STAGE REVIEW : Extroverted ‘Side by Side’ Gets Lift From Newcomer

If Dorothy Lamour is the star of “Side by Side by Sondheim” at the Grand Dinner Theatre here, as all the advertisements proclaim, then Myrona Delaney must be the superstar.

You won’t find her name in the ads, nor those of her capable co-performers Roberta Wall and Jeffrey Rockwell. You even have to search for them in the playbill. But it is Delaney, a UC Irvine grad student in her professional debut, who elevates this production above the routine and turns it into a show worth seeing.

Her droll, animated character work throughout the evening is an object lesson in the art of dramatizing the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim’s theater songs.

Indeed, Delaney gets as much mileage from this retrospective revue as any fuel-injected Broadway baby possibly could under the circumstances.

And she does it without for a moment upstaging Wall or Rockwell, whether she is kicking into gear with a winsome solo in “Getting Married Today” or peaking with a hilarious “The Boy From,” suggesting the sly innocence of a cockeyed Lucille Ball.

Would it be caddish to point out that Lamour, on the other hand, is a celebrity performer who brings little more than her celebrity and her reading glasses to the stage? As the narrator of this show, she sits at a lectern and gingerly negotiates her way through the script, as though seeing it for the first time.

Though it might have been better had Lamour committed her lines to memory and performed rather than recited them, her apparent lack of preparation is not entirely a bad thing. It lends an impromptu quality to her effort, which seems more spontaneous, at least, than the two songs she knows by heart but can’t really sing.

It also doesn’t hurt that the narrative material from the original 1976 revue has some very entertaining lines. By way of commenting on a song’s double-entendres, for example, Lamour offers a classic definition of the difference between disappointment and despair. “Disappointment,” she says, “is the first time you find out you can’t do it twice. Despair is the second time you find out you can’t do it once.”

A few lines grafted onto the narrative to personalize Lamour’s participation in the show have the advantage of not being read. She jokes briefly about having been “the original material girl”--Madonna notwithstanding--because of the famous sarongs she wore on screen in a pair of jungle romances for Paramount during the late ‘30s.

In fact, this extroverted version of “Side by Side” seeks the pleasant sound of laughter wherever it can, and as often as it can. It bows to the introspective aspects of Sondheim only when they can’t be completely avoided. The most notable instance of the latter is “Send in the Clowns,” which Rockwell strips of all possible affectation and delivers with wonderful simplicity.

While this production bears little resemblance to the original London staging, contrary to the advertising claims, nobody but an obsessed Sondheim fan could complain about the creative decision to cut 10 or so songs from the score. Even without them, the show remains a sophisticated pastiche of more than two dozen witty tunes taken largely from “Company” and “Follies” but also from “Gypsy, “ “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” “West Side Story,” “A Little Night Music” and “The Mad Show.”

Todd Nielsen has directed the production adequately, although he might have drawn a more textured performance from Wall. She is a solid singer with a rich soprano tone to her voice, and she provides much of the evening’s musical charm. But as an actress, she tends toward the bland.

The set, with its shiny chrome-plated bars and stagy dressing room light bulbs, could stand improvement. The costumes are tasteful, however. And the placement of the two grand pianos at opposite ends of the set works very well, as does the musical accompaniment.

‘SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM’

A Grand Dinner Theatre presentation. Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, with music also by Leonard Bernstein, Mary Rodgers, Richard Rodgers and Jule Styne. Continuity by Ned Sherrin. Directed by Todd Nielsen. With Dorothy Lamour, Jeffrey Rockwell, Myrona Delaney, Roberta Wall. Musical director William Lockwood. Pianists Lockwood and Nick De Gregorio. Percussionist Frank Long. Set by Gil Morales-Spectrum Design Studios. Wardrobe coordinator Denise Menz. Lighting by Chris Kortam. At the Grand Dinner Theatre, 7 Freedman Way, Anaheim, though April 14. Dinner seating times: Tuesday to Thursday at 6 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 6:30 p.m.; lunch seatings Saturday and Sunday at 11:30 a.m. Admission: $27 to $39. Information: (714) 772-7710.