If you had told me in the fall that I would consider Encores! concert version of "Where's Charley?" not only a highlight of the current theatrical season but also one of the best Encores! ever, I would have asked for some of whatever you were smoking.
The show was stodgy and old-fashioned back in 1948, when it was first produced on Broadway, with Ray Bolger's aggressive comic romping and Frank Loesser's cheeky score its chief items of distinction. An overly industrious 2004 Goodspeed production only confirmed my feelings. And yet, as superbly adapted and directed by John Doyle in the manner of the famed Princess Theatre musicals by P.G. Wodehouse, Guy Bolton, and Jerome Kern, "Where's Charley? (in Concert)" is an unalloyed delight that gifted me with a permanently giddy smile punctuated by tears of joy. Bravo, Encores!
Based on Brandon Thomas' 1892 warhorse of a farce, "Charley's Aunt," the simple story involves two Oxford students, Jack Chesney and Charley Wykeham, who wish to propose to their sweethearts, Kitty Verdun and Amy Spettigue, upon graduating. But Old Spettigue, the girls' gargoyle of a guardian, won't allow it.
When Charley's wealthy aunt, Donna Lucia D'Alvadorez, a recent widow whom he's never met, fails to arrive from Brazil in time to act as chaperone to the young ladies, Charley dresses up in drag to pose as her. Complications, of course, ensue, with both the greedy Spettigue and Jack's newly impoverished father, Sir Francis, vying for Donna Lucia's hand and cash. Then the real Donna Lucia shows up. You can fill in the rest.
I haven't been a fan of the chilly minimalism of Doyle's collaborations with Stephen Sondheim, but even in those the director's intelligence, invention, and relentless attention to detail were clear. Here he marshals those forces to create a remarkably consistent tone and style. Everybody, from the principals to the generously sized chorus to talented choreographer Alex Sanchez to the designers of the candy-colored physical production—John Lee Beatty (set), Ann Hould-Ward (costumes), Paul Miller (lights)—is on the same delicious page.
As a glance at the largely faithful but sadly suppressed 1952 film version confirms, original director-adapter George Abbott infused the show with a brassy Broadway soul. Doyle returns it to its English roots, and it's remarkably happy there. He also pays rigorous attention to story and character, however thin they may be. For example, the way he uses distance in his staging of the show's hit romantic ballad, "My Darling, My Darling," is a virtual textbook in how to delineate dramatic action. In Doyle's hands, the song's a little one-act play.
Of course, there's no show without a Charley. Doyle cast the young and unknown Rob McClure, and he proves a felicitous choice. McClure manages to integrate the required physical clowning with the character, rather than letting it become a runaway freight train, as the age-inappropriate Bolger did (out of show-biz necessity, I hasten to add, and with great skill). We never forget that the callow lad is in there as Donna Lucia flounces imperiously about.
McClure's full of charming comic desperation when Charley proposes to a recalcitrant Amy in "Make a Miracle." In Act 2, McClure sends the soft-shoe showstopper "Once in Love With Amy" insouciantly into the stratosphere as Charley breaks the fourth wall to warn audience members away from his love only to lead them in an infectious sing-along valentine (something Bolger added to the show during its out-of-town tryout).
As Amy, Lauren Worsham is an ideal soubrette with an attractive hint of smoke in her voice and a decided way with a moue. Sebastian Arcelus and Jill Paice are a perfectly matched Jack and Kitty, his quiet rectitude dovetailing nicely with her instinctive propriety. Even better, they sing beautifully. Another match made in heaven is that of Howard McGillin and Rebecca Luker, as Sir Francis and Donna Lucia.
Coincidentally, it turns out that the characters are former sweethearts, and McGillin and Luker turn Loesser's gorgeous "Lovelier Than Ever" into a soaring expression of love reclaimed. Both act with effortless grace, but special mention must go to McGillin, who nails Sir Francis' very British sense of class and its concomitant duties. As Old Spettigue, Dakin Matthews is an unlikely amalgam of Burl Ives, Monty Wooley, and a pit bull as the miserly misanthrope chases Donna Lucia back and forth across the stage, and Matthews scores big laughs in the comic "Serenade With Asides."
The show's unsung hero has always been Loesser, who made his Broadway debut with "Charley" as a hired gun. Even what I think of as the wallpaper numbers—an exotic ballet, gossiping girls, a waltz for the cotillion—show an above-average level of invention, particularly in the lyrics.
At Encores!, this is most evident in the full chart for "The New Ashmolean Marching Society and Students' Conservatory Band," which I had never heard before. It blossoms into a sly dance section, pure Loesser, in which the amateur group plays amusingly off-key and out of tempo. Under Rob Berman's superior baton, this largely unknown score glows. If ever an Encores! deserved a recording, it's this one. Pony up the cash, Loesser Foundation. You'll never get a better chance.
Presented by Encores! at New York City Center, 131 W. 55th St., NYC. March 17–20. Thu. and Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 6:30 p.m. (212) 581-1212 or www.nycitycenter.org. Casting by Binder Casting.