Aaron Shaw and Katie Franqueira, as Dick and Ruby, tapping their toes in Sierra Madre Playhouse's "Dames at Sea" There is an elemental silliness to the movie musicals of the 1930s, but that was intentional. Reimagining the Busby Berkeley-era extravaganza in miniature, the 1968 off-Broadway hit shuffles uptown with its perky homage to 1930s movie musicals. The nostalgia-trip trend took fire with the stage version of “42nd Street” (already revived once) and includes the Gershwin songbook musicals “Crazy for You” and “Nice Work if You Can Get It”; the Astaire-Rogers takeoff “Never Gonna Dance”; and last season’s Gershwin fest, “An American in Paris,” among others. Sierra Madre Playhouse. Dames at Sea doesn’t have the Brechtian double-edge of the 1981 movie Pennies from Heaven, which takes the same inspiration in a darker direction; or the meta-cleverness of The Drowsy Chaperone, the 2006 show that parodies the madcap silliness of 1920s Broadway musicals with a similar spirit. Another of his gold-digging chorines has run off with a millionaire, which puts fresh-off-the-bus Ruby (Eloise Kropp) in the right place at the right time. Well, tough luck, because here it comes: the new leading lady of “ Dames at Sea ” is no Bernadette Peters. Her Mona is classic Brooklyn trash reinvented as a grand thespian, turning on a dime from high melodrama to an ingratiating megawatt smile. Dames at Sea, which originated Off–Off Broadway in 1966, took a crack at ’30s Warner Bros. musicals, but was different from the others in a way we would now call camp. But Skinner has assembled a likeable cast that fits the material, both in terms of the stock types they’re playing and the kind of screen stars associated with them. All Rights reserved. But (in a nod to Follow the Fleet) Dick and Lucky have a ship in the harbor, and what better stage than a poop deck? The musical is right in the wheelhouse of director-choreographer Randy Skinner, who never met a nostalgic dance interlude he didn’t like. I can’t say that history is being remade at the Helen Hayes. Both are energetic dancers, too. And “The Echo Waltz,” with its mountain milkmaids wielding fluorescent hoops under black light, is a nod to the glow-in-the-dark violins of “The Shadow Waltz,” from Gold Diggers of 1933. The films offered an inexpensive escape from the strain of the Great Depression, and quite intentionally featured lavish costumes, elaborate… Even that old standby of the dance routine under umbrellas is pulled off with panache in Skinner’s winsome moves for “Raining in My Heart.” There’s not a huge amount of variation in the choreography, but it’s polished and consistently high-energy. “Dames at Sea,” a buoyant spoof of Depression-era movie musicals, marks the 100th production for the Sierra Madre Playhouse which once, years ago, was indeed a movie house. The repetition of the music is in a contest only with the repetition of the Dick jokes. — fallen in love with a sailor, Dick (Cary Tedder), into whose eager arms she swoons, not having eaten in days. The show’s over-the-top scene-stealer — also the closest it gets to a villain, which is not very close — is Margherita, fresh from her 1,000-performance run as the title character’s crass mother in Matilda. Dames at Sea gets many of its laughs by reducing its models to their giddy essentials. I have a serious question to ask. Also, how can the Captain (Bolton again) object when his romantic history with Mona makes him putty in her hands? Browse 200+ critical Dames at Sea reviews & compare Dames at Sea ticket prices. DAMES AT SEA: NOTES ON CAMP When Dames at Sea opened in 1966 at the Caffe Cino, a small coffee house and performance space in New York City’s Greenwich Village that was at the heart of the early off-off Broadway movement, the show was a trifle—a campy lark into the backstage musicals of early talkies, seen through a lens one imagines might have been happily clouded by … Whether there’s an audience for this effusive salute to a kitschy, corny genre that most Broadway theatergoers have either forgotten or never knew remains an open question — especially when recent seasons have seen comparable confections in more lavish presentations, with superior songs by such masters as the Gershwins and Cole Porter. The hopeful lass is hired to dance in the chorus off a new Broadway show and meets Dick, a sailor, who also has ambitions as a songwriter. Average Rating based on 7 reviews. Obviously, this is flimsy nonsense, designed merely as a skeleton on which to hang song after song, almost all of them punctuated by a dance break of tap-happy exuberance or graceful ballroom romance. The opening number, “Wall Street,” tips its sequined top hat to Gold Diggers of 1933, right down to the dancing currency, while key characters borrow their names from Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and Joan Blondell, the stars of that film and its kin, such as 42nd Street and Footlight Parade. A sweet candy morsel serving unapologetically empty calories, the show was first seen in a tiny Greenwich Village performance space in 1966. In the original production, life imitated art, or at least showbiz, in the case of Bernadette Peters, then unknown, who replaced another actor and pealed her way to stardom as the show’s ingénue, Ruby. Dames at Sea . Dames at Sea Theater review Adam Feldman. To call the show a sendup is misleading; as a spoof, it’s toothless. His numbers are swiftly folded into the show with the blessing of Mona, who sets her sights on the sailor as well as his talent. Dames At Sea- Theatre At The Center- Dames at Sea, with a book and lyrics by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller and music by Jim Wise, begins with Ruby, getting off the bus from Utah, after arriving in New York City with a dream to make it big on Broadway. The pastiche skills of writer-lyricists George Haimsohn and Robin Miller, and composer Jim Wise (all of them now deceased) make it clear they had a thorough knowledge of and affection for the frothy extravaganzas that were a staple of Depression-era Hollywood entertainment. Read more ‘Spring Awakening’: Theater Review. It takes push and drive and guts.”. 6 reviews, contact details and business hours of Dames At Sea at Helen Hayes Theatre 240 W 44th St, New York, NY. Ruby doesn’t pine for long, of course. But it still provides lively diversions for those in search of yesteryear’s delights, particularly the skillful pastiche songs by Jim Wise (music) and George Haimsohn and Robin Miller (lyrics). Discover Broadway shows you love at the price that’s right for you. It’s a big part of the joke that, unlike those populous Berkeley numbers, there are never more than six people onstage here, and the hard-working actors have a ball with it. "Dames at Sea" is a parody of the big movie musicals of the 1930s designed to work on two levels. Having wandered into the first theater she spotted, apparently, Ruby is recruited to take over from a just-married chorus girl. With her wholesome beauty; bright, varied voice; and air of gee-whiz innocence, she fills the role beautifully, bringing a winning combination of grace, athleticism and plain old Eleanor Powell gusto to her heavy tap chores. Despite being a revival, the show was actually making its Broadway premiere, having opened in an Off Off Broadway production in 1966 starring Bernadette Peters. It moved to off-Broadway two years later, making a star of newcomer Bernadette Peters in the role of chorus girl Ruby, who triumphs after stepping in for the ailing headliner. “All right, go back!” Joan says. A scene from "Dames at Sea" with, from left: John Bolton, Danny Gardner, Mara Davi, Cary Tedder and Eloise Kropp. How does an innocent girl from Centerville, Utah, who gets off the bus in New York one morning with nothing but a pair of tap shoes to her name, end up a Broadway star and the darling of the Navy by evening? Highly Recommended Recommended Somewhat Recommended Not Recommended Wouldn’t you know it, Dick turns out to be an aspiring songwriter? If we can put a […] “Dames at Sea” currently on the Midtown Arts Stage in Fort Collins is the tried and tested Broadway fable that flashed onto movie screens in the ‘30s and ‘40s. Even housed in Broadway’s smallest theater, this miniature musical, with a cast you could fit in a dinghy, seems just a little, well, at sea. The way the book (by Mr. Haimsohn and Mr. Miller) merrily hopscotches from cliché to cliché can still raise smiles. Her torchy rendition of “That Mister Man of Mine” (a riff on the Fanny Brice hit “My Man”) is a hilarious showstopper. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Consider it instead a vintage valentine to those movies wherein a naïve girl from the sticks with big dreams and a nice pair of gams finds herself thrust center stage, tapping her way to instant celebrity. From left, Eloise Kropp, Lesli Margherita and Mara Davi in “Dames at Sea,” which first opened in 1966 and is now having a Broadway revival at the Helen Hayes Theater. Produced by Town Hall Arts Center (2450 West Main Street, Littleton) through March 17. Dames at Sea reinvents one of those big-screen spectacles as a shrunken stage musical — a baby Busby Berkeley if you will — with an appealing cast of six that makes its featherweight pleasures infectious. Reviewed by Lara J. Altunian Sierra Madre Playhouse Extended through August 3 Derived during a time of Hollywood escapism triggered by the Great Depression, 1930s musicals tend to feel frivolous. Nearly 50 years on, however, with Broadway having thoroughly strip-mined the songs and styles of the shows that made up the so-called Golden Age of the musical, the little show that could, and did, seems to give off a faint whiff of mothballs. “Forget Broadway! Dames at Sea reinvents one of those big-screen spectacles as a shrunken stage musical — a baby Busby Berkeley if you will — with an appealing cast of … That it was a spoof of Hollywood’s backstage musicals (like 42 nd Street and Gold Diggers of 1933) and its shipboard musicals (like … Reviews. Copyright © 2021 The Hollywood Reporter, LLC. That phrase floated through my head more than once during the Broadway revival of “Dames at Sea,” which opened at the Helen Hayes Theater on Thursday. You aren’t big enough for Broadway. The show is wonderfully helped by its cast. How unfair! They all have impressive tap skills, giving the stage a rhythmic pounding in numbers like “Choo Choo Honeymoon” and “Star Tar,” the latter giving Kropp a big moment to shine. This pert spoof of 1930s movie musicals was a surprise smash when it opened almost a half-century ago, in 1966, at the tiny Off Off Broadway powerhouse Caffe Cino. Dames at Sea Reviews : Dames at Sea. In an instant, she finds a bosom buddy in wisecracking hoofer Joan (Mara Davi), and falls head over heels for Dick (Cary Tedder), a sailor from her hometown.