THEATER REVIEW : Going ‘Crazy’ for Gershwin

If Broadway was waiting for “Crazy for You,” the 1991 so-called “new” Gershwin musical, to save it from itself, it was tinkling up the wrong octave.

The touring company of the much-awarded “Crazy,” which opened Friday at the Century City Shubert, is as old-fashioned and fun-silly a musical as they made in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s. Its plot holds as much water as a leaky roof. Its characters are as real as Velveeta. So aside from the irresistible pastiche of Gershwin songs, culled from any number of places, including their 1930 “Girl Crazy,” what does it have going for it?

Why, its delectable silliness, of course, savvily revamped in the book by Ken Ludwig and Mike Ockrent (who also directs), garlanded with Susan Stroman’s witty choreography, the clever sets, lights and costumes by Robin Wagner, Paul Gallo and William Ivey Long, respectively--and two lead performers who pack every rambunctious moment with high-octane innocence and humor.

They are James Brennan as poor little fatcat banker Bobby Child, who’d really rather be dancing, and Karen Ziemba as spunky Polly Baker, desperately trying to keep Bobby’s bank from repossessing her daddy’s old Gaiety Theatre in the wilds of Deadrock, Nev.

Plot? Not too hard to imagine. It’s a respectable variant of the Mickey and Judy let’s-put-on-a-show routine, zanily complicated by mixed identities (who knows more about those than “Lend Me a Tenor’s” Ludwig?), amiable country bumpkins, a bevy of chorines and Irene (the stylish Kay McClelland), a high-society witch with designs on Bobby.

Everybody eventually finds his or her somebody, which ties things up into a neat and-they-danced-happily-ever-after package.

Danced is the key. Stroman’s choreography is what courses through this show’s veins. It is imaginative and appealing and has fun making use of the simplest devices to achieve its goals.

It revives the romantic swirls of Fred and Ginger (“Shall We Dance?”), satirizes brassiness (the hilarious “Naughty Baby”), finds novel uses for pick-axes (“I Got Rhythm”) and short pieces of rope (“Slap That Bass”), spoofs the student barricades of “Les Miz” with piled-up chairs (“Stiff Upper Lip”), and gives mirror-imaging an entirely new purpose when the drunken Bobby, disguised as impresario Bela Zangler, meets the real Bela (Stuart Zagnit), also drunk, and their movements match. . . .

Ockrent and Ludwig stock this larder with vaudevillian gags a-plenty (Sample: “Start a casino”--”Don’t be stoopid; Who’d come to Nevada just to gamble?”).

Added to the score’s irresistible Gershwin standards (“Embraceable You,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “I Got Rhythm,” “But Not for Me,” “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” “They Can’t Take That Away From Me”) and retrievals (notably “Naughty Baby,” “What Causes That?” and “K-r-a-z-y for You”), they make “Crazy” super-audience-friendly.

But what this touring company has that the Broadway show did not is a charismatic pair of leads. Aside from his high-voltage singing and dancing, Brennan is a comedian with a Chaplinesque sense of the subtleties of physical humor. (Watch him descend a staircase or do a double take.) He perfectly complements Ziemba’s more grounded, no-nonsense Polly, her talent for comic dancing and her healthy tenderness. The chemistry sizzles between them.

“Crazy for You” was not the answer to Broadway’s ills, but it had the great good sense not to take itself too seriously, which, after years of bread and circuses, restored a kind of sanity and freshness to the Broadway scene.

Scrumptious talent, good music, good fun, good timing, good singing and dancing--who could ask for anything more? Well. . . .

One thing: Getting down the narrow escalators and out of the parking structure at the ABC Entertainment Center took 26 minutes Friday, largely because garage management has patrons paying to park on the way out instead of on the way in .

Aaaahhrrgghh!

Somebody do something. Quick.

*”Crazy for You,” Shubert Theatre, 2020 Avenue of the Stars, ABC Entertainment Center, Century City. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, also June 30, Aug. 2, 2 p.m. No evening show July 4 , Aug. 22. Ends Aug. 22. $30-$60; (800) 233-3123. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes. James Brennan Bobby Child

Karen Ziemba Polly Baker

Carleton Carpenter Everett Baker

Stuart Zagnit Bela Zangler

Kay McClelland Irene Roth

Christopher Coucill Lank Hawkins

Lenka Peterson Mother

Noel Parenti Perkins/Custus

Cathy Susan Pyles Tess

Producers Roger Horchow, Elizabeth Williams. Concept Ken Ludwig, Mike Ockrent. Book Ken Ludwig. Music George Gershwin. Lyrics Ira Gershwin. Director Mike Ockrent. Choreography Susan Stroman. Sets Robin Wagner. Lights Paul Gallo. Costumes William Ivey Long. Sound Otts Munderloh. Orchestrations William D. Brohn. Musical director Paul Gemignani. Musical consultant Tommy Krasker. Conductor Carl Hermanns. Production stage manager Harold Goldfaden.