.








Updated On: 2/19/08 at 08:33 PM

[Rathnait62]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 11:00pm

Lemenager couldn't sing, and her vocals deteriorated with every show. Big problem.

Two many cooks in the way of producers, and a director who didn't man up and say GET OUT OF MY WAY to them. Major problem.

The first reading of the show was wonderful. However, too many people were allowed to voice their ideas for changes, and the constant changes were mostly detrimental. Much like Lemenager's vocals, the show itself deteriorated from first rehearsal to first preview to finally and sadly, opening night.

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 11:10pm

I really enjoyed it, actually.

It wasn't awful, but it really wasn't terrible- far from it!

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the DREADFUL orchestrations

or the amazing Grand Central dance scene. Noah AND Jerry at their at their finest

[Mojojo5]

Posted: 2/20/08 at 12:29pm

That Grand Central sequence was pretty great. What Kern song was it to? All I can hear in my head is "I Can't Be Bothered Now" but I know that clearly can't be it (being a Gershwin song and all) and I think Racey sang "Never Gonna Dance" to Lemengar. Oy, the singing. You know you are in trouble when Karen Ziemba is the best singer featured (not to knock her but she ain't what I would call great shakes in the voice department). In fact, I remember wondering why they didn't just bump her up to the Ginger Rogers part and bring in someone else to fill her old role of "wise cracking best friend." Racey was nice but not seasoned enough to carry the show. Nancy Lemengar just wasn't anything special and had a smaller voice than Ginger Rogers if that is even possible. Diedre Goodwin (with patented high kick) and Eugene Fleming were sorely underused as the competing dance couple. Peter Bartlett was humorously swishy per usual and can turn pretty much any sow's ear of a joke into a silk purse. I remember not hating the choroepraphy but being underwhelmed and wishing there had been a little more variety. Racey and Lemenager had a nice pas de deux in an "under construction" sky scraper that was the closest I remember to a "Fred 'n Ginger" dance sequence - lots of smoke rolling across the stage and Nancy twirling in a William Ivey Long ballgown. Overall, the book could have been better and I don't think Michael Grief was the right director for this project. It deserved a better chance but as my friend said after we left, they should go ahead and change the title to "Never Gonna Run."

Z.

Updated On: 2/20/08 at 12:29 PM

[justme2]

Posted: 2/20/08 at 1:03pm

I'd like to throw Jeffry Denman's name into the "face it, who can really dance like Fred Astaire?" discussion on this thread.

[mallardo]

Posted: 2/20/08 at 3:08pm

To me, Noah Racey gave the single greatest performance by a dancer I have ever seen on a Broadway stage. His singing, however, was less stellar, as was Lemenager's. Ziemba was terrific and Pittu was hysterical as the Latin Lover - a foretaste of Drowsy's Aldolpho - but some of the lesser roles were not well taken and, ultimately, the show was too lightweight to survive without money reviews.