Return of the Dancin’ Fools

Among Hollywood’s demi-musicals of 1977-1987--beginning with “Saturday Night Fever” and ending with “Dirty Dancing”--”Footloose” (1984) was hooey, but pretty good hooey. It had more on the ball than the other profitable F-musicals of the period, “Fame” and “Flashdance.” It got by on a mixture of corn, pulp and Kevin Bacon, offering a witty dancing-feet credit sequence, as well as a nicely shaped routine wherein big-city transplant Bacon, aghast at his new town’s no-dance ordinance, teaches local yokel Christopher Penn how to move with the help of “Let’s Hear It for the Boy.”

Its vision of heartland America at the dawn of the MTV era, buggy with repressed energies, depicted high school kids (and their parents) acting either like sociopathic hellcats or brick-throwing, book-burning neo-Nazis. “Footloose” didn’t have much to do with human life on planet Earth, yet the cast and director Herbert Ross invested some human feeling into Dean Pitchford’s screenplay. The old Mickey-and-Judy cliches, roughed up a little, proved hardy indeed.

Now “Footloose” has clomped onto the stage, in a fully musicalized version. Continuing through Sunday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, “Footloose” moves Tuesday to Hollywood’s Pantages Theatre. It’s a lot dumber than the movie. Some smart people, starting with director Walter Bobbie (responsible for the “Chicago” revival), have stumbled with this one, a wan Broadway export traveling the country amid one of the harshest droughts in recent touring history.

All anyone young or old wants from an entertainment such as “Footloose” is pretty simple: a reminder of the movie, expanded, with a strong dance element. So what happened? The material has been shoved through the Dull-er-ator, and no amount of energy--not to mention swiveling, show-offy automated lighting equipment--can compensate.

The story’s protagonist has changed for the worse. No casual, likable insolence for this Ren McCormack (Joe Machota, in the Bacon role). He’s a hyperactive yutz from the outset. New songs such as Ren’s “I Can’t Stand Still,” contributed mostly by composer Tom Snow and lyricist Pitchford, try to pump us up and get us rooting for this guy. But he’s not much of a rooting interest.

The plot’s the same, in the main. Ren and his recently separated mother (Marsha Waterbury) leave Chicago for Bomont, 10 hours away “somewhere in the heartland of America.” There, a well-meaning but mysteriously powerful minister, Shaw Moore (Daren Kelly), has pursuaded the town council to ban public dancing. His reasons are personal. Shaw and wife Vi (Elieen Barnett) lost a son in a car accident five years before, due to a combination of alcohol, marijuana and the devil’s music.

Their daughter Ariel (Niki Scalera) rebels all she can, hanging out with a punk with a rap sheet (Matthew Morrison), taunting Ren, the new guy, in ways that can only spell L-U-V. Then Ren takes on the anti-dancing law. What’s wrong with a senior high school dance, for the love of God?

Nothing! Let ‘em dance! Only give ‘em something fresher than choreographer A.C. Ciulla’s movement vocabulary, heavy on the “Star Search” poses and low-impact gymnastics, light on inspiration. Ciulla and director Bobbie somehow manage to muck up even the score’s most buoyant tune, “Let’s Hear It for the Boy,” set here outside a country-and-western bar. They have Ren teaching Willard (Christian Borle) some steps over here, Willard’s girlfriend Rusty (Stephanie St. James) wailing away over there, and an awful lot of visual interference in between.

Borle’s the standout in this touring cast, funny and relaxed, countering the general tendency to push. (For the same reasons, understudy Kudra Owens fared charmingly Tuesday night in a nothing supporting role.) Kelly’s anguished minister and Barnett’s ultra-patient minister’s wife register solidly.

But we’re talking cottage cheese here. The movie at least had some pungency, and believed in its overheated scenario. The stage “Footloose” bends over backward to ingratiate. The more troubling incidents of violence are downplayed, and we’re left with a weird 1950s aura of caricatured innocence, as if everyone in Bomont grew up watching only Laverne and Shirley and Lenny and Squiggy.

By the time Shaw Moore pours his heart out and sings, “I’m tired of feeling nothing but numb,” you can’t help but think, yeah, me too.

* “Footloose,” Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tuesday-Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Ends Sunday. $18-$52.50. (213) 365-3500. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes. Tuesday-Sept. 5: At the Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. Tuesday-Friday, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 2 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. $32-$57. (213) 365-3500.

Joe Machota: Ren McCormack

Marsha Waterbury: Ethel McCormack

Daren Kelly: Shaw Moore

Eileen Barnett: Vi Moore

Niki Scalera: Ariel Moore

Tina Johnson: Lulu Warnicker, Irene

Steve Luker: Wes Warnicker

Robert Boles: Coach Dunbar

Stephanie St. James: Rusty

Andrea McCormick: Urleen

Katie Harvey: Wendy Jo

Matthew Morrison: Chuck Cranston

Charles Dillon: Lyle

Andrew A. Wright: Travis

Christian Borle: Willard Hewitt

Ted Bouton: Principal Clark

Lance Olds: Jeter/Cop

Timothy Quinlan: Bickle/Cowboy Bob

Daniel Frank Kelley: Garvin

Written by Dean Pitchford and Walter Bobbie, from Pitchford’s original screenplay. Music by Tom Snow. Lyrics by Dean Pitchford. Additional songs by Eric Carmen, Sammy Hagar, Kenny Loggins and Jim Steinman. Directed by Walter Bobbie. Choreographed by A.C. Ciulla. Music supervision and vocal arrangements by Doug Katsaros. Musical director Peter Valentine. Set by John Lee Beatty. Costumes by Toni-Leslie James. Lighting by Ken Billington. Sound by Tony Meola. Production stage manager Bryan Young.