Theatre in Review: Catch Me If You Can (Neil Simon Theatre)

	Kerry Butler Photo: Joan Marcus

At a very early stage of his career, Aaron Tveit is becoming the king of the psychological musical. He first came to our attention a couple of seasons ago in Next to Normal, as a member of a family dominated by a bipolar mother. Now he stars in Catch Me If You Can, a musical that unfolds during a fugue state.

Tveit stars as Frank Abagnale, Jr., who, for a couple of years in the '60s, pulled off a remarkable series of cons, passing himself off as an airline pilot, lawyer, and M.D., and helping himself to a couple of million dollars of other people's money. (Astonishingly, he achieved this while still in his late teens.) Catch Me If You Can begins at the moment of Frank's arrest, but we don't see his perp walk; instead, the action moves inside his head, as he presents the story of his life in the format of a television variety show.

Do you remember television variety shows? Clearly, Terrence McNally, the librettist, does, and he provides an agreeably wide-ranging format that allows Frank to tell his story through a series of musical numbers, written in their best Sammy Cahn-James Van Heusen style by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman and orchestrated in school-of-Nelson-Riddle manner by Shaiman and Larry Blank. With a bevy of long-legged chorines ready, willing, and able to strut, high-kick, and Watusi their way through Jerry Mitchell's caffeinated choreography, the first part of Catch Me If You Can offers plenty of heartless, high-style fun,

But there's a catch to this Catch. It won't be long before you notice that Frank's story contains many sad and sordid elements, beginning with the unhappy marriage of his father, a glad-handing, not-entirely-honest businessman, and his frustrated, inattentive mother. You also start to realize that, for all his success and all the money coming in, Frank lives like the criminal he is, fleeing from one part of the country to another, living in motels and avoiding relationships. Further challenging Frank's narrative is Carl Hanratty, the dogged, yet driven, FBI agent who makes it his personal goal to put Frank out of business. Hanratty, played by Norbert Leo Butz, may be a middle-aged schlub, but he has a mind like a steel trap and he has been gifted by Shaiman and Wittman with a series of blues-inflected numbers, each of which gives the action a much needed shot in the arm. (His first song, "Don't Break the Rules," is, arguably, the most dynamic showstopper to be seen on Broadway this season.)

With these antagonists in place, Catch Me If You Can becomes a comic drama of dueling realities - Frank's glossy, airbrushed account of his crimes versus Hanratty's tough-minded, but far more accurate, view. It's a conflict that becomes surprisingly moving in the second act, as Frank's conscience gets the better of him, and he begins to see things in black and white.

The role of Frank, which, in certain respects, resembles another boyish con man, J. Pierrepoint Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, provides Tveit with a marathon workout and he responds like a pro, infusing the action with energy and singing superbly until the final curtain. (His best numbers are "Good Bye," when he finally realizes the game is up, and "Strange But True," in which he and Carl bring us up to speed on what happened after the arrest.) What's equally impressive is Tveit's ability to hold his own with a cast of accomplished scene stealers. Butz has arguably become our most accomplished leading man - he's a first-rate character actor with a full set of musical theatre skills - and his idiosyncratic and finely detailed performance is a wonder. The matchup of these two personalities is one of the production's main sources of pleasure.

Also on hand is Tom Wopat, who, as Frank's deluded, alcoholic father, plausibly disintegrates before our eyes; he partners superbly with Butz on "Little Boy, Be a Man," in which they recall soured relationships with their fathers. Linda Hart and Nick Wyman add plenty of amusement as Frank's potential in-laws, whose family values include piety, bourbon, and a singular devotion to that TV classic Sing Along with Mitch. As their daughter, who innocently traps Frank when they fall in love, Kerry Butler shows up relatively late in the action only to tear the place apart with the torchy eleven o'clock number "Fly, Fly Away."

It all unfolds on David Rockwell's two-level set, as neat bit of '60s chic complete with on-stage orchestra. Besides a towering airport waiting area, complete with a view of enormous jet, everyplace else - bars, motels, living rooms, offices, and hospitals - are sketched with real economy. As befits a show that opens with a number called "Live in Living Color," Kenneth Posner's lighting bathes the action in a rainbow of hues, but he also makes room for scenes - all featuring Hanratty - in black and white. Even when Frank and Hanratty are alone together on stage, Posner manages to put them in different color palettes. William Ivey Long's costumes include bevies of amusingly short-skirted nurse and flight attendant uniforms, but he also does some incisive character work, reshaping Butz's silhouette into the appropriate sad-sack contours. Steve Canyon Kennedy's sound design has a hard, bright edge without seeming too reinforced; in addition he provides a number of effects, including some very impressive jet plane sounds.

In the end, the tension between the show's hard-edged, let-us-entertain-you style and its darker, more complex story is what makes it so distinctive. It's also, I think, what caused it to earn such mixed notices from the first-night press. Yet, even at its most flamboyant, Catch Me If You Can never gives into the urge to provide flashy, empty entertainment. Clearly, everyone on the creative team was working on the same page -- and, thanks to them, we never forget that we're seeing the story of a narcissist, who, to finally grow up, must learn to accept that he isn't the star of the show.--David Barbour