Theatre in Review: Dogfight (Second Stage Theatre)

	F. Michael Haynie, Nick Blaemire, Adam Halpin, Josh Segara, Steven Booth. Photo: Joan Marcus

Dogfight is a show with many problems, but they do not include dishonesty or lack of craft. On the contrary; the librettist, Peter Duchan, and the songwriters, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, are almost hell-bent on avoiding the usual clichés and stage tricks that some might employ in order to make their brokenhearted romance more palatable. Clearly, nobody has taken the easy way out, and more power to them.

And there are more than a few moments when their no-glitz approach pays big dividends. After a flattish opening scene, the action kicks off on a lively note with a half-dozen Marines on the prowl for a night of fun. (As in Newsies, the choreographer, Christopher Gattelli, shows his facility with gangs of young men, here turning their strutting soldier strides into dance moves signaling excess energy and raging hormones.) The number "Some Kinda Time" establishes the right tone of testosterone-fueled mischief while solidly grounding the action in a specific time and place. Because it is 1963, they're bidding farewell to such familiar things as Dinah Shore, Lesley Gore, Willie Mays, and corner stores. And they're in San Francisco, waiting for a ship that will take them first to Okinawa, and, later, to a little-known country called Vietnam. The contrast between the young men's untamed high spirits and our knowledge of what awaits them sets up a dramatic tension that immediately gets your attention.

There are many other grace notes, most of them evoking the anxieties and longings of young people trying to make an emotional connection in the wrong circumstances and with time running out. "Nothing Short of Wonderful" touchingly recounts the hopes of a lonely young lady who, instead of spending another night at home alone, is stunned to find herself dressing for an impromptu date with a stranger. There's a deceptively casual number for a nervous couple on the town, keeping their own counsel and tamping down their hopes as they step down the street. (As the song "First Date/Last Night" notes, they've decided to "give it a shot/'cause people can surprise you -- or not.") The song segues into an honestly funny scene in a restaurant where the young lady, put off by her companion's foul mouth, shows that, when pressed, she is no slouch in the profanity department.

But the principal -- and, possibly, unresolvable -- problem with Dogfight has to with its subject matter. In honoring Bob Comfort's original screenplay for the 1991 film, the authors find themselves hemmed in by their seedy, sordid source material. The plot centers on a competition -- allegedly, a tradition among Marines -- in which each of the men seeks out the ugliest woman he can find, bringing her back to a pre-arranged meeting place where the soldier with the homeliest date wins a cash prize. One of the libretto's weakest points is its inability to explain why -- tradition or not -- everyone is so committed to this cruel and ultimately unrewarding game. It's their last night in the US -- why don't they want meet pretty girls and get laid?

Furthermore, Duchan's libretto, for all its willingness not to whitewash this ugly activity, never quite settles on a definitive tone. When one of the guys turns up with a silent, overweight Native American named Ruth Two Bears, there is the nagging feeling we're supposed to find this funny. And it's almost impossible to know what to make of Marcy, the streetwalker hired (against the rules) by one of the guys because she has a removable set of teeth. Marcy is rendered vividly by an all-but-unrecognizable Annaleigh Ashford, who gets the maximum mileage out of the character's bitter wisecracks ("I gotta get a full night's worth in before Perry Mason"), but, again it's hard to tell if the joke is on her or not.

The main narrative thread follows the growing attachment between Eddie, a smooth-talking liar, and Rose, a frumpy, love-hungry waitress who loves Woody Guthrie and The Kingston Trio. Disgusted at being hoodwinked into participating in the dogfight, Rose gives Eddie a piece of her mind, awakening his conscience and setting the stage for an all-night date that offers the promise of real emotional involvement. These scenes are deftly written and often quite moving. Derek Klena captures the inchoate yearnings under Eddie's smart-mouthed exterior; you can see him discovering an innate decency he didn't know he possessed. Lindsay Mendez is simply heartbreaking as Rose, whether anxiously picking out the exactly wrong dress for her date, quietly rationalizing an evening gone wrong in an introspective ballad titled "Isn't It Funny?", or shyly asking Eddie to turn around before she undresses.

It's especially good that the director, Joe Mantello, has chosen such fine, thoughtful actors for these roles, because Dogfight never really gets around to filling in these characters beyond the roughest of outlines. All we really learn about them is a) they're lonely and b) neither one had a father figure. And, once their night together is over, the show switches gears with an overextended battle scene followed by a where-are-they-now coda that fails to provide the knockout punch that might justify the entire enterprise. Again, I think, the problem lies in the choice of material. At its best, a musical can deepen and expand its source material, adding new levels of complexity and emotional colors; here, despite all the good work, the material refuses to budge, and Dogfight ultimately amounts to little more than a drab and downbeat anecdote.

Still, despite some uncertainty with the more blatantly comic bits, Mantello's handling of the cast, especially Josh Segarra and Nick Blaemire as Eddie's companions in arms, is generally sure-handed. (Blaemire, as the goofiest of the trio, is unexpectedly bracing in a tart encounter with a reluctant prostitute.) There are some very attractive things in the score, especially a soulful ballad, "Give Way," that sums up the show's subtext of unfulfilled longing. David Zinn's skeletal, two-level set makes excellent use of neon signage to evoke a skid-row Frisco of diners, dives, and two-bit brothels. Paul Gallo's stunning lighting makes use of highly specific choices to carve out a series of revealing tableaux; he also provides the noir atmosphere that the story needs. Zinn's costumes feel accurate, even if the clothing in a the final sequence, set in a San Francisco taken over by flower children, feels a bit overdone. (Joshua Marquette's hair designs -- military cuts for the men, bouffants for the women -- are period-perfect.) Fitz Patton's sound design results in a solid balance between voices and musicians; he also provides a number of evocative effects, including traffic noise and the sounds of battle.

All in all, Dogfight is the kind of disappointment that makes you eager to hear again from its authors. Next up for Pasek and Paul is A Christmas Story, based on the cult comedy film, which opens on Broadway later in the year.--David Barbour