One of those gays!
We had tickets to City Center’s limited-run Encores! show No, No, Nanette! for tonight; we got them even before we had the idea of getting two puppies, or we might have thought twice. I mean, they would be alone for quite a while. So I dashed home twice to exhaust them and shower them with puppy treats for the long haul, and met José at the theater. Let me tell you something—No, No Nanette! is the equivalent of puppy treats for rich, old broads. I saw canes, walkers, wheelchairs and gurneys filled with classy carcasses sporting giant-framed glasses and tasteful bobs. More plastic surgery than the cast of Desperate Housewives. Oh, and Polly Bergen and Fran Drescher (complete with parents and gay-seeming ex-husband) showed, too.
The show has gotten raves. It grew on me (the first couple of songs are so stupid and forgettable I was rolling my eyes hard) as a good example of how—if not why—to stage a period show with style and energy. The star is Sandy Duncan, in a role that brought Ruby Keeler out of a four-decade retirement in 1971, but both Beth Leaven as her frenemy and the titular Nanette (Mara Davi) probably have meatier roles in this frothy romp about a young girl tired of hearing “no” and the Three’s Company-style shenanigans encompassing her aunt, uncle and pretty much everyone else in the vicinity.
Still, there was something heartwarming about seeing Sandy Duncan, a familiar face absent for a while, doing two elaborate tap-dancing, high-kicking routines at the age of 62!
Equally winning was Rosie O’Donnell as wise-cracking maid Pauline. She gets the best one-liners and delivers them with far better comedic timing that she seems to have at her disposal if you judge her based on her stand-up act. And when she emerges toward the end and performs a nifty tap routine, it nearly brought the house down. What a pleasant surprise! I’d gotten tickets in case she wound up being a spectacle and she turned out to be spectacular.
The show is a little creaky, but if done this energetically works fine. There were several phrases that sounded surprisingly more modern, making me wonder if they’d been inspired by the show—Michael Berresse as Billy Early exclaiming, “Get busy!” comes to mind.
I can’t say this would be a Broadway smash, but a lot of work obviously went into it, and if Thoroughly Modern Millie could soar, why not this? (Just go from two intermissions to one, please.)
Before the show, Patti LuPone gave an award to Douglas S. Cramer, whose name you’ll recognize from schlocky TV shows (Love Boat, Dynasty, you name it) yet whose real passion has always been the stage. I found the story created by her speech and his acceptance more interesting than the show itself—a gay man who makes multi-millions in bad TV only to spend all his free time sponsoring the revitalization of classic Broadway scores. Plus he’s ancient and openly gay, all the more inspiring.
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