You'll Flip for Sprightly Flappers Piece
By Howard Kissel
April 19, 2002
Being of a certain age, I can remember when people went to Broadway musicals to be entertained. This notion has long been out of fashion, but it started to make a comeback last year with that show about the swishy director playing Hitler.
"Thoroughly Modern Millie," while not on that level, continues the trend. It has a brightness, wit and high spirits that compensate for the artificiality inherent in the 1967 movie upon which it is based.
Hardly an inviolable work of art, the tale of a girl who comes to New York to marry a rich boss traded, in part, on the public's ambivalence about what was then called "women's lib."
The frivolity with which "Millie" treated the issue of what roles women could play was a rebuff to the unrelenting humorlessness of early feminism.
The movie also traded on its stars — Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Channing and Beatrice Lillie — all in their prime. (Lillie's, of course, lasted 40 years.)
The Broadway version has no stars, just loads of talented performers — especially newcomer Sutton Foster, who has the pert look, the silver voice and the dazzling legwork to make an extraordinarily winning Millie.
The adaptation is actually far less labored than the original.
The story is the same. Millie arrives in New York during the flapper era and checks into a hotel for single women run by a fearsome Chinese woman, Mrs. Meers, who determines which girls have no family or friends to check up on them, renders them unconscious and sells them into white slavery.
The musical's chief asset is Harriet Harris, who plays Mrs. Meers brilliantly. The book, which Richard Scanlan adapted from the screenplay, has deftly avoided political incorrectness by making Mrs. Meers a former actress. This allows Harris, who brought unexpected humanity to "The Man Who Came to Dinner" a couple of years ago, to be broad without charges of racial stereotyping. She plays it to the hilt.
Similarly, her two Chinese henchmen, played so innocently and earnestly by Ken Leung and Francis Jue, are extremely endearing. Their dizzy songs in Chinese are among the most hilarious moments in the show.
As the young man in pursuit of Millie, Gavin Creel could not be better. He dances and sings with just the right light touch and charm.
Sheryl Lee Ralph brings showbiz muscle to the role of the chorus girl who struck it rich. Marc Kudisch is wonderfully debonair as Millie's vain boss.
The score uses the original title song by James Van Heusen and Sammy Fain, a tune from "The Mikado" with clever new lyrics, and other standards as well as many original songs by Scanlan and Jeanine Tesori, whose 1997 "Violet" was so affecting. Of the new songs, the best is "Gimme Gimme," which Foster sings with irresistible power.
The score, orchestrated with period sizzle, is conducted with panache by Michael Rafter.
David Gallo's sets pay homage to the lyrical portrayal of New York in the work of artist Joseph Stella (Frank's dad). Martin Pakledinaz' costumes, especially Harris' extravagant outfits, have great flair.
Michael Mayer's direction reins in the camp. Rob Ashford's choreography is lively and energizing.
If you don't have a silly streak, you'd better steer clear. But if you're tough enough to savor fluff, "Millie" is absolutely delightful.