Catch Me if You Can

If you took HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS and WILL ROGERS FOLLIES and smashed them together you might get CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. Although, the show biz framing isn’t the ZIEGFELD FOLLIES, but the TV variety show of the 1960s, which is the setting of the story about teenager Frank Abagnale, Jr., who ran away from home, brilliantly passed bad checks, successfully posed as an airline pilot and doctor before getting caught when he made the mistake of falling in love and telling the truth for once. The crazy thing is that it’s all based on a true story, but now it is musical comedy done in the most traditional way with an economically solid book by Terrence McNally and songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman. Jack O’Brien has directed the fun and Jerry Mitchell has choreographed it to suit the concept. The combination of these smart people have brought us THE FULL MONTY, DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS and HAIRSPRAY in the recent past and now they have delivered a bright and entertaining show that should prove to be one of great durability.

It is not so very often that the musical theatre gives us a breakout star turn role in a new musical, but here is one now and Aaron Tveit is the star. He leaves the stage only long enough to change costumes, which is when his costars, Norbert Leo Butz or Kerry Butler get to take stage alone to sing. There is some very nice intermingling with Tom Wopat and Rachel De Benedet as his parents, but this is Aaron Tveit’s show all the way. Mr. Tveit is well known to Broadway as Gabe from NEXT TO NORMAL and he was a dandy Link Larkin for a while in HAIRSPRAY. Here he dances up a storm and the score shows off is gigantic vocal range. He is of course rather handsome and athletic, which makes this scoundrel of a character all the more appealing. Like J. Pierrpont Finch, we should really not be rooting for this devious devil to succeed, but he is so appealing that we want to see him win and take delight in his every illegal achievement. Mr. Tveit’s talents are so unusually broad, that because the role was written to show off his talents, it may be very difficult to satisfactorily replace him when the time comes.

Norbert Leo Butz has turned into one of our prime Broadway personalities and as Agent Carl Hanratty he has stamped his signature on a role in permanent ink and he too will be difficult to replace. His first big number, “Don’t Break the Rules,” with the chorus dancing behind him, shows a style of movement that may have started with steps by Jerry Mitchell, but it will never be danced again as it was danced by Mr. Butz. His rubber band limbs stretch and slide around in a comical abandon that hasn’t been seen since the days of Ray Bolger.

The female characters of the show have very little to do. The female chorus has quite a lot to do. As showgirls, they are in constant use as airline attendants, nurses and back up dancers to frame Mr. Tveit. As the girlfriend Brenda, Kerry Butler was just right, but it is only too bad that she has been given the lesser of songs, “Fly, Fly Away.” Even in this show biz conceptual world, the ability of her character to sing a song of support a second after finding out that her husband to be has lied to her about absolutely every aspect of his life is hardly plausible. This is the one moment when I lost faith in the show and then the song was mundane and didn’t really show off Ms. Butler’s vocal gifts. This will be a disappointment to any Broadway fan who knows just how magnificent Ms. Butler’s powerhouse voice really is. The mother is winningly played by Rachel de Benedet, who has somehow only made small contributions to the Broadway stage over the past twenty years and it’s a shame because she is a wonderful talent. Her beauty and grace, her small dances and her duet with Tom Wopat, “Don’t Be a Stranger,” were all just right. However, knowing this actress from my years at the California Musical Theatre in much more demanding roles, it is too bad that she wasn’t given something to better show her off. The other female principal is practically a cameo as Brenda’s mother, but Linda Hart, who has been popping in and out of Broadway shows for the past twenty years turns in a delightful character again.

It is always nice to see Tom Wopat on Broadway and we have had the pleasure of his company the past decade in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, 42ND STREET, CHICAGO, A CATERED AFFAIR, SONDHEIM ON SONDHEIM and now a very good turn in this. He has a few nice things to sing and handles the most serious moments of the show as a down on his luck drunk with a kind of sober reality not seen in any other part of the show. One might say that the character of Frank’s father leaves the style of the production to a degree, but the seriousness of this character’s downfall helped to ground the story with a bit of the harshness of life.

The great William Ivey Long, who has been called upon to costume so many sparkling showgirl costumes in the past, has done it again, but he is strangely understated here. He could have gone much bigger and got away with it, but he has accurately evoked the types of costumes seen in the great variety shows that once dominated the airwaves. David Rockwell has designed the simplest set––also accurate to the concept (I think I saw it on the “Judy Garland Show” once). The orchestra is seated within the set up stage and the musicians are all handsomely dressed in white dinner jackets. Stairs cascade down from an upper level and the necessary furniture lifts from below stage when needed. Added elements of design appropriate for each scene fly in and out to complete a look for a sequence. This elaborate unit set is all the show really needed and so, in an unlikely Broadway choice, the show has been restrained from what could easily have gone into design overload. Light Designer Kenneth Posner has given the show just the right pizzaz for the concept and nicely defines areas to create more intimate moments. His flashiest trick is a moving cloud effect across the act curtain, but after that he has simply served the demands of the show.

This is a happy new musical, rather clean in a PG kind of way, completely delightful at every turn and most importantly it propels Aaron Tveit into a new level of Broadway stardom. This musical breaks no new ground, it does not reinvent anything and it might have been written in 1960. There is nothing wrong with any of that, for it unabashedly serves its purpose to purely entertain. The show should be good for at least three to five years on Broadway and a popular national tour, after which the high schools of America will happily take it on and keep it alive for years to come.