'Newsies' watch never stops
Disney show excites, uplifts (pant, pant), via a yearning bunch of ink-stained boys.
Since Newsies, the Walt-Disney-movie-turned-musical based on New York's Newsboy Strike of 1899 closes on Sunday, I will immediately say that if you like uplifting David-and-Goliath stories set to rousing music and filled with aggressive, gymnastics-propelled choreography, get tickets.
Since Philadelphia also launches the 2014-15 national tour, I will offer my criticisms of a show that I enjoyed thoroughly, for as long as I could stand it.
Alan Menken's music and Jack Feldman's lyrics strike a single note all night: yearning. Yearning to overcome a struggle. Yearning to find food, love, security, the right line (it's about newspapers, after all). Yearning to be famous, and if that fails, retreat to a safe haven in New Mexico (not kidding).
Don't get me wrong. All these items illustrate the human condition in the story's very particular circumstances. Harvey Fierstein's book centers on Jack Kelly (the gorgeous-voiced Dan DeLuca), leader of a ragtag band of street children who each morning canvass the city of New York with newspapers.
When media magnate Joseph Pulitzer (Steve Blanchard) decides to lower the amount the newsies earn, the kids form a union, decide to strike - and more yearning begins, if now in a political fashion that might appeal to the classic liberal, but that flies under the radar of today's more polarizing debates.
Interludes in Menken's music accelerate the action through each scene, which choreographer Christopher Gattelli fills with exciting, pose-driven choral numbers, with tumbling, back flips, and pirouettes that end abruptly in a pair of flexed biceps and an uplifted chin. Imagine the striking young men of 1950s Soviet-era propaganda posters brought to life and you get the picture.
It excites, it uplifts, I would even say it invigorates. But it doesn't provide a break. Ever. Unless you count the scenes in which no one sings or dances, that offer too little humor, and where DeLuca's too-reluctant hero either depresses or nonchalantly reveals hidden talents and connections intended to endear him to Katherine (Stephanie Styles), the female lead.
It's a Disney musical, after all, and in that respect brings to mind other Disney shows (Lady and the Tramp, anyone?), all syrup and no salt, something easily enjoyed but not easily endured.
THEATER REVIEW
Newsies
Through Sunday at the Academy of Music, Broad and Locust Streets.
Tickets: $25-$115.50.
Information: 215-893-1999 or www.kimmelcenter.org.
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