Word: misbehavin
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...MISBEHAVIN'. The joint is jumpin', again: the jubilant Fats Waller songbook that won three 1978 Tony awards returns to Broadway with the original staging and cast, including Nell Carter...
These are real groaners, which is to say, exactly what Pudding audiences are after. Unfortunately, Saint Misbehavin' doesn't deliver the inside Harvard humor of past theatricals. The obligatory Wellesley gag-which I wouldn't give away if it weren't so lame-comes when the evil Nurse Dwyer threatens to send Emmanuelle Leighbor (Carl "B.J." Fox)-the subtly played, airheaded nurse who elsewhere calls flowers "the most beautiful things on God's earth"-back to a certain Route 30 finishing school...
THIS YEAR'S show no doubt will be well-remembered. The older Old Boys on hand last night were calling it "good fun" and other such things. They seemed pretty sincere over champagne cocktails during intermission when they said Saint Misbehavin' was one of the best Pudding shows in a while. It's unquestionably a return to tradition after the theatricals attempt at innovation last year...
...contrast, Saint Misbehavin' resorts to tradition: a plot whose sole purpose is to stay out of the way of the all-important puns, lyrics and can-can lines. From the audience level, there's no question that this is what Pudding shows are supposed to be about...
From 14 Plympton St., just a few blocks from audience level, only a long hour and a half after the final curtain and last champagne, Saint Misbehavin's confidence in the Pudding's tried formula is a little troubling. After all, in what does the show place its confidence? Not the entertainment value of men whose lacy underwear peeks out from under their slinky dresses. That would make for a show that wouldn't bomb in Poughkeepsie-it never would have gotten there in the first place...