THEATER AND FILM/Jan Herman : Putting Hoof Back in Gershwin

Much has been made of the faithful “reconstruction” of George and Ira Gershwin’s original “Strike Up the Band,” which bows Thursday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Yet it was the least authentic aspect of this revival--the tap numbers--that did best with the critics.

Except for music historian Tommy Krasker’s resurrected Gershwin score, which would have been hard to dislike, Randy Skinner’s choreography was the only creative element of the show to emerge unscathed from the decidedly mixed notices of opening night at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium 10 days ago.

The irony, of course, is that Skinner had no idea what the dance numbers looked or sounded like in the 1927 original. The fortuitous discovery six years ago of 80 cartons of lost music manuscripts--without which the show’s rehabilitation could not have been undertaken--held no choreographic revelations for Skinner.

“If we just had some of the original dance arrangements,” Skinner said, “we could tell how close we’ve gotten because they sometimes give a clue as to what was done. But there are no extant dance arrangements.”

Speaking by telephone last week from Niagara Falls, N.Y., where he was rehearsing a touring version of “42nd Street,” Skinner said he knew even before he read the script of “Strike Up the Band” that he could do “something big” with the military sound of the Gershwin title tune.

What immediately came to mind, he recounted, were “drums and a line regimentation” derived from a sailor number he once did with Ann Miller and Bobby Van in a 1977 revival of Cole Porter’s ‘30s musical, “Anything Goes.”

“I doubt if the Gershwin song would have had a dance as involved as the one we do,” Skinner said. “But when you’ve watched movie musicals and you’ve danced and taken class every day for most of your life, you end up with all sorts of things in your head, and you make use of your past experience.”

So much for authenticity. But hooray for entertainment. As Variety’s critic noted, the choreographer’s work “juices up the show . . . and, when combined with great songs like the title number, helps create the best moments in the production.”

Skinner had nothing but praise for the chorus, and especially for principal dancers Kirby and Beverly Ward who bring off the tap duets with considerable style. Indeed, the 36-year-old choreographer said he thinks the roles played by the Wards as the show’s second love-struck couple were created in the original production for “dance relief” more than anything else.

“In those days you had to have dancing in a musical,” Skinner said, “whereas today musicals have almost none. I’m certain a lot of dance numbers were written into ‘Strike Up the Band’ to get some action going.”

For this revival, Skinner thought the action should come early in the first act to set a classy tone and to establish the idea in the minds of the audience that there will be more stylish dancing to come.

So he decided to stage a tap duet for the Wards to the tune “Seventeen & Twenty One” that would have them dancing on the tables as well as the floor. Risky and elegant, though not glamorous, the duet is reminiscent of something Fred Astaire might have done with Ginger Rogers in “Follow the Fleet.”

“It’s my favorite number in the show,” said Skinner, a protege of Gower Champion. “I call it my ‘movie number’ because it’s the kind of thing performers wish they could put on film instead of having to do eight times a week.”

If a choreographer knows what to do, he or she will build “an arc” so that each number tops the previous one, if not always in actual merit, at least in spectacle. True to form, that is just what Skinner accomplishes in the first act with a dizzy Charleston for the company--to “Yankee Doodle Rhythm”--and, as a closer, the big chorus number for “Strike Up the Band.”

Unfortunately, the second act presented a problem because the arrangement for the opening number--”Oh, This Is a Lovely War”--remained a complete mystery apart from its upbeat rhythm. “We never did figure out whether it was a vocal or a dance thing,” Skinner recalled.

The act gets a lift from a tap jitterbug for the company--to “Military Dancing Drill”--but runs out of dancing toward the end.

“It would have been nice to have more,” Skinner said, “but the show just wasn’t written that way.”

Indeed, for all the dazzle of the reconstructed score, “Strike Up the Band” actually pales by comparison with the Gershwins’ 1930 hit, “Girl Crazy.” The later show produced four memorable standards--”I Got Rhythm,” “Bidin’ My Time,” “Embraceable You” and “But Not for Me”-- while “Strike Up the Band” produced two--”The Man I Love” and “I’ve Got a Crush on You.”

What’s more, “Girl Crazy” gave an enormous boost to the careers of its two leading ladies. Ginger Rogers, who was already known, went on to stardom in Hollywood. Ethel Merman, then an unknown, went on to become the reigning queen of Broadway for decades. The original “Band” never made it to Broadway and thus was not a launching pad for anyone.

A revival of “Girl Crazy” could give a boost to Skinner’s own career. He recently directed and choreographed a pre-Broadway tryout of the show, starring Lorna Luft, in Birmingham, Mich. It is his biggest project to date, including eight years of supervising Champion’s Tony award-winning choreography in “42nd Street.”

In the meantime, Skinner is also preparing another musical revival, this time in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio. He will be directing and choreographing “Babes in Arms,” the 1937 Rodgers and Hart musical, for a September premiere.

That show, incidentally, produced even more standards than “Girl Crazy.” Count ‘em--”My Funny Valentine,” “Johnny One Note,” “The Lady Is a Tramp,” “I Wish I Were in Love Again” and “Where or When.”

“Strike Up the Band” opens Wednesday and continues through Aug. 24 at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Show times: 8 p.m. daily with matinees at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets: $16 to $37. Information: (714) 556-2787.