Theatre in Review: What's It All About? Bacharach Reimagined (New York Theatre Workshop)

	Kyle Riabko. Photo: Eric Ray Davidson

In What's It All About, Kyle Riabko takes on the mission of updating the songs of Burt Bacharach for the Millenial generation: Fair enough, although they have dated less than the work of nearly all his contemporaries, and although individual results vary, they can be quite striking. However, having applied his ultrasensitive minimalist sensibility to such classics as "The Look of Love," "Close to You," and "Don't Make Me Over," neither he nor Steven Hoggett, his director, always know what to do with them.

Bacharach, whose adventures in musical storytelling include one bona fide Broadway classic (Promises, Promises), one legendary film disaster (Lost Horizon, source of the famous Bette Midler wisecrack, "I never miss a Liv Ullman musical."), and one little-seen contemporary work (Some Lovers, staged in San Diego two years ago), was one of the 1960s' most distinctive musical voices. His songs, marked by tricky time signatures, edgy rhythms, and a breathless, I-can-only-stay-a-minute urgency, seemed in their day to be the very soul of musical modernism. And yet, finding a theatrical context for them has never been easy. What the World Needs Now, an attempt at a Bacharach jukebox musical, stalled out of town. The Look of Love, a revue of songs by Bacharach and Hal David, his usual lyricist, was one of the true Broadway horrors of the last ten years, undone by a barrage of vulgar, tasteless staging ideas. I still wake up screaming from the memory of "What's New, Pussycat?" being given the Kurt Weill treatment, with a line of women straddling bentwood chairs, spreading their legs on the last word of the line, "sweet little pussycat lips."

The good news is What's It All About puts the emphasis where it belongs, on the music. Riabko, a pop musician and sometime musical theatre performer, is his own best spokesperson, especially when stripping down ballads, such as "Anyone Who Had a Heart" or "A House is Not a Home," to simple guitar accompaniment plus percussion and occasionally a touch of electric piano. These melodies are blessed with good bones and can easily take such handling, even without their distinctive original arrangements; suddenly, songs that one associates with big voices and even bigger orchestrations are given the urgency of a lover's whisper. Riabko creates intriguing juxtapositions, for example turning "Message to Michael," "On My Own," and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose," into a captivating mini-medley. He also crossbreeds pop classics, splicing lines from "Alfie" and "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" into "This Guy's in Love with You," making these old friends sound new all over again.

But there remains the problem of how to turn all this interesting material into a cohesive evening's entertainment. A revue like this doesn't, of course, have a plot, but it needs a through line, a clear understanding of how the material should be arranged for maximum effect. This is where Riabko and company stumble: An early stretch of downbeat ballads wears out its welcome, as Riabko's treatment robs the numbers of their vitality and individuality. As befits an iconic artist of the go-go '60s, some of Bacharach's saddest songs bristle with nervous energy, reflecting the turbulent emotions they describe -- but you won't find any evidence of that here. Riabko also sometimes forgets that the songs are powerful musical monologues; by focusing on exquisite musical details, he loses sight of the forest for the trees. And even though Bacharach wrote many, many songs for great diva personalities, most notably Dionne Warwick, neither of the ladies in the cast -- Laura Dreyfuss and Nathaly Lopez -- has the right temperament for the likes of "I Say a Little Prayer for You" or "Walk on By." (Both of them are skilled musicians on their own terms, as is the rest of the company, including Daniel Bailen, James Nathan Hopkins, James Williams, and Daniel Woods.)

Hoggett, acclaimed for his work on The Black Watch and Once, informs several numbers with striking tableaux and infectious movement, but he also seems to lack an overview of just where this enterprise should be heading. For example, there's a recurring motif in which the performers are seen reading letters just before launching into a song, which never really goes anywhere. He is also excessively devoted to the on-stage turntable, sending performers whirling around for no reason at all, distracting one's attention from the music. At one point, this piece of stage technology was used so counterproductively I had fight back an attack of the giggles while watching the singers go around in circles for no good reason.

The production design is similarly mixed. The set, by Christine Jones and Brett J. Banakis, which covers every available inch of the theatre in carpet remnants, must have seemed like a kicky idea on paper, but it comes off as excessively cluttered and not terribly visually appealing. (One wonders if the carpeting is part of a strategy to soften the room's acoustics; then again, this is the theatre where Rent was successfully launched, so how bad could they be?) There are some felicitous scenic touches, including on-stage audience seating and a pair of sofas built into the upstage wall, where the musicians occasionally take a pause between songs. Japhy Weideman's lighting deftly adapts concert-touring techniques to the theatre, creating a series of moody, saturated backwashes and sidelighting effects that contribute heavily to the show's overall tone. Clive Goodwin's excellent sound design provides an ideal transparency even in the second half, when the cast changes from acoustic to electric instruments; of course, Riabko's arrangements are also helpful, but Goodwin has achieved an ideal balance of voices and instruments. Andrea Lauer's costumes have the right casual feel.

There's nothing wrong with taking vintage music and bending it to one's own purposes; jazz musicians do it every night of the week. But sometimes the approach taken here has the unfortunate effect of homogenizing Bacharach's varied output, removing much of its magic in the process, in a show that oddly often seems to lack a strong sense of purpose. For some reason, the composer continues to elude those who would find a theatrical frame for his still-beguiling body of work. --David Barbour