BY MICHAEL FEINGOLD
December 15-21, 1999
The Village Voice
Women get thrown around a
good deal in Swing!, but I wouldn't say they were being victimized; they and the
men who toss, flip, and drape them seem to be sharing far too good a time for that.
Recycling a lot of familiar material—this makes three current shows that use
"Sing, Sing, Sing" for a climax—Swing! refeathers its old hats with
new numbers and lyric touch-ups by a mélange of band and cast members, plus outside
hands. Director-choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett, herself supervised by Jerry Zaks,
rides herd on a covey of assistant choreographers, some visible onstage. If the jumbled
credits suggest a hodgepodge, the result looks more like a happy collaboration. The
dancing works through all the traditional moves, and some fancy variations, without ever
seeming either mechanical or artily self-conscious; the singing, particularly Ann Hampton
Callaway's and Laura Benanti's, has a classy individuality. For a dance show, the evening
pays exceptionally strong heed to the sense and shape of its lyrics; when the soloists of
Casey MacGill's band are dragged into the action, they perk up, enlivening their scenes as
onstage musicians almost never do. Taylor-Corbett's podiatric crew never loses touch with
swing dancing's dual function—as a competition between couples in acrobatic
inventiveness, and as a sort of airborne representation of sexual intercourse. The new
songs are mostly half-formed imitations of the great old ones and the stage is sometimes
cluttered with dancers when we should be watching the vocalist, but overall Swing!
has a fresh, piquant style that gives it both specialness and consistency. Other Broadway
shows using old music don't cook like this. A lot of the sizzle comes from Harold
Wheeler's saucy arrangements, a little from William Ivey Long's costumes, which are
sometimes dramatic events in themselves, and the rest from the dancers—too many
first-raters to list, but Beverly Durand and Aldrin Gonzalez made me gape with amazement
most often.
