The worst problem is the music, a generic and wholly forgettable score by the venerable Jule Styne, 87, who admits recycling some old material here. (Too bad he cribbed from “Look to the Lilies” instead of, say “Gypsy.”)
Next worst is the story, which follows too closely the 1948 film. Forced to choose between ballet, in the person of Lermontov, and love, in the form of Julian, Vicky commits suicide. Her dilemma is played out in the show with her role in a ballet called “The Red Shoes”: she is a girl who dances herself to death. Not exactly a theme for the women-and-power ’90s. Playwright Marsha Norman and director Susan Schulman originally planned some changes–such as giving Vicky key women friends, an older dancer and a younger one. They also changed the suicide to an accident. “My view is that art uses us to sustain fife, that it passes through us to the next generation,” says Norman. “That to me was the really exciting idea.” But not to Styne and producer Martin Starger, apparently more excited by the women-and-self-sacrifice ’40s. Schulman was fired, and Stanley Donen, 69 (“Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” and other films), took over. The result is an incoherent mess. We never see the lovers fall in love, so Vicky’s dilemma has no resonance, and it’s hard to understand her agony over what amounts to a contract dispute.
Brightening up this muddle is some of Broadway’s best dancing in years. Choreographer Lar Lubovitch has a playful way with ballet pomposity, and his gently funny versions of the classics are a treat. His Tore serious vein is less successful, especially the garish “Red Shoes” ballet, but Illmann and the rest of the dancers are first rate.
Illmann, Barton and Panaro are each one-note actors, but at least they hit the right note. The real star is George de la Pena, who plays the maniacal balletmaster Grisha with huge charm and comic verve. His song “Corps de Ballet,” with dancers tearing through a stylized class, is the best number in the show. Jon Marshall Sharp, as the company soloist ardently in love with himself, is also hilarious. Catherine Zuber’s sumptuous costumes, Heidi Landesman’s vast, brooding sets, what remains of Norman’s book–all these help enormously. But they aren’t enough. By the end, it seems inevitable that what was supposed to be a moment of unbearable poignancy–Vicky’s red shoes, empty, balancing on pointe–falls flat. All that comes to mind is Thing, the disembodied hand who so efficiently serves the Addams family.
