Good times

Dames At Sea is a worthy vessel

by Bill Rodriguez

DAMES AT SEA. Book and lyrics by George Haimsohn and Robin Miller, and music by Jim Wise. Directed by Lennie Watts. With Kathu Connolly, Deb Rascoe, Corey Hill and Jena Barrette. At Theatre-by-the-Sea through Sept. 12.

The musical Dames at Sea is pure theater. Not terrific theater, but theater that delivers comedy as economically as a knock-knock joke, as directly as a sprat-fall. Matunuck's Theatre-by-the-Sea is staging a toe-tapping, golly-geeing rendition that captures every nudge and wink of its silly charm.

First staged in the late '60s, the whole business is a spoof of those behind-the-scenes musicals of the '30s, remembered in such films as 42nd Street and The Gold Diggers of 1933. Every cliché is celebrated, every stereotype blown up to Macy's-float size. This is a world where neither Depression nor depression can get a foothold, where spunk is as good as gold and wide-eyed American optimism as good as talent.

Originally played by Bernadette Peters in the Broadway version, Ruby (Kathy Connolly) gets off the bus from Utah in the morning, destined to be the toast of the town by that night. She marches into rehearsal of a Broadway show that is to open that night -- Dames at Sea. Ruby doesn't know the dance numbers, but by gum she has grit and determination. Since she can grin and not trip over her feet doing a time step, the beleaguered and easily flustered director, Harry Hennesey (James Patterson), hires her to replace a chorus girl that just ran off with a stage-door playboy.

Love interest? Up pops Dick (Corey Hill), an apple-cheeked sailor who's run after her with the suitcase she left at the bus station. Wouldn't you know, he's from Centerdale, Utah, too, and isn't she the girl who served him a milkshake at Uncle Gus's malt shop, dazzling him so that he got second thoughts about shipping out with the Navy the next day? Golly! Not only that, but he's a songwriter and, willikers, always dreamed of writing for a musical. But before even that much familiarity is established, they are mutually smitten at a glance and are warbling "It's You" to each other. When he declares that "This cold canyon of steel and concrete doesn't scare me a bit," she knows she has a soulmate.

Enter the raven-haired vamp. Mona Kent (Deb Rascoe) is the star of the show, and whatever Mona wants, Mona gets. She's getting all sultry and slinky over pretty boy Dick, so can web-spinning be far behind, with poor Ruby in tears? Rascoe is at her campy, vampy best early on in "That Mister Man of Mine," which becomes a production number and tap-off duet with Ruby. In future battles, Ruby has an ally in chorus girl Joan (Jena Barrette), the tough-as-nails hoofer who's seen it all -- including Mona when she was plain old Grace Topolofski, from Brooklyn, who is still capable of referring to Shakespeare as "the bird of Avon." For symmetry, Joan is soon joined by Dick's sailor buddy Lucky (Rick Kerby), not only a wise-cracking pal but foot-loose enough to join in on every toe-tapping opportunity.

When Act I ends with the theater being demolished in a WPA project, the action shifts to onboard a battleship, the opening night audience set to view the show from boats in the harbor. Conveniently, the captain (Patterson, this time sans mustache) is a former lover of Mona. Patterson's high point is a tango number with Mona, dancing "The Beguine" with consuming passion that stops just short of smoke issuing from his ears.

Lennie Watts, a Theatre-by-the-Sea regular as an actor, directs this all with just the right amount of tongue in cheek. Never do the silly sentiments aim to be taken seriously by us, and never are they less than urgent and heartfelt by the sappy participants. (What other home is there for a line like "You're going out on that poop deck a chorus girl, but you're coming back a star"?) There's a lot of enjoyable tap dancing, thanks to the capable all-Equity cast and the snappy choreography of Kimberly Galberaith. There's no chorus line (only the addition of Michelle Yaroshko to balance things in some ensemble numbers), but the campy, let's-put-on-a-show atmosphere may very well be enhanced by a cast of seven.

Dames at Sea, with its minimal plot barely interrupting the song and dance numbers, knows where its laughs are and wastes little time between them. The adorably pathological optimism of "Good Times Are Here to Stay," the first act curtain closer, is alone worth the price of admission.