Fred and Ginger with Backup

Never Gonna Dance. Musical Theatre West. Carpenter Performing Arts Center. Long Beach. 3/2/06.

Never Gonna Dance was a fairly inexplicable musical. It has the basic plot structure of the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical, Swing Time, but with changes to the plot that made even less sense than the original wacky 1930s musical. With Fred and Ginger, the plot was just an excuse to get from one dance number to another, but Never Gonna Dance lacked the pace and frivolity that made the Fred amd Ginger musicals so much fun.

The dancing throughout the show was excellent; leads David Engel as Lucky and Tami Tappan Damiano as Penny worked really hard and carried the show pretty well, and all of the chorus were extremely talented tap dancers. Every member of the chours got an opportunity to dance a bit of a solo as well as serve as ensemble backup dancers. It was odd, however, the way they adapted songs that were originally Fred and Ginger solos in closeup to production numbers. It drained a bit of the individual personality and chemistry away from the leads.

The performance I saw was questionable at best. There were several technical difficulties including a backdrop getting caught up on an electric and twisted. More problematically, the sound, especially in the second act, was extremely over-mic'd. It made even the leads sound shrill, and it ruined Harriet Harris' solo, showing just how much she wasn't a singer (although she's a brilliant character actress and performed quite admirably in "Shimmy with Me").

Overall, the show was fun, although in no means great. It had its moments, and it had its problems. I think as a concept, it was weak. I'd rather watch the original with Fred and Ginger. Or even a live stage production of the original text, without Never Gonna Dance's tweaked the plot and odd collection of songs.