By James Scarbrough for Grunion Gazette
'Dance' Provides Classic Entertainment

More lyrical than two harbor queens that pass in the early afternoon.

More spellbinding than telecasts of the Torino Games.

More attention grabbing than trellised star jasmine on your power walk at dawn down First Street.

Look up on the stage - it's Musical Theatre West's production of "Never Gonna Dance," with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by a stellar slew of songsters, directed by Larry Raben at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center.

It's every comfort food you can think of - savory, sweet, hot, cold. Rendered with pizzazz, the songs are part of our collective subconscious: "The Song is You," "I Won't Dance," "The Way You Look Tonight," "A Fine Romance." You can have shingles, post-partum depression, a stolen identity, but you still have to feel upbeat. Your feet shuffle, your fingers pirouette. And you hope your neighbor's not watching you.

That's entertainment!

There's a nice love story on which to hang Lee Martino's superb choreography and Darryl Archibald's musical direction.

Lucky Garnett (David Engel), rising vaudeville hoofer, suddenly hangs up his dancing shoes to marry Margaret Chalfont (Deborah Fauerbach). Not pleased with the sudden demise of their act, his accompanying Charms (Penny Collins, Kristyn Green, Kate Roth) sabotage his wedding. Margaret's mother (Kim Van Biene) says he can't have her disgraced daughter unless he raises $25,000 in a non-dancing capacity, i.e., in a real job.

One delightful thing leads to another delightful thing and soon Lucky is entered in a dance contest partnered with Penny Carroll (Tami Tappan Damiano), who has an understanding with Ricardo Romero (Joshua Finkel).

Love spreads like a virus and we wax terpischorean in our seats.

Engel's not only a perfect fit as Lucky; he's a perfect fit for the Carpenter Center. He's boyishly handsome but not cloyingly so like Harry Connick Jr. or George Clooney. His dancing is more Olympian that Astairean, which means it's not slick and seamless but physical and not a little gritty; more like something out of "West Side Story" than out of "Swing Time," the movie on which the musical was based.

Unlike the ethereal waif Fred Astaire, who seemed to hover above the ground, Engel not only commands a presence on the stage, he doesn't look like you could knock him over with a feathered boa. As such, his fine voice resounds out to us and not up to the heavens.

Damiano also looks like she was born for the role, born to play Engel's partner, born to perform in the Center. Athletic, graceful, gorgeous, she, too, is more anchored to the ground. She doesn't overcome gravity with her dancing, she reaches a lyrical accommodation with it. You get the sense that she more than holds her ground with Engel's dancing.

Together they're a dream and for a second I thought heaven, I'm in heaven.

3/3/2006

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