Baby It's You

Baby It's You
Broadhurst Theater
Mezz E 113
April 26, 2011 with Brian

Baby It's You is the story of Florence Greenberg (Tony Winner for "The Drowsy Chaperone" Beth Leavel, who is very good with what she gets), a New Jersey Jewish housewife who starts a record label, pulls four girls off her daughter's school playground, and dubs them the Shirelles. They go on to become one of the greatest girl groups of all time. Ms. Greenberg has an extramarital affair with her business partner and producer Luther Dixon (Allan Louis), a black man. Early on the show establishes Mr. Greenberg as a "women belong in the kitchen, let me crush your dreams" husband, and steamrolled over any possible plot tension by making the whole audience hate him right off. Well of course Ms. Greenberg should have an affair! Her husband's a jerk! And of course she should remain married despite not loving him, it's the 1950's! People would talk if they divorced! Plus Mr. Dixon's black!

This two hour twenty minute jukebox musical is jammed so tight with hits from 1958-1965, including songs by The Shirelles, Dionne Warwick, Chuck Jackson, and others, that there is almost no space for anything else, by which I mean plot development. A DJ named Jocko (Geno Henderson, also playing Chuck Jackson and other roles) acts as 'narrator' (that's really the wrong word) who pops in during act one to tell us via multimedia the top songs, film, and theater of the year, and then largely disappears in act two until the very end when his reappearance emphasizes how unnecessary these interludes are. Wait, I know what he reminded me of. Remember how in old old old productions a pretty girl would walk across the front of the stage with a sign that said "Chicago, 1814" or "Ten years later" or "Back at the ranch"? Yeah. That's it.

The story develops under the impetus of the songs in lieu of more than a few lines of dialogue, but when "Soldier Boy", a song inspired by the idea of a girl being true to her boyfriend who is heading to Vietnam becomes a vow of fidelity between (the still married) Ms. Greenberg and Mr. Dixon, my tackiness meter exploded. I can (by combating my boredom) get over that we're supposed to be on board with the cheating because Mr. Greenberg is a jerk (read: man of his time), but this? Really? No.

Today, news came down that various real-life figures, including members of the Shirelles, Ms. Warwick, and Mr. Jackson are suing the producers for using their personas without permission. This could explain my complaint that the Shirelles characters had no development. Granted, with forty (!!!) songs squeezed into the show, there's no time to develop anyone, but the Shirelles remain from start to finish the same bubbly nineteen-year-olds.

Part of me feels like a grouch for not enjoying this show. The songs are amazing! We know and love them! Everyone around us loved it. People were standing up and dancing, some actually in the aisles. Me, I enjoyed act one. I settled in, loved the music and waved away the absence of development. But at the start of act two, I realized that I was done with it because it was the same thing. Completely. The second act of anything should buckle the audience in and be different from Act one. Grab, squeeze, amaze, release. The singing is great, particularly The Shirelles and Luther Dixon. I'd get the album for that. But I'm not a fan of jukebox musicals that exist solely to shove songs down our throats. Jersey Boys avoids that. Boy From Oz avoided that. This doesn't. It may as well be a revue, but instead someone decided to stick an underdeveloped story in there.

Who knows what the fate of the show will be with the lawsuit underway, but I have a feeling that after the reviews come out tomorrow, it won't be great.

I'm going to go ahead and single out the ladies who played the Shirelles, who looked like they were having a lot of fun, and they, along with Mr. Louis, at least were able to make me not completely despise the show. So thanks to Christina Sajous, Kyra de Costa, Erica Ash, and Crystal Starr. (I had to look up the names of the real Shirelles on Wikipedia to make sure I got the right actresses because aside from Shirley and Beverly, the show skims right over them.)

I believe Brian summed it up best: "Well, that happened."

Yes, yes it did.