A Honey of an Anklet

As the drop curtain flies out, the first thing we see is a pair of black patent leather wingtips belonging to Ewen Montagu (Natasha Hodgson, possessor of a righteous growl), arrogantly propped up on a desk. A little over the top, you say? Oh, just wait. This fizzy poly-character musical comedy, based on the true story of a misinformation operation designed to mislead German defenders of Sicily in World War II, hardly gives one time to breathe—the patter songs are that fast, the glitz has glitter all over it, the physical schtick goes to extremes, the character switches flash by in an eyeblink. The show doesn’t just effervesce, it hypervesces.

I’ll call out Jean Leslie’s (Claire-Marie Hall) Beyonce-level song, “All the Ladies,” and Hester Legatt’s (Jak Malone) quiet “Letter to Bill.” Hester is fabricating a letter from home to a British flier (in order to build up the subterfuge), and her heartbroken subtext elicits some snuffles in the audience. Malone also appears as an American pilot, with all the Yankee doodles.

Highly recommended.

• Operation Mincemeat, book, music, and lyrics by David Cumming, Felix Hagan, Natasha Hodgson, and Zoë Roberts, orchestrations by Steve Sidwell, directed by Robert Hastie, John Golden Theatre, New York

See Brian Selbert’s piece for the Times for a peek at the backstage magic.

The new production at Lincoln Center is a luminous reading of Adam Guettel’s Floyd Collins, a musical inspired by the true story of the titular Kentucky caver who found himself trapped, while a media circus sprang up above ground. Lighting by Scott Zielinksi catches Floyd in follow spots as he spelunks; backlighting sharply delineates townspeople in silhouette tableaux against the cyc.

Guetell’s twisty music likewise follows Floyd up, under, over, and around during “The Call” sequence. When Floyd (Jeremy Jordan) is joined by his younger brother Homer (Jason Gotay) for the duets “Daybreak” and “The Riddle Song,” the results crackle with electricity. The Reporters’ patter song “Is That Remarkable” is all one could wish for.

Floyd’s set contrivance on which he spends much of his time supine has perhaps been modified: it doesn’t quite resemble the lounge chair that bothered some critics. Maybe a lounger as designed by Gerrit Reitveld.

Monochrome costumes (Anita Yavich) and props for “The Dream” foretell Floyd’s demise.

• Floyd Collins, music and lyrics by Adam Guettel, book and additional lyrics by Tina Landau, orchestrations by Bruce Coughlin, directed by Tina Landau, Lincoln Center Theater at the Vivian Beaumont, New York

TK: Notes on differences in the performed music from the recorded original cast album.

Rollicking is a word perhaps falling out of use, but it’s a good one for Dead Outlaw, an ensemble and country rock band comic musical about the preposterously improbable life and afterlife of Elmer McCurdy, feckless bank robber of the early 1900s whose mummified corpse was a sideshow attraction into the 1940s. Oh, and promotional device for 1930s exploitation filmmaker Dwain Esper.

The show-stopper song is “Up in the Stars,” sung and swung by Thom Sesma as Los Angeles County Cornoner Noguchi, a medical professional who’s seen a thing or two. Ring-a-ding-ding! Andrew Durand is McCurdy: it’s the only time that you’ll read “stiff” as complement for an actor. Carrying the narrative ball of wax through time and space is good ole boy Jeb Brown as narrator and Bandleader.

Props to the technical crew, who manage to bring a loaded concrete mixer onstage for Elmer’s final rest, and to deftly turn the quick striking of a set piece into a sight gag.

• Dead Outlaw, music and lyrics by David Yazbek and Eric Della Penna, book by Itmar Moses, orchestrations by Della Penna, Dean Sharenow, and Yazbek, directed by David Cromer, Longacre Theatre, New York

Jeff Whitty and James Magruder’s free adaptation of Sir Philip Sidney’s 16th-century Arcadia, with songs from The Go-Go’s and places nearby, is a great wakeup for a drowsy Sunday afternoon. Amping up the cross-dressing plots of Sidney’s original material, Head Over Heels upends gender norms and is, in the words of a program note, “a celebration of queer joy in all its forms.” The text, a blend of Elizabethan English, florid “Eclogue” spoken by the shepherd Musidorus, and 21st-century language, is a language lover’s delight. “Ventilate the belfry of thy mind,” one character says. Wait, what?

Worthy of note are very fine ensemble choreography by Maurice Johnson, Stephen Russell Murray’s subclinically hysterical worrywart courtier Dametas, and Julia Link’s Pamela, delivering a righteous rock and roll belt.

It wouldn’t be a Constellation show without puppets by Matthew Pauli, including an enormous snake puppet on rods and a singing chorus of sheep (“Mad about You”).

• Head Over Heels, songs by The Go-Go’s,* based on The Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney, conceived and original book by Jeff Whitty, adapted by James Magruder, directed by Allison Arkell Stockman, music direction by Walter “Bobby” McCoy, Constellation Theatre Company, Washington

*and others

This is be Constellation’s last production at the (perhaps snakebit venue) Source Theatre.