My face hurt. By the end of two and a half hours of NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT, my face literally hurt from smiling. And when I walked out of the Imperial Theatre onto 45th St, I could see that my fellow audience members were suffering from the same ailment. It has been a long time since I have seen a show that you can simply call a "crowd pleaser". Nothing more, nothing less. The SRO crowd tonight at this new Gershwin musical was in heaven and as I was walking out the words I kept hearing were "delightful", "entertaining", and my favorite..."escapism". Diane Sawyer and Mike Nichols were seated next to me and at Intermission he said to his wife "Absolutely charming." NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT is a throwback to the old days of Broadway. A nonsensical plot with just enough story to get to the next terrific song and dance number. That's all this is and it is damn entertaining. What little story there is has bootleggers hiding several cases of moonshine in the basement of a millionaire's mansion on the weekend of the millionaire's wedding....that's it. There are screwball complications that all lead to a happy ending, of course. The book by Joe DiPietro isn't the reason to see this show. It's perfectly fine, but I would describe it as "second tier Neil Simon". What makes this show sour are the musical numbers led by incredibly winning performers. Matthew Broderick is as relaxed and comfortable as I have ever seen him. I am not always a fan of his work but I was thoroughly charmed by his performance as the playboy millionaire. His singing voice is perfect for the Gershwin songbook. And his dancing has come a long way since THE PRODUCERS. He is really impressive in this role. Kelli O'Hara plays the female bootlegger that steals Broderick's heart. She's as good as she ever has been and it's wonderful to see some real physical comedy from her. Her singing is beautiful and she also dances like a dream here. S'WONDERFUL in particular is one of the highlights of the night. It's just Broderick and O'Hara in the living room of a mansion and they dance all over the set, just the two of them. It's like a scene from a 1930's movie musical where the Leading Man and Leading Lady glide up and down the stairs, over the furniture and on tables and chairs to express their new found love. It stopped the show cold. The supporting cast includes Michael McGrath, Chris Sullivan and Jennifer Laura Thompson and all three of them are deserving of Tony nominations next week. In the final 20 minutes of the show, Estelle Parsons makes her entrance. She has a glorified cameo as Broderick's mother and she begins chewing the scenery the moment she makes her entrance. It's a delicious role and Ms Parsons goes to town with it. Kathleen Marshall is the Director and Choreographer and the show moves at a quick pace and the dancing is sublime. There's nothing else like NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT on Broadway right now. It's a beautiful love letter to those old chestnut musicals of the 20's and 30's and it doesn't have any agenda besides wanting to just entertain the hell out of the audience. And it accomplishes that goal. In this day and age, it felt good to smile nonstop for two and a half hours.
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