Everything is silver-dollar sure in this remarkably accomplished, sardonic American musical, except, ultimately, its point. Adapted from a ’30s movie, Betty Comden and Adolph Green’s 1978 book concocts a plot merely as a mechanism to lovingly send up the theatre profession, set to Cy Colman’s operatically inflected score.
They duly tumble the vast, wounded ego of Oscar Jaffree, impresario director on his uppers, on to a long-distance train, add his star pupil, one-time lover and Hollywood diva Lily Garland, and defy them to reconcile. Mangling proceedings are a slew of passengers with playwriting pretensions and Miss Primrose, a mental-institution escapee with religious delusions and an unlimited bank account.
The sheer vivacity and inventiveness of the company, under director Ryan McBryde, is astonishing, evoking pitch-perfect farce and hilarious flashback vignettes with complete assurance and physical precision. Though it’s flawlessly cast, Valda Aviks as Miss Primrose takes the ticket for most endearing ‘nut’ of the night. But the musical sadly never sheds its sense of being a slightly tired, cloying in-joke, which the writers enjoyed far more than their audience. All the same, it’s a joyous, wry, and incredibly sleek ride.