"MOVIN’ OUT" at The Shubert Theatre
BY LUCIA MAURO
A new – and disturbing -- trend has hit the commercial stage: an extended dance concert, anchored by existing pop songs, parading as a flashy form of musical theater. A painstakingly retrofitted story usually accompanies the fancy footwork. For example, in Susan Stroman’s "Contact," the pretentious through-line for its signature "Girl in the Yellow Dress" segment has a burnt-out, suicidal ad exec searching for love and purpose. One can go so far as to loosely count "Mamma Mia!" among these kitschy dance-theater hybrids with hyperventilating pop appeal (although the ABBA tunes superseded the dance elements).
The result, in my opinion, is a clumsy and woeful lack of originality. Now Chicago audiences are the first to view the latest of this contrived movement-musical ilk: "Movin’ Out" -- conceived, choreographed and directed by modern-dance innovator Twyla Tharp. This skimpy and redundant dance showcase of entwined relationships set to Billy Joel music may count as one of the most bland and ill-developed of this rising genre.
All the faux-tough male posturing and no-dimensional women (who fall into two categories: virgin and whore) would lead one to believe "Movin’ Out" was created by a man – not a leading American female choreographer known for her shrewd, tenacious and piquantly intelligent approach to her artistic vision. This show doesn’t even qualify as an invigorating staged music video. In fact, a "Greatest Hits" music video of Joel’s catchy but complexly crafted songs by commercially trained choreographers, like Paula Abdul and Mia Michaels, would certainly be more energizing – and entertaining.
Here Tharp slaps a trite story line on Joel’s already rich and evocative musical vignettes of life. But her interpretations – chronicling three men and two women as they encounter great social change from 1967 to 1987 – merely slink, shimmy, twirl and punch the air with vague recollections of "West Side Story," "Grease" and "Dirty Dancing." Yet Tharp seems to be unaware of both the rudimentary nature of her choreography and the sub-cliched plot.
What should have been a 20- to 30-minute repertory piece highlighting Joel’s meteor-like melodies and hard-hitting but tender raconteur style (similar to Tharp’s "Nine Sinatra Songs") has mushroomed into a stilted relationship odyssey encompassing three decades – only to reduce these eras to big cars, drugs, Vietnam and society’s dismissive treatment of Vietnam vets. Billy Joel fans, who will no doubt clamor to "Movin’ On," are sure to feel cheated. Pop-music and modern-classical dance fans don’t necessarily cross over. Sadly, both camps will be disappointed.
The show consists of an over-amplified onslaught by a live cover band pounding out hits, like "Uptown Girl" and "I Go to Extremes," while classically trained dancers fling, lunge and contort themselves across a script-less plot so hokey that it’s barely an outline for a low-budget TV movie-of-the-week. Most baffling, Tharp gets wedged into the literalness of the lyrics, yet her movement vocabulary and danced story runs counter to vocalist-pianist Michael Cavanaugh’s quite astonishing recreations of Joel’s harsh and harmonious microcosms of love and loss.
"Movin’ Out," set in a working-class neighborhood in Hicksville, Long Island, vaguely centers on Eddie (a technically adept but emotionally flat John Selya) – distinguished only by his pseudo-macho greaser mannerisms and black leather jacket. His best friend is Tony (the exquisite Keith Roberts decked out in a curly blonde wig like the Prom King in "Carrie") – a grocery-store clerk and general stud. The third guy turns out to be the squeaky-clean James (Benjamin G. Bowman), recently engaged to his white-gloved sweetheart Judy.
Conflict brews when Eddie loses his sexy and troubled wife Brenda to Tony. Early scenes in which a knock-kneed female ensemble member in dorky glasses drools over Tony are not only stupid and offensive – they’re pointless and go nowhere.
Suddenly, the three guys march off to Vietnam and – lo and behold! – James gets killed in action (due mainly to Eddie’s irresponsible behavior). Judy then becomes a recurring stock figure of the grieving war widow; Tony and Eddie feud; and both men suffer from post-war trauma. Tony and Brenda take drugs and fight; Eddie wallows in depraved behavior (including one abysmally laughable bondage-sex club sequence). A deux ex machina in the form of James’ angelic spirit (clad in a jogging suit) unites all these tortured figures into a bright and hopeful future.
This scant and implausible narrative is most evident in the blunt titles of each scene: "Tony and Brenda Get Together"; "Eddie Knows"; "Off to War"; "Coming Home"; "Eddie Rages," "Eddie Gets High;" and so on. Oddly, though, drugs and war seem to be glamorized for rugged and raunchy dramatic effect. Tharp has no intention of delving into the complexities of these ever-relevant issues. And the outstanding dancers (including Chicago’s own Ron De Jesus, longtime ensemble member of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago) are given nothing more compelling or challenging to do than bump and grind, push each other around and writhe through imaginary drug trips.
The women (Nicole Kidman-look-a-like Elizabeth Parkinson as Brenda and ballerina Ashley Tuttle as the revered Judy) don’t get anymore cardboard than these. To the strains of "She’s Got a Way," a parallel scene posits Brenda as a lap dancer in a Long Island dive bar being pawed by a drunken businessman, and Tony giving in to a Vietnamese prostitute at a Saigon bar. More hooker segments follow, quickly trailed by the "halo" scenes featuring the immaculate Judy and her various grief- and/or drug-induced doppelgangers conjured by Eddie (almost as if Judy, not James, has died).
This tiresome, insincere affair makes me wonder about the future of ORIGINAL music theater. Billy Joel, who attended opening night, must regret having his name not only associated with – but also the main draw of – what appears to be a whimsical vanity production for Twyla Tharp. Audiences should stay home and pop in their Billy Joel CDs – at least they know they won’t be disappointed.•
"Movin’ Out" runs through Sept. 1 at the Shubert Theatre, 22 W. Monroe. Tickets: $42-$77.50. Call 312-902-1400.
