Woody Allen spoof proves musical theater can be murder at Players Centre

Woody Allen’s “Bullets Over Broadway” was a very clever film. And the musical adaptation had a very clever playwright: Woody Allen. (With a little help from Douglas McGrath.) Allen’s tuneful retread of his own material is now making a hit at The Players Centre for Performing Arts.

David Shayne (Mark Athridge) is an earnest, young playwright in the 1930s (think Clifford Odets). Thanks to two flops, his career is dead in the cradle. But fortune smiles on the kid! The notorious mob boss Nick Valenti (Joseph Giglia) offers to bankroll his next Broadway production. Only one catch — the mobster’s vacuous girlfriend, Olive (Amanda Heisey), must star. David reluctantly agrees, and puts her in a minor role.

The mobster sends his top hit-man, Cheech (Chip Fisher) to babysit her. (No dressing room hanky-panky, capiche?) Not being the shy, retiring type, Cheech shares free advice on taking the play up a notch. The torpedo’s tips are surprisingly good. Along with his machine gun skills, he’s a natural-born script doctor. Unlike David, he’s got an ear for dialog and a keen grasp of human motivation. Cheech’s changes smooth over plot holes and make the characters sound like real people. After so many rewrites, the hit man starts to think it’s his play. It basically is. Cheech wants “his” play to be perfect. He knows it would be — except for that dumb, no-talent blonde.

Where Allen’s 1994 movie revolved around David, the 2014 musical adaptation is more of an ensemble piece. Thanks to that change, the tone’s a little more upbeat. The dialog’s good and the plot flows, though a prior scene outside the theater establishing Cheech’s emotional intelligence would’ve helped. (Cheech reminds me of the singing frog in the Warner Brothers cartoon. He’s usually a stereotypical gangster. But when he starts tinkering with the script, he instantly turns into Ben Hecht.) Movie or musical, it’s a solid-gold premise with an entirely predictable ending.

Logic aside, the whole affair is one big excuse for song and dance. Speaking of which, if you’re writing a period musical, composing original music that fits the period is always a problem. Allen cleverly got around the problem by using actual music from the period—with a few tweaks in the lyrics. You can’t go wrong with songs like “Let’s Misbehave,” “Tain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do,” and “There’ll Be Some Changes Made.” How can you top that? Allen, wisely, didn’t try.

Jared Walker’s direction throws you into David’s dizzying “Alice in Wonderland” voyage through the surreal depths of 1930s Broadway. Music director Alan J. Corey clearly shares Allen’s love for songs of that era and fills the theater with a big, brassy sound. Charlie Logan’s rat-a-tat, precision choreography is great. He actually makes tap-dancing mobsters look physically threatening. Jeff Weber’s sets and Brady’s costumes make the Wonderland complete. With help from the actors, of course.

Athridge’s playwright is out of his league. Mobsters to the left of him, manipulative actors to the right. David’s a twitchy bundle of nerves, just trying to survive. It’s a sympathetic performance, though the movie got you deeper inside his thoughts. Melissa Ingrisano sweetly earns her share of laughs as Ellen, David’s discarded girlfriend. Colleen Sudduth-Buchmeier is hilarious as David’s new love interest, Helen Sinclair. She’s a faded Broadway star who jumps in bed with the latest playwright, all the better to beef up her lines. (In a cute running gag, she constantly growls, “Don’t speak!” and locks lips before the wordsmith can.)

Warner Purcell (Tony Boothby) is more of an expanding Broadway star. His only weakness is the snack table—his belly expands like the Hindenburg as rehearsals progress. Heisey’s a barrel of laughs as the oversexed, bleach-blonde chorine. Olive’s grating voice can cut glass and she’s got the short-term memory of an Etch-a-Sketch. Oddly enough, Fisher’s Cheech is the most sympathetic character of the bunch. A talented guy — diamond in the rough, you might say. And he’s willing to kill for his art. Is that commitment or what?

It’s a fun, high-energy musical that never takes itself too seriously. When all is said and done, it’s another theatrical production that celebrates life in theater by showing how lousy it is.

You got a problem with that?