"Curtains' at the Walnut

I'm glad that the Walnut Street Theatre has decided to give a lavish production, as well as a six-week run, to a musical that wasn't a big Broadway hit. Especially because it apparently was the last musical written by the late Fred Ebb (with his composer-partner John Kander) and one of the last projects of my late friend Peter Stone, the book writer. Stone supplied the idea of a comic backstage murder mystery, but he didn't live to finish it. Rupert Holmes, with solid theatrical credits, did so.

(I say apparently the last because another posthumous Kander-Ebb work— The Scottsboro Boys— has emerged and will soon debut on Broadway.)

Eschewing the sure-fire opportunities of classics like Fiddler and Les Miz is a brave and welcome change of pace by the Walnut. Unfortunately, Curtains is contrived and uninvolving— a poor example of its creators' talents.

The characters are stick figures who fail to develop as the action progresses. Ebbs's lyrics are full of clever but superficial rhymes. Most of the score is unmemorable, aside from a lovely ode to losing a partner that contains these words, added by Kander after Ebbs's death: "I miss the music, I miss my friend." That's the emotional high point of this show.

The plot chronicles the murders of three people during a musical's Boston tryout and the investigation handled by a cop who harbors theatrical aspirations. The New York production was notable for the charming, low-key way that David Hyde Pierce played this part. Here, the blustery David Hess displays none of that charm, sounding more British than Bostonian.

Denise Whelan stands out as a producer of the show-within-the-show. She is flippantly sarcastic, funny, and sings well. Jeffrey Coon provides a sumptuous voice, but his character lacks evolution.

Both of the two putative female leads are forgettable. Julie Rieber and Nancy Lemenager may possess nice voices and some dancing skill, but they get no opportunities to impress us. The talented Ben Dibble is especially wasted, with nothing to sing.

Some viewers may think of this production as a pleasant send-up of old-fashioned musicals. The show-within-a-show, titled Robbin' Hood of the Old West, looks a bit like Oklahoma! But it lacks the witty parody of that classic that we saw last season in the Walnut's upstairs production of The Musical of Musicals: The Musical.

The costumes are lavish and the choreography is energetic. Director Richard Stafford deserves some responsibility for this uninspiring evening, but the material is most at fault.

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