A Confused but Intriguing Musical History Lesson

Review: Shuffle Along

Brandon Victor Dixon as Eubie Blake and Audra McDonald as Lottie Gee in Shuffle Along.

Shuffle Along, Or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed is an unwieldy title for an unwieldy musical. Like its title, Shuffle Along is both innately intriguing and a tad too long-winded to wrap your head around. It is simultaneously a character-driven backstage drama, a sprawling historical panoply about the history of black entertainment, and a metatheatrical rumination on the transient nature of fame and influence. And yet it isn't really any of those things, and that tonal disparity is what ultimately stops Shuffle Along and its hugely talented cast and creative team from achieving the success you'd expect.

The original Shuffle Along is remembered as little more than a footnote in musical theatre history, primarily famous for being the first Broadway musical written, produced, and starring people of color. Tony-winning writer/director George C. Wolfe obviously wants to change that, having turned his attention towards the people behind the show's runaway success (it ran for almost 500 performances at a time when most shows struggled to reach 100). Wolfe has kept most of the original Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake songs, but has written an entirely new libretto shifts the focus behind the scenes of Shuffle Along's rocky road to Broadway, examining how its success impacted the lives of the many strong personalities involved in its creation.

Wolfe's interests are many and varied, and while that certainly keeps the show engaging it doesn't always keep it coherent. Wolfe can't decide whether he wants the show to function as an elaborately staged history lesson or a more traditional book musical, one which hits many of the same beats as countless backstage tales before it. Try as he might, the gifted dramatist can't have things both ways, resulting in a show with some great moments and searing one-liners but which lacks a unifying structural or thematic element to tie the disparate pieces together. Wolfe also hasn't quite covered up the holes left by the many cuts made during the show's extended preview period, where it originally clocked in at over 3 hours. It now lasts a more manageable 2 hours 45 minutes, but there are multiple instances where ideas or scenes seem underdeveloped or artificially shortened.

While Wolfe the Writer hasn't quite ironed out all of Shuffle Along's kinks, Wolfe the Director has so expertly staged what's there that you only realize the show doesn't quite track in hindsight. It opens on a bare stage as the evening's players slowly appear, materializing out of the mists of history to tell their story; it almost suggests the entire evening takes place in some kind of metatheatrical dreamscape, an interesting theatrical conceit that is largely dropped during the middle section only to reappear towards the finale. Santo Loquasto's many set pieces travel on and off the stage at a dizzying pace, with some scenes taking place in front of fully realized environments and others only suggested by the simplest piece of furniture. Wolfe choreographs this dance of performers and scenery like the master he is, and individually every moment of the show works on a guttural level. Only when you try to figure out how the previous moment relates to the one that follows do the cracks and leaps in logic start to show.

Whenever things start to move beyond Wolfe's ability to maintain interest, he wisely lets Tony-winning tap legend Savion Glover's choreography take over. Glover's routines are dynamic and thrilling, innately theatrical in their surprising and precise rhythms. His ability to deploy dancers on a stage is awe-inspiring, with ever-shifting formations of talented tappers commanding both your attention and respect. Glover's choreography for the opening "Broadway Blues" sets a bar the rest of the show never quite clears, although it comes awfully close during the train station montage "Pennsylvania Graveyard Shuffle" and the "Rang Tang/Chocolate Dandies" dance battle.

Shuffle Along also features the starriest collection of Tony-winning and nominated performers Broadway has seen in quite some time, an embarrassment of riches all given their time in the spotlight. Headlining the cast is six time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald as the show-within-a-show's leading lady Lottie Gee, and as always the theatrical legend delivers a sensational performance. This is a decidedly different McDonald than we've seen during her past few Broadway outings, allowing the acclaimed actress an all-too-rare chance to show her lighter side and flex her comedic muscles. She also gets the chance to show off every color imaginable in her heaven-sent soprano, from her toe-tapping "(I'm Just) Wild About Harry" to a jazzy rendition of the title song to an exquisitely sung and utterly heartbreaking "Memories of You." As with everything, McDonald applies herself 110% here, creating yet another richly realized and utterly believable performance.

No one else gets the same amount of stage time as McDonald, but that doesn't stop the many supporting players from making strong impressions. Past Tony nominees Brandon Victor Dixon and Joshua Henry make for a fine vaudeville pair as composers Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, with Henry in particular doing his best work to date as the proud, dignified Sissle. Meanwhile, Tony winners Brian Stokes Mitchell and Billy Porter play bookwriters F.E. Miller and Aubrey Lyles with panache. Mitchell's easygoing command of the stage acts as a nice counterbalance to the antics of the other three, leading the rousing a cappella "Swing Along" in the middle of the first act. Porter's flamboyant performance recalls a bit more of his Lola from Kinky Boots than is strictly necessary - that particular brand of fierceness comes across as anachronistic here - but the actor is certainly charismatic and has the most overtly showstopping number with his "Low Down Blues." And relative newcomer Adrienne Warren makes quite the impression in the dual roles of the outlandish Gertrude Saunders and future star Florence Mills, especially with her transfixing performance as the later discovers her own star power under Lottie's tutelage.

As this Shuffle Along so deftly illustrates, creating a Broadway show has always been hard work, and given the increasing sophistication of the medium it's probably even harder today than it was back in 1921. So in many ways the shortcomings of George C. Wolfe's book are understandable, and this production shows the kind of unadulterated ambition that should be encouraged and applauded even when it doesn't fully succeed. A messy, interesting show like Shuffle Along is preferable to a well executed bland one, and seeing so much Tony-worthy talent on one stage is a rare opportunity that should definitely be savored. The show may not quite equal the most famous works of the accomplished cast, but with artists of this caliber even their less successful efforts are still mighty fine.

Sometimes, Pretty Is Enough

Review:  Bring It On: The Musical

Adrienne Warren and the cast of Bring It On serve up major musical theatre realness.  And they're pretty good athletes, too.

Needless to say, Bring It On: The Musical is not high art.  Anyone with such lofty expectations for the show has a gross misunderstanding of the source material on which it is based.  What this stage adaptation of the film series of the same name does offer is plenty of fun and high-flying acrobatics, even if some questionable story and tonal choices keep it from becoming the great piece of fluff theatre it could be.

Set in the world of competitive cheerleading, Bring It On doesn’t precisely follow the plot of the original movie or any of its sequels, instead using the franchise’s general premise and themes as inspiration for an original story.  The show begins with perky blonde Campbell being elected captain of the Truman High School cheerleading squad, but her dreams of winning the National Cheering Trophy are dashed when some questionable school redistricting results in her forced transfer to the scary multi-ethnic Jackson High.  Not only is Campbell a fish out of water, but the closest thing to a cheerleading squad at Jackson is a dance crew led by sassy queen bee Danielle.  This is obviously the Worst Thing Ever, and poor Campbell must somehow find a way to convince Danielle to form a cheerleading squad so that they both can compete at Nationals and win that coveted trophy.

Obviously, this campy setup is meant to provide more jokes than drama, a fact the show knows but doesn’t fully embrace.  The biggest problem is that Bring It On doesn’t take the outrageousness far enough, opting to play a large portion of the show completely straight despite a steady stream of one-liners provided by book writer Jeff Whitty (a Tony-winner for his work on Avenue Q).  As a result, the predictable plot drags at the start, although the approach does lead to some surprisingly heartfelt scenes as the characters struggle with growing up.  The second act ballad “Enjoy the Trip” is an especially poignant and insightful commentary on the ultimate importance of high school drama, and a highlight of the show.

Like most musical comedies, the real interest lies in the production numbers, which are plentiful and generally well done.  The contemporary score, co-written by Tom Kitt (Next to Normal) and Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights), highlights the very distinctive styles of its two composers while still sounding like a cohesive whole.  The R&B stylings that characterize Miranda’s work are particularly prominent and enticing, and the Bring It On score ends up being one of the most fully realized blendings of showtunes and modern pop to ever grace a Broadway stage.  Mirroring this mix is the excellent choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler (who also directed), which makes hip hop dance wholly theatrical and is a refreshingly new addition to an art form that can be painfully slow to evolve.

And when the fresh-faced cast breaks into the cheer routines that form the centerpiece of Bring It On, prepare to be amazed.  The dizzying combination of backflips, tumbling, and aerial acrobatics will take even the most jaded theatre-goer’s breathe away, and these athletic feats are performed with a precision and sleekness any show would do well to emulate.  It is honestly a shame there aren’t more of them – setting the first act primarily in a cheerleader-less school makes the routines hard to sneak in – although the upside of this decision is that it makes the dueling routines of the musical’s climax even more exciting.

The vast majority of the cast is making their Broadway debuts, and what the performers lack in experience they make up for with enthusiasm and general charisma.  Taylor Louderman’s Campbell can be a little bland, but she is believable, earnest, and a generally likeable leading lady (Louderman also does an excellent job with the enormous amount of singing she’s been handed).  Adrienne Warren belts to the rafters as Danielle, and her well-executed transformation from antagonistic to grudgingly respectful to genuinely friendly is one of the more dramatic character arcs in the show.  The supporting players all manage to make a positive impression, although the sheer number of characters leaves a lot of the actors with precious little to do.

The real standout among the cast is Gregory Haney’s camp-tastic turn as a drag queen student called La Cienega.  One of the few actors with prior Broadway experience, Haney takes a character we know nothing about (only one line in the show even acknowledges that her attending school in drag might have made her life difficult) and makes her into the most compelling person on the stage.  Completely over the top and reveling in every minute of it, Haney represents the type of show Bring It On is *this close* to being: a high-camp delight that is simultaneously hilarious and oddly engaging.

As stated above, Bring It On isn’t high art.  It has some fairly glaring oversights, like a story that meanders for much of the first act until settling into the predictable but effective drama of a sporting competition.  Everything seems to be just a little too easy for Campbell, which makes it difficult to fully invest in the plot or her hardships.  And for a show that traffics in cheerleader stereotypes, there is a surprising lack of unrepentantly bitchy girls to serve as effective antagonists.  The absence of a truly memorable villain, someone the audience could love to hate, keeps Bring It On from entering the realm of top-tier escapist entertainment, and we the audience must settle for merely very good rather than great.  That said, there are certainly worse ways to spend a summer night than with this slickly polished musical confection, and I for one am glad this national tour decided to stop by and play in the big leagues.