This summer in Dallas has been a golden age for excellent musicals. In addition to DTC’s exceptional rethinking of Les Miz, Uptown Players has mounted the can’t-miss show of the year, and WaterTower Theatre gives a joyous but serious-minded show a crackling production. How to choose? Don’t — see them all.
You can start with The Boy from Oz, an unexpected blockbuster. The musical, based on the life of Aussie entertainer Peter Allen, was a vehicle for its star and driving force, Hugh Jackman, and hasn’t been revived since he left the Broadway version. But then, no one else had Alex Ross take on the part. Ross is a marvel of playful energy and star power, dazzling the audience with his flirtatious charm. As good as he is, this is also the strongest ensemble of any show in recent memory, from the spot-on interpretations of Liza Minnelli (Sarah Elizabeth Smith) and Judy Garland (Janelle Luts) that never fall into caricature, to the tappingest chorus girl to the best child actor (Westin Brown) Dallas has seen since Patsy McClenny grew up to become Morgan Fairchild. Director Cheryl Denson handles a complex and rangy narrative with laser precision and a Vegas panache. If you don’t stand up and cheer, it’s only because you’re weak in the knees.
Dogfight up at WTT is a very different show — one in a minor key, not about a flamboyant gay man but lonely straight people — though the craft is equally impressive. On the eve of Nov. 21, 1963 — the day before JFK’s assassination and the end of American innocence — three Marine recruits preparing to ship off to Vietnam decide to have one final bash: They host a “dogfight,” a party where every Marine invites the ugliest girl he can find, and the one with the ugliest takes the pot. It’s cruel and prankish, an offensive toying of others’ feelings, but something they feel compelled to do as a rite of passage: Graduate, enlist, have sex, get married, have kids. They are victims of their fathers’ fathers’ expectations. And for many of their generation, they won’t be coming back from Southeast Asia to fulfill those last two rituals.
Dogfight’s score is brisk and delightful, but like Spring Awakening, it broods over the dark inevitability we see coming with hindsight but which blindsides all of them. Terry Martin’s staging is excellent, and the performances — by the cast and the musicians — are outstanding, full of heartbreak and beauty.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition August 1, 2014.