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"Come Fly Away"

By Sid Smith

Twyla Tharp's Frank Sinatra tribute, "Come Fly Away," has arrived at the Bank of America Theatre in Chicago, briefer and, by many reports, better than its Broadway installment. To be sure, the 80 or so intermission-free minutes fly by, sizzling with sensual, gymnastic choreography, peopled by the sharp, stylish, singular dancers that Tharp somehow seems to find out of thin air.

Just to catch the powerhouse ensemble assembled for this tour is reason enough to see the show. One of its stars, the great John Selya, played here earlier in the "Movin' Out" tryout. He's older, stockier but no less charismatic now, inhabiting the role of a suave but rakish seducer with ease and muscle--something of a dancerly Sinatra stand-in, in a way. His technique still takes your breath away--his barrel turns are one of the show's high points. But his speed and attack are a marvel, too, and his mastery of Tharp's relentless, tricky steps is all the more engaging since he manages it while crafting a sly fox of a character, a guy who charms everybody, no matter his ego and self-love.

But no less impressive is Matthew Stockwell Dibble, a swift, gravity-defying performer with immaculate control and dandy stylistics, all as he plays a character, Marty, whose girl is stolen by Selya's Sid. Ron Todorowski, who serves as resident director on the tour, is also terrific, his full-body flips one of the show's niftier tricks.

But this mounting of "Come Fly Away," for all the strength of its men, is a powerhouse of spectacular women, who bring statuesque glamour and a seductive feminine force to their dancing. These are ladies in the Juliet Prowse lineage, slinking like come-hither showgirls, flaunting their gorgeous legs, all the while energized by powerful form and performance execution. Anyone who sees Ashley Blair Fitzgerald enact the scorching duet to "That's Life" with talented Anthony Burrell will never forget it. Fitzgerald is bold without being lurid, enticing without being coarse, enacting Tharp's great maneuvers with thrilling abandon--crawling atop and underneath Burrell's body at one point in a sequence that ought to be awkward but is instead richly alluring. It's beautiful dance that just happens to be hot stuff.

But Malauri Esquibel, Marielys Molina and Meredith Miles, who were also leads at Wednesday's opening, are also topnotch dancers. The thinnest-of-thin storylines, various couples at a nightclub, in part flashes back to Sinatra's own time, or at least his era's notion of female sexuality, and the women in the cast manage a marvelous balance, reveling in that retro-vision of sexiness while maintaining enough individual zeal to avoid cliche.

From the point of view of the art house devotee, this is Tharp reverting to the populist. "Come Fly Away" has nothing of the refinement, focus or subtle structural development of, say, "Scarlatti," her recent premiere with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, or, for that matter, countless other works with dance troupes over the years. This is flashier, more superficial, earthy in style and basic in ensemble architecture. Everything from "Fugue" to "In the Upper Room" is fraught with architectural evolution and engineering subtlety. This is Tharp in full-throttle show business mode.

That said, "Come Fly Away" is indeed miles above what passes most of the time for choreography on Broadway today. Like Jerome Robbins, Tharp knows ballet and knows how to use its underpinnings to deepen the movement and accelerate the thrills of dance. "Come Fly Away" is not Tharp at her best, but it's among the best Great White Way choreography on view these days, challenging, exciting and plane-loads of fun.

 

 

Reviewed by Sid Smith on 01/12/2012 at 4:34 PM