Julie Andrews Is Back, in Drag, in Drag
By VINCENT CANBY (OCT. 26, 1995)
Thirteen years have passed since Blake Edwards made his cinematic chef d'oeuvre, "Victor/Victoria," but as far as Julie Andrews is concerned, 13 years is no more than the blink of an eye. [...]
Ms. Andrews is reprising her most enchanting screen role, that of a woman who plays a man who plays a woman, thus to become the toast of 1930's Paris as a female impersonator. At 60, Ms. Andrews looks terrific and sings with a sweet purity not heard on Broadway since she last played the street in "Camelot." That was more than 30 years ago. Even as today's usually invidious sound amplification equipment can't distort her voice, time has made no dent in her immaculate appearance and diction, and in her grandly funny stage presence.
There's no mistaking her vitality in the middle of the first act: dressed in spangles from head to toe, her legs showing up to here, she tears into an elaborate singing and dancing number with such effortlessness you're convinced that all life is a ball. As it was in the movie, "Le Jazz Hot," the centerpiece of the Henry Mancini-Leslie Bricusse score, is one of this show's highlights. It's also the number with which Victor, nee Victoria Grant, brings Paris to its knees.
If local audiences aren't brain dead, New York will follow suit.
Yet Ms. Andrews is not alone on the stage. She's surrounded by a first-rate cast. Tony Roberts, [...] It's not easy stepping into the role that proved to be the brilliant climax of Robert Preston's screen career. Mr. Roberts won't make you forget Preston, but he's good and he's game.
Michael Nouri takes over as King Marchan, the Chicago mobster who, to his bewilderment, finds himself drawn to Victor. The part, which was played in the film by James Garner, has become a singing role. [...].
Rachel York appears as Norma, King's syntax-mangling, platinum-haired doxy. [...]
Mr. Edwards can make lines as hoary as that irresistible. When it comes to film comedy, he's a master. As he demonstrated in his various "Pink Panther" collaborations with Peter Sellers, he can build gags as flawlessly as someone putting together a house of cards 20 feet high. When it comes to writing and staging a multi-million-dollar Broadway show, one that's based on his own hit movie, he's still a master of film comedy.
[...] Mr. Edwards seems not to have been able to rethink his movie in theatrical terms, nor does he appear to understand what those terms are. "Victor/Victoria" plays almost as if it were a movie photographed in one extended, unyielding long shot.
Everything is uninflected, without a sense of pace. The show comes to life as if by accident, and sometimes in spite of the obstacles that are placed in its way. Mr. Edwards has found no theater equivalents to movie close-ups, the kind with which he italicizes the essential parts of a screen gag and has used to such marvelous effect to celebrate Ms. Andrews. Go back and look at the dazzling opening images of her in "Darling Lili." Check out the sweeping, circular movements of the camera as it lovingly studies the star, who is also his wife.
Compare them with Ms. Andrews's first entrance at the Marquis: she's onstage virtually before you recognize her, to play a feebly written, drearily lighted scene demanded by the plot. He also fuzzes up the "Jazz Hot" number by preceding her entrance with some commonplace chorus work, which robs her big star turn of its initial dramatic impact. The first-act finale, in which she sings the gently mournful "Crazy World," is staged (in a swank hotel room) and lighted in such a flat way that you can either attend to her or study the set.
Time and again Ms. Andrews bursts through this commonplace context, but the others aren't as gifted or experienced. Mr. Edwards does know one thing: if the choice is between having a good first act or a good second act, choose the latter.The show's second act [...], there's a splendidly funny, beautifully timed farcical routine in which five characters zip in and out of the doorways in adjoining duplex hotel suites, each just barely escaping discovery by someone else. [...]. There's also "You and Me," in which Ms. Andrews and Mr. Roberts harmonize as they do a soft-shoe. Those moments are hard to beat.
[...]
If most of the new Mancini and Bricusse material is not great [...].
Much has been made of the fact that in this show, the macho King Marchan is driven so mad for Victor that he's compelled to kiss the creature without knowing (as he does in the film) that he's a she. It all happens so quickly, being immediately followed by Victoria's confession of the truth, that it seems a rather tepid gesture on behalf of gay liberation.
[...]
Keeping everything together, though, being the sun around which the show revolves, is the star. She's been away too long, but I suspect she will now be around as long as she wants. "Victor/Victoria" is Julie Andrews's generous option.
NYT
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