©Hartford Courant
Dec. 12, 1999


Swing!: Furious, Pointless
By Malcolm Johnson

Swing!, the new song-and-dance concert at the St. James Theatre, turns out to be yet another sign of the moribund state of the American musical theater. Best enjoyed as a showcase for the formidable and hip Ann Hampton Callaway, this exhibition of jitterbug and scat fails to revive the spirit of the music it purports to celebrate. The onstage band blows hot and sometimes cool, but cannot touch the sounds of Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw.

Led by Casey MacGill, who strums a mean uke, The Gotham City Gates feature some strong soloists and a big brassy sound from the opening number, ``It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing'' by Duke Ellington and Irving Mills. Tunes by Goodman, Count Basie, Hoagy Carmichael, Jerome Kern, Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen, as well as lesser-known songsmiths of the Swing Era follow. There are also new numbers by MacGill and Everett Bradley, a slick baritone who solos and sings duets with Callaway, including an interweaving of ``All of Me'' and ``I Won't Dance.''

But dance, obviously, is what `Swing! is all about. Great athleticism is on display, with much flinging about of the mostly long-stemmed women. Despite variations, such as the West Coast Swing and the more sizzling, tango-edged Latin Swing, it all becomes rather repetitive. One or two jitterbugs may be exhilarating. When the number nears 20, the gymnastics get tiring. Perhaps aware of this, Jerry Zaks, the production supervisor, and director-choreographer Lynne Taylor Corbett insinuate a novelty bungee-cord number late in Act Two.

In addition to the elegant Callaway, who scats brilliantly and delivers a smoking ``Blues in the Night,'' and the smooth but modest Bradley, who exhibits an ease and charm throughout, Swing! also features a wiry Miss Firecracker named Laura Benanti. She first appears as a severe, English-accented wallflower, then -- with a neat flip of one of the swinging costumes by William Ivey Long -- becomes electrified. Thereafter, her high energy plays neatly off Callaway's more sultry and bemused persona. There is also some charged-up footwork and scatting by Michael Gruber (and company) on Carmichael's ``Billy-a-Dick.''

For a show that intermixes the familiar and the more obscure or new, the St. James stage has been transformed by Thomas Lynch into a make-believe ballroom that combines a feeling of the '40s with a sense of the current craze for the wild gyrations of more than a half-century ago. Long's costumes combine military uniforms and bobby socks with decidedly modern undergarments and swingy minis. The joint is jumpin', but as the horns blare and the legs fly high, it all seems a pointless attempt to capitalize on Broadway's mindless modern obsession with Terpsichore, from Footloose to Fosse to Saturday Night Fever.


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