The View from the '80s

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

Forget for a moment that Jerome Robbins is one of the pivotal figures in Broadway history and that the gala onstage is a summing up of his invaluable career. For audiences who know what came after, how entertaining is this journey to the bottom of Robbins' trunk? If Broadway is not making 'em the way it used to, should we be regretful? Or relieved? If neither revivals from Broadway's heyday nor imitations of that style lead to commercial success, then does this logical next step, a greatest-hits compendium, offer much hope?

The answers, as might be expected with such a patchwork show, depend on what is onstage at the moment. The pratfall pandemonium of the opening scene of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum makes one long for a full-scale Broadway revival. The dance suite of teen gang wars adapted from West Side Story actually benefits by being divorced from the original's cute, coy lyrics, which in life would not tumble trippingly from the tongues of underprivileged youth. The wide-eyed wonder of city life may never have been more vibrantly shown than among the World War II-era sailors aprowl in On the Town. The comic chase among cops, con men, thugs and bathing beauties from High Button Shoes improves upon the fizzy Mack Sennett one-reelers that inspired it.

On the other hand, the whimsical Siamese retelling of Uncle Tom's Cabin from The King and I seems stately and slow. The Russian peasant life in Fiddler on the Roof looks even cornier and campier when deprived of the original's glints of fear and oppression. A protracted, wordless street scene among customers of a speakeasy is unlikely to bring back Billion Dollar Baby. And a danced duet from High Button Shoes, cast with vigorous young performers, defeats the whole sentimental purpose of the original number: to demonstrate that a married couple well along into middle age can not only remain lovebirds but still get their knees up into the air. The show's archival curiosity is Mr. Monotony, a dance interpreting an Irving Berlin song; the number was dropped out of town from two successive shows. Here it is amusing, but its fate is understandable: this pure divertissement would be distracting in any musical with a plot.

Despite all the ballyhoo about the $8 million price tag, the work onstage can appear modest, even a little tatty. The sets are mostly painted drapes, an awkward compromise between old-style realism and contemporary abstraction. There may be hundreds of costumes, but a lot of them look flimsy; they might have been basted together by the second-rate strippers in the You Gotta Have a Gimmick number from Gypsy. While the performers dance as brilliantly as one would expect from disciples of Robbins, most can't act very well, and there is not one striking singer in the entire company. The most problematic is Robert + La Fosse, a New York City Ballet star who moves gloriously but whose facial expression seems limited to a scowl and a simpering grin. Jason Alexander, who serves as narrator and plays seven characters, has wit, charm and the requisite razzmatazz -- his parts in Forum and Fiddler were played by Zero Mostel -- but lacks the star attribute of effortless ease. Yet if Robbins has not unearthed the treasure trove that many hoped for, he still offers a richly illuminated manuscript from the book of Broadway's beloved past.