Word: ruth
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Wonderful Town is a curious amalgam. Set in the late 1930s, the show is Bernstein's 1953 adaption of a 1941 hit play that was in turn partially based on Ruth McKinney's book My Sister Eileen. Not too surprisingly, the final product of these transmutations conforms far less to the original--from which it draws only its setting, the two principals and one or two incidents--than to the conventions of musical comedy...
Less impressive are the Adolph Green and Betty Comden Iyrics, which are more often predictable than clever. The two lyricists do sometimes scale the heights of wit, as in Ruth's comic lament "A Sure Way to Lose a Man (One Hundred Easy Ways)" in which she sings...
WHAT LIFTS this production above the level of mere respectability, however, are the deft performances of Terry and Goldenberg in the main roles. Terry plays Ruth--the dumpy, in tellectual brunette--with zest and comic flair, displaying the versatility of a comedienne in her rendering of numbers like "Ruth's Story Vignettes," in which she portrays the various repressed heroines of her own short stories. Her dramatic contralto invests "A Sure Way"--the still apt lament of the overly intelligent and therefore "unfeminine" woman--with just the right touch of cynicism...
...sweet without being cloying. Clad in dainty, full-skirted dresses that contrast with her sister's more careerish two-piece outfits, she sings in a lilting soprano and radiates a natural charm that prevents her from being too far overshadowed by Terry's necessarily more pungent characterization of Ruth...
...back up his leads, director Andy Cadiff has assembled a cast remarkably free of weak spots. Toby Webb as Baker, the editor who initially rejects Ruth's work, sings in a rich baritone, while P.D. Seltzer manages to wring more than a few laughs from his role as the weasely landlord of Christopher Street. Best of all is Paul Jackel's portrayal of Wreck, the football star from Trenton Tech. Highly energetic, Jackel exhibits superb comic timing and bounces around the stage with the ease...