Anything Can Happen in Sixteen Hours

On the Twentieth Century at the American Airlines Theater

 (L-R: Kristen Chenoweth, Peter Gallagher, Mark Linn-Baker, Michael McGrath, Mary Louise Wilson, and Andy Karl in On the Twentieth Century.)

            Give Scott Ellis a madcap farce set in the thirties and he’ll work wonders.

            At least that’s what the director is endeavoring to prove this season, having mounted both the recently closed and deliriously fun You Can’t Take It With You with James Earl Jones and the new revival of the 1978 Comden/Green/Coleman musical On the Twentieth Century.  The incredible consistency in brilliant fleshing-out of material in both shows is striking, and perhaps partially due to the fact that Mr. Ellis brings along not only his sound designer, Donald Holder, from Take it With You but also his prolific set designer, David Rockwell.  Mr. Rockwell’s Addams Family-esque Sycamore mansion in the aforementioned play and his masterful Art Deco train in the musical both create beautiful visual worlds in which Mr. Ellis, with a light touch and a genius for the comic, plays with his characters.  When the four Porters (Rick Faugno, Richard Riaz Yoder, Phillip Attmore, and Drew King), tap-dancing narrators who guide the audience and the titular train in their parallel paths, shuffle across the stage before that beautiful white train, you get the sense something quite diverting is at hand—and it is.

            On the Twentieth Century, based on the 1932 Hecht and MacArthur play Twentieth Century, deals with the travails of theater impresario Oscar Jaffee (Peter Gallagher), who, limited by the time constraint of a sixteen-hour train ride from Chicago to New York, must cajole his former protégé and current screen star, Lily Garland (Kristen Chenoweth) into appearing in his next production.  Mr. Gallagher has a strong, clear voice -- especially considering his time spent away from this production due to a sinus infection ---  and a capable sense of comic timing that lends itself well to this production, not to mention the support of Mark Linn-Baker and the always phenomenal Michael McGrath as his drunken company manager and PR agent.  Indeed, since the operetta-tinged score, aside from a few choice numbers, is passable but not memorable, what makes this show so much fun (and it is just as much fun, and leaves just as wide a smile on your face, as You Can’t Take it With You did) are the delightfully deranged comic performances.  Aside from Mr. McGrath and Mr. Linn-Baker, the supporting cast includes Andy Karl—shockingly funny here given that in his last stage turn he played Rocky Balboa—as the buff but moronic film star Bruce Granit, who keeps running into doors, and, more notably, Mary Louise Wilson, who won a Tony for playing Big Edie in Grey Gardens.  As an elderly Jesus freak (the part was played by Imogene Coca in ’78) who almost compulsively slaps religious stickers on any flat surface she can find, she shines bright in a very shiny musical.  Her signature number, “Repent,” is aesthetically one of the best in the show, and she knocks it out of the park. 

            But all these achievements pale in comparison to those of Ms. Chenoweth, who along with Kelli O’Hara, Sutton Foster, and Idina Menzel (her co-star in Wicked) is one of the few remaining golden girls of the theater.  Ms. Chenoweth is superb—marvelously funny, game for any set-piece Mr. Ellis gives her, and, most importantly, a singer of unmatched variability, warbling glib numbers one moment and belting stories-high notes the next.  Ms. Chenoweth’s talents as an actress and singer have been gone over and over in every column of every arts section since she starred in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown in 1999, but it bears repeating that no matter what role Ms. Chenoweth plays for the remainder of her career, be she billed above or below the title, solo play or no lines whatsoever, she’s the star.  Thus, stellar though this production is, the star power in it comes from her, and I doubt either party is disappointed with the arrangement.