Closer Than Ever: Keeping Us Aware of Those Little Things

So what do you do when you've been a songwriting team for over thirty years and you have a trunk full of interesting music and lyrics written for unproduced shows or cut from the produced ones? Well, if you're Richard Maltby, Jr. and David Shire you make a few alterations here and there, write up some fresh material and package them into the 1989 hit off-Broadway review Closer Than Ever, now getting a fine mounting at Dillon's, courtesy of Halfway Home Productions.

Although the two book musicals with scores penned by the team of Maltby and Shire, Baby and Big, were tepidly received on Broadway, their two off-Broadway cabaret reviews (Starting Here, Starting Now first put them in the New York spotlight in 1977.) are regularly revived among theatre companies looking for small scale musicals with rich material for singing actors.

Closer Than Ever contains twenty-five theatre songs which focus on story-telling, situations and characters. (One selection, "The Bear, the Tiger, the Hamster, and the Mole", was cut from Baby because it so completely told the story of the character singing it that there was nowhere else to go.) If there's a common link, it's their hip, literate look at contemporary living, circa late 1980's, with a focus on the big events we expect to change our lives and the little events that unexpectedly do the same.

Although Halfway Home's company sometimes shows their lack of cabaret experience, they're a likable group who each have a sparkling moment or two to enjoy and savor. They perform unmiked and, under Bill Lewis' musical direction, sound terrific in four part harmonies.

Lindsay Roginski, is a tall, leggy and very funny mezzo who seems to be having a blast in the jazzy "Back on Base." Early on she scores some big laughs with "Miss Byrd", a number that reminds us that the ordinary person you see every day may be a tigress when she's out of her office cubical. Kinnie Dye may seem a bit young for two of her solos, but she's very touching in both "Life Story", a heartbreaking tale of a woman who fought in the trenches for gender equality, later to find doors slammed in her face by the younger women who owed her their chances to succeed, and "Patterns" (also cut from Baby, but added to the show's revised version) about mundane routines putting stress on a marriage.

John Castagliola is an amiable lug who can be sweet and charming while worrying if his romantic overtures can be misinterpreted as stalking in "What Am I Doing?" or while fantasizing of the kind of life he's missed by being "One of the Good Guys". Eric Haston has a smooth baritone that excels in "If I Sing", a grown man's tribute to his father.

Director J. William Bruce stages each song as a playlet, smartly taking advantage of each piece's theatricality. Without microphones to worry about he's free to indulge in some clever staging, especially in comic numbers like "The Sound of Muzak", which spoofs the technological advances we really don't need and "Fandango", an amusing morning dance performed by a married couple of corporate go-getters when the sitter cancels and each needs the other to watch the baby.

Closer Than Ever's two remaining performances are this Sunday, August 22 at 2:00 and 7:00. Call Dillon's at 212-875-7693 and let this talented gang keep your mind off the August heat for a while.

For Michael Dale's "mad adventures of a straight boy living in a gay world" visit dry2olives.com

To post a comment, you must register and login.