STAGE REVIEW : ‘Stardust’: A Nostalgic, Opulent Trip

It’s Tin Pan Alley, it’s Erte, it’s all-singing, all-dancing and all designed to breathe opulent life into some of the best and cleverest popular music to come out of four prolific decades of the 20th Century: the 1920s through the 1950s.

Nostalgia time? For some, undoubtedly. You might even say for most, judging from the age range of the audience at “Stardust’s” press opening Friday. But note also that this show at the Wilshire Theatre in West Hollywood bills itself insistently as “The New Musical” (the italics are ours) and delivers its nostalgia more as happy anthropology than mawkish memory trip.

You may take it from the lyric, “The star dust of yesterday, the music of years gone by . . . “ (indeed, the show starts with a “Star Dust” intro so statuesque that it makes one fear for the rest of its mobility), but it’s only half the story. Before we know it, we’re into a fast and funny “Riverboat Shuffle” with Hinton Battle, Sean Young and Toni Tenille (minus the Captain) cutting the rug assisted by what turns out to be a highly accomplished company of seven more singer-dancers.

The style of the revue is part Las Vegas, part Tin Pan Alley, part Broadway. No patter, no transitions. This requires some getting used to, but this group doesn’t wait. It takes a song or three to get into the swing of things--literally and figuratively--yet what makes “Stardust” such a unique hybrid is precisely the contrast between its carefully positioned, highly stylized Art Deco look (designing sets and costumes for this show was reportedly the late Erte’s last project) and its sassy, joyous approach to the song and dance.

Not that “Stardust” doesn’t pause to bask in the glow of such items as the title song or “Mood Indigo” or “Moonlight Serenade,” which director-choreographer and mastermind Henry LeTang knows enough to stage without embellishments, but there’s nothing stuffy about his approach. As for the rest of the material, Tenille and friends dig into it with an appetite and zeal matched only by the lustiness of the songs themselves: 40-plus, by 30 songwriters, ranging from Hoagy Carmichael, Glenn Miller and Duke Ellington to Leroy Anderson and Bing Crosby.

They have one denominator in common. Except for two minor entries by James Raitt (“Your Cavalcade of Hits,” written with Jay Jeffries, and “Happy Cigarettes” with Peter Jablonski), all of the lyrics in this stunning assortment are by the prolific Mitchell Parish. This incidence is the show’s excuse, as if it needed one. What’s unusual is the focus on one man’s words as opposed to one man’s music (such as that of Fats Waller in “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” or Eubie Blake in “Eubie”).

But it works, in its own quirky, odd and elegant way, largely thanks to the performing talent involved. Tenille’s rich, sometimes gravelly voice and warm personality swings easily from crooning to clowning and sets a tone. But there is also Young, who is good for a ballad or two, and Battle, who delivers a smashing “Deep Purple” and whose terrific dancing is matched and sometimes even bested by those tap-dancing comics Peter Slutsker, Jackie Patterson and Scott Willis. Note especially their “Dixie After Dark” number, “My Object of Conversation Is You,” or “Midnight at the Onyx.”

Cathy Wydner, who’s not exactly a slouch in the comic song department, joins these guys for the knockabout “It Happens to the Best of Friends” and “I Would If I Could but I Can’t.” High tenor John Hoshko and bluesy Nancy Hess provide occasional respite from all the physical exertion with the more blatantly romantic stuff such as “Stairway to the Stars” (Hess) or “Tell Me Why/Does Your Heart Beat for Me” (Hoshko). But it is Betsy Baytos who walks away with the evening’s most original contributions.

Not only is she a consummate comedian, but she’s also a double-jointed, high-kicking, eccentric dancer, with a body like Olive Oyl’s and a face like Beatrice Lillie’s. The combination is unbeatable, as is her “Sentimental Gentleman From Georgia” routine with a willing but rather wooden fella named Maurice.

Aside from having clearly hand-picked these special singers and dancers for the variety they bring, LeTang, assisted by his wife, Ellie, has pursued a similar balance in the numbers he’s created, including a longish sequence in a bar in the segment devoted to the 1930s, and an impressive specialty number for the 1950s that builds nicely to the show’s finale.

Despite a bill that ultimately crams a little too much into an evening of nearly three hours, the pace is so brisk, at times so frenetic and roisterous and the emphasis so overwhelmingly on talented comedy, that it counteracts the occasional top-heaviness of the overwrought Erte designs. Tenille’s costumes can be so elaborate that she is often anchored to one spot. They are an odd match, this show and those costumes, but they also seem to be the point. The precarious clash of languor and laughter, of lavish and loopy, give “Stardust” its zany, bittersweet spice.

“Stardust,” Wilshire Theatre, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. Tuesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 and 7:30 p.m. Ends June 15. $15-$45; (213) 480-3232, (714) 740-2000. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes.

Hinton Battle, Betsy Baytos, Nancy Hess, John Hoshko, Jackie Patterson, Peter Slutsker, Toni Tenille, Scott Willis, Cathy Wydner, Sean Young Ensemble.

Producers Louise Westergaard, Stephen O’Neil, Sidney Lazard, Irving Schwartz and Joel Murray Productions, Inc. Associate producers Hal Grossman, Michael Kline, Rosemary Feick, Tony Chase, Obie Bailey. Director-choreographer Henry LeTang. Associate choreographer Ellie LeTang. Lyrics Mitchell Parish, Jay Jeffries, Peter Jablonski. Music Hoagy Carmichael, Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Leroy Anderson, Joe Harnell, Dick Voynov, Irving Mills, Eleanor Young, Harry D. Squires, Frank Perkins, Ben Oakland, Sammy Fain, Rube Bloom, Bing Crosby, Alan Grey, Frank Signorelli, Matt Malnick, Cab Calloway, Peter DeRose, Edgar Sampson, Will Hudson, Michael Edwards, Sigmund Spaeth, Russ Morgan, Arnold Johnson, Heinz Roemheld, Domenico Modugno, Cliff Burwell, James Raitt. Production design Erte. Costume interpretation Tony Chase. Lights Gregory Hirsch. Sound Jim Mancuso. Orchestrations John Charles. Vocal arrangements James Raitt. Musical director Kathleen A. Rubbicco. Production stage manager Nancy Ann Adler.