The
screenplay, originating from Ron Shelton’s experience as a
minor-leaguer, is filled from first to last with quirky characters and
consistently hilarious dialogue that have made it a classic beyond the confines
of "the summer game."
Yet, when
I heard the news that the Paper Mill Playhouse had turned it into a
musical comedy, I wasn’t only curious about how well it had been adapted to the
stage.
I also
wanted to see if Susan Werner, a singer-songwriter who has adeptly
explored multiple musical genres and is a delightfully spontaneous concert
performer, could work similar magic with this most difficult of theatrical
forms.
And I
wanted to see another show, after an interval of a couple of decades, at the
Paper Mill Playhouse, New Jersey’s primary performing space for musical comedy.
I managed
to catch the musical just before it closed last weekend—poetic justice, as the
baseball season concluded at the same time with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ epic
Game 7 victory in the World Series.
Except for
minor tinkering, the plot of the musical remains the same as the movie.
Baseball groupie Annie Savoy, who each season takes one minor leaguer from the
Durham Bulls under her wing, as it were, forms the apex of a romantic triangle
with Ebie Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh, a wild young pitcher with “a million-dollar
arm and a five-cent head,” and Crash Davis, a cerebral catcher on the downslope
of his career, hoping for a last chance to make it back to the major leagues (“The
Show”) where he had once spent 24 days.
Shelton
has written the “book” (the non-musical portions) of the show, and it scores
laughs almost as often as the film. The subplot, though—the
romance between devout Christian Jimmy and the more uninhibited Millie—remains
largely tangential to the main Annie-Crash-Nuke complications, and a song featuring
Annie and the other female characters (“Every Woman Deserves to Wear White”)
does little to help.
One of the
pleasures of the movie is the way it punctures cliches of the baseball film and
the rom-com. The musical, particularly near the end, settles for
conventionality rather than the shaggy, sexy charm that sustained the movie. It
should have heeded Crash’s advice to LaLoosh: don’t always serve up what is
expected.
Werner’s
songs begin with the appropriately gospel-tinged “Church of Baseball,” before
seguing into more country textures--all in her wheelhouse as a composer who has dabbled in multiple musical genres.
Songs are,
with good reason, considered the toughest element to manage in musicals.
Although the best are memorable (for instance, “Whatever Lola Wants” and “You
Gotta Have Heart” from the one great baseball musical, Damn Yankees),
all should be character-based. Considering the decade in which the show has
been gestating, with earlier versions premiering in Atlanta and Raleigh, N.C., the
lulls in Bull Durham (notably, “A Little Time to Myself”) should have
been eliminated.
Luckily, other
songs fare better. Although “Pensacola”—with reflections by Bulls manager
Skip, coach Larry, and announcer Uncle Roy on their brief road flings—does
nothing to advance the plot, for instance, it injects a terrific jolt of comic
energy into the show.
In Carmen Cusack, this production has an ideal Annie. She not only has
the requisite comic seductiveness and underlying wistfulness of this superfan
down pat, but a voice that can convey all kinds of emotions (not
surprising, considering her stellar resume featuring roles in musicals like Call
Me Madam and South Pacific).
Will Savarese brings an
electric comic spirit to Nuke that exceeds even what Tim Ribbons brought to the
role onscreen. In his big number, “She’s Mine,” he hilariously suggests nothing
so much as a hyper-caffeinated Elvis.
As Crash
Davis, Nik Walker doesn’t have the kind of showy roles that Cusack and
Savarese possess. But he is every bit the strong, solid presence required in
this catcher acquired by the Bulls because he’s smart enough to tutor Nuke but too
self-conscious to survive for long in the major leagues—or, as Annie says in
the film, implicitly contrasting him with Nuke, “The world is made for people
who aren’t cursed with self-awareness.” Annie and Crash are two souls who find
in each other a refuge amid the midlife perplexity of facing an uncertain
future.
As a
musical, Bull Durham is not what it could be. But, while no grand slam,
neither is it a strikeout. Call it a solid double.
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