‘Step’: Dancer Stands Poised on the Brink

“The Next Step” has one of those titles that makes perfect sense once you’ve seen the movie but really conveys nothing of what the film is like.

In this instance, “The Next Step” is a captivating, vital backstage story of wide appeal about a charismatic Broadway dancer, Nick Menendez (Rick Negron), who is deep into denial that--in his mid-30s--his professional dancing days are nearing their end. (Ironically, Negron is currently dancing in “Ragtime.”)

Writer and co-producer Aaron Fisher, himself a former New York dancer, and director Christian Faber make it very clear why Nick wants to hold on to his career so desperately. In doing so, they invite a sometimes unsettling recognition on the part of anyone who profoundly loves his or her work and never wants to give it up.

The mirror tells Nick that he remains a sexy, well-built guy just hitting the prime of life, but as a dancer, his back is beginning to tell him something he adamantly refuses to hear. With Nick, it’s not just the thrill of performing for an audience--as much as he loves it--but also his enviable position as a straight man amid a lot of gay male dancers. It’s enviable because he doesn’t have much competition when it comes to affairs with the female dancers.

However, when the show in which he’s been appearing--a big period gangster musical--abruptly posts its closing notice, he is propelled gradually, and then with increasing swiftness, into a collision course with reality. The first warning sign is that his agent tells him he’s dropping him.

Hope comes with the revival of a “West Side Story”-like musical in which Nick feels he’ll have no trouble snagging the key role he created a decade or more earlier. After all, it will be staged by its original director and choreographer, Austin (famed choreographer Donald Byrd, who in fact staged this film’s exciting dance sequences).

One of the highlights of the film is the tense, suspenseful dancing duel between Nick and a teenage contender (Aubrey Lynch) for his old role. Will experience triumph over youth? Or will it be the other way around?

Meanwhile, Nick adamantly refuses to create professional safety nets--developing his acting abilities, considering moving on to coaching or choreography--even though he has seen his longtime lover, Amy (Kristin Moreu), successfully segue from a dancing career into physical therapy.

At one point, Heidi (Denise Faye), one of Nick’s casual amours, who would like to be more serious with him, tries to get through to him, saying, “The problem with you, Nick, is that you’ve had it too easy. . . . Maybe it’s time to give something back.”

In their high-energy, smart-talking, emotion-charged film, Fisher and Faber aren’t afraid to dip into punchy melodrama, shades of “42nd Street”; they know how to make it serve the serious points they make so well. Nick may need acting lessons, but Negron, a Broadway veteran himself, knows how to act as well as he knows how to dance.

Nick is not always a nice guy, to put it mildly, but Negron persuades us to care for him, to root for him, to hope that he somehow manages to come to terms with himself before it’s too late. Negron sets a dynamic tone that’s upheld by everyone else, especially Moreu, who, in an underwritten role, convinces us that she must be into denial herself in regard to Nick’s fidelity.

Taylor Nichols, who had key roles in Whit Stillman’s “Metropolitan” and “Barcelona,” plays Amy’s new client, who seems to appreciate her more than Nick does.

Modest yet zingy, “The Next Step” is a terrific show that deserves to find its audience.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: some nudity, sex, strong language.

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‘The Next Step’

Rick Negron: Nick

Kristin Moreu: Amy

Denise Faye: Heidi

Taylor Nichols: Peter

A Phaedra Cinema release of a Curb Entertainment presentation of a Wavelength production. Director Christian Faber. Producers Aaron Reed & Hank Blumenthal. Screenplay by Reed. Cinematographer Zack Winestine. Choreographer Donald Byrd. Editor Judd Maslansky. Costumes Nancy Brous, Ivan Ingerman. Music Roni Skies, Mio Morales, Brian Otto. Production designer Elise Bennett. Art director Catherine Eng. Set decorator Sarah Baldocchi. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Monica 4-Plex, 1332 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 394-9741.