notjustaboutsex

By sheer magical intervention I got row B seats for the above Gershwin boys musical. I was expecting more recycled tourist pablum… what could I have been thinking of? This beautifully  directed show by Kathleen Marshall, induced better feelings than I have had in a year. The perfect antidote to global misery, a prohibition comedy, with a few updates for our even more insane time. Matthew Broderick is a dream, sweet, with a lovely voice and a perfect everyman persona. Sometimes I didn’t quite get his cartoonish vocal expressions..they seemed broader than his co-star’sKelly O’Hara’s more straight on performance, but he’s a real charmer who makes me want to dance again. Kelly (South Pacific) has a super clean voice and the rest of the cast are stars in this show too: Judy Kaye doing a stuffy biddy who gets released from her emotional girdle, Matt McGrath as lifetime gin runner,Robyn Hurder as the chorus girl who wants to be queen, Jennifer Laura Thompson, as a clumsy Isadora Duncan who Matthew must marry. In the show I saw, a stand-in for one of the hoods, Michael X. Martin, whose hang dog face with shades of Norton was irresistable.But enough for the live talent which also includes the great Estelle Parsons… the Gershwins wrote love songs that are still so psychologically in step that I wonder if they were channelling.I’ve always thought Someone To Watch Over Me was my theme song, although, But Not For Me seems more like it.  Delishious has fun rhyme play and I’ve Got a Crush on You is sublime. But the big surprise is that I never realized that the word work in the title refers to love and how it ameliorates lots of life’s other problems… if you can get it. I got it. At least for an afternoon.