Kern and Hammerstein’s breakthrough musical gets a simplified and trimmed production in Arlington. This 1927 show from the novel by Edna Ferber shows the traces of turn of the century operetta and music hall—songs that don’t fit into a simple verse-chorus structure are plentiful and two songs of the period are interpolated—even as it takes on social issues, chief among them race and class relations. Plays that capitalize on backstage shenanigans are so common as to pall (if I see one more riff on Moon Over Buffalo I can’t be held responsible for my actions), but the current piece, which follows 40 years in the life of a Mississippi River show boat of traveling players (something like vaudeville with a paddewheel), is still charming.
Some of the cast manage the challenge of aging four decades in the course of the evening more gracefully than others. Delores King Williams’s Queenie, of the supple voice, is a pleasure to listen to. She’s part of the most energetic and enjoyable number of the show, the playful “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” from Act 1. The dancing in this number is modest, but appropriate to its time. Elsewhen in the show, swing player Patrick Cragin, playing the role of hoofer and stage villain Bobby Smith last Saturday night, also shows some fancy tapping.
The show’s signature song, “Old Man River,” is a lovely piece, but I found the choice to reprise it twice (with little change in emotional temperature) a bit odd while chunks of plot were clearly jettisoned in Act 2 to keep the running time down. When Joe (amiable VaShawn McIlwain) takes the dynamics of “I’m tired of living,/And scared of dying” to a 10 the first time through, there isn’t any place for him to go. Notwithstanding, music director Jon Kalbfleisch’s orchestra of fourteen supports him with one clean, clear voice.
- Show Boat, music by Jerome Kern, book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, based on the novel by Edna Ferber, directed by Eric Schaeffer, Signature Theatre, The Max Theater, Arlington, Virginia