Theater Reviews : Westminster Strains Itself to Fulfill ‘Promises’

When exercising in private, you can do just about anything and not worry about how you look. Exercising in public is another matter.

The Westminster Community Theatre is exercising in public with its revival of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David-Neil Simon musical, “Promises, Promises.” The workout ethic is admirable, but the strain shows, painfully.

As the years go by and as the William Finns and Richard Maltbys and David Shires build up their resumes with far softer musical comedies, you have to admire “Promises,” especially what composer Bacharach and lyricist David brought in 1969 to this adaptation of Billy Wilder’s and I.A.L. Diamond’s bitter comic film, “The Apartment.”

You’ve also got to respect the demands the show makes on a cast: Quick, do a Neil Simon comedy and sing scat-like Bacharach-David material that no bouncing ball could hope to keep up with. Break a leg.

A tough assignment for anyone, and obviously too tough for the Westminster group. It’s wonderful that they’re stretching those vocal cords and exercising their instruments. Just not in public, please.

Even if you haven’t seen this musical before, you’ve heard some of it. This is the show of “Knowing When to Leave” and “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and the title tune.

And hasn’t everyone seen “The Apartment”--the smashing charisma between Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, the unbeatable line deliveries? (It’s this familiarity that makes the musical so attractive to amateur groups, but it can also be a trap.)

Still, fans of “The Apartment” can’t like what Simon did in the stage transferal.

All the original ingredients are here--lowly accountant Chuck (Kyle Myers), the Consolidated Life executives (led by Warren K. Draper’s Sheldrake) whom Chuck kisses up to by loaning out his apartment for their quickies and Fran (Stephanie Thomas), who’s stuck in the midst of the sexual muck.

But even with some nice Simonisms, such as Chuck taking us into his confidence (and his fantasies about Fran) with some winning, nebbishy direct-address narration, this is a bowdlerized stage version of a brilliant comic-film narrative.

Second-rate Simon, but it’s first-rate Bacharach. Nervous was a term used to describe the score when it first appeared, and Bacharach’s great skill in song after song here is to walk the high-wire of projecting the pressure building up in Chuck while crafting the tune with a slick veneer--exactly the two-sided reality of Chuck’s world.

The only artists who have come close to this balance since have been Donald Fagen and Walter Becker of Steely Dan. (Imagine the musical they could write.)

This is a score with killer time signatures closer to jazz than most musicals, and director Kent Johnson’s cast sounds done in by the whole affair. (Accompanying pianist and musical director Bill Wolfe, though, is not, driving through where voices trip.)

*

Countless tunes come out flat, and Myers is almost always a little behind the note, racing--like Chuck--to keep up. Thomas sounds a bit more trained in this tricky style but is missing any expression of Fran’s dilemmas, which include a suicide attempt. Draper brings an effective stiffness to deceitful Sheldrake, but the stiffness carries over, alas, to his singing.

The relief from all of this comes in bits and pieces. Nina DeRosa-Gardner’s fun, spunky Marge, with whom Chuck makes his half-hearted try at a one-night stand, plays right up to Simon’s timing.

It’s too bad hardly anyone else is listening. The cheating execs (Glenn Cody, Marc LeBlanc, Bob Goff and Steve Berntsen) drive a few witty shots off the tee, especially in “Where Can You Take a Girl.”

By contrast, Tom Hardy’s doctor neighbor (whom Simon has turned into the moralizing voice of the older generation) is utterly humorless. There is no chemistry between Myers and Thomas, no spark, no flame. And Myers’ habit of starting Chuck’s lines with a stutter doesn’t help.

Set changes from office to apartment to restaurants go fairly smoothly; Wolfe’s band clicks along nicely, and the execs’ chorus line is almost in unison, care of Lisa Harvey’s choreography. But this group should assign itself a workout it can handle. Not this.

* “Promises, Promises,” Westminster Community Theatre, 7272 Maple St. Friday-Saturday, 8:30 p.m. Ends Saturday. $7-$9. (714) 527-8463. 2 hours, 45 minutes. Kyle Myers Chuck Baxter

Warren K. Draper: J.D. Sheldrake

Stephanie Thomas: Fran Kubelik

Glenn Cody: Mr. Dobitch

Marc LeBlanc: Mr. Kirkeby

Bob Goff: Mr. Eichelberger

Tom Hardy: Dr. Dreyfuss

Steve Berntsen: Jesse Vanderhof

Beth Titus: Peggy Olson

Nina DeRosa-Gardner: Marge MacDougall

A Westminster Community Theatre production of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David-Neil Simon musical. Directed by Kent Johnson. Musical director: Bill Wolfe. Choreographer: Lisa Harvey. Lights and sound: Brooks-Anne Crumley, Jeff Crumley and Bronson.