The star's acting skills are minimal, but when her hair is up and her forced good cheer is particularly frosty, one can picture her doing a rude impression of Nancy Reagan on ''Saturday Night Live.'' After the Movie SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS, book by Lawrence Kasha and David Landay based on the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film and ''The Sobbin' Women'' by Stephen Vincent Benet directed by Mr.
#SEVEN BROTHERS PROFESSIONAL#
In the Jane Powell role, Miss Boone sings ably and smiles constantly - in the remote, rigidly ungiving manner of a veteran professional gladhander or beauty-pageant contestant. The hero is played by David-James Carroll, whose sturdy singing voice and colorless personality valiantly uphold the Howard Keel tradition. Act II's big kneeslapper is a line containing the word ''outhouse.''
Up until then, there are gags about the brothers' longjohns, about a bed that collapses on the hero and heroine's wedding night, about the etiquette of courting. But it's not until after intermission that the brothers finally get a move on and kidnap their unwilling brides. As in the film, the scant story is Stephen Vincent Benet's transplanted reworking of Plutarch's tale of the Sabine women.
The remainder of the time, which doesn't pass like lightning, is devoted to Lawrence Kasha's and David Landay's book. For added ballast, the choreography is often accompanied by cartwheels, clapping jags, mock fisticuffs and cries of ''ya-hoo!'' and ''yippee!'' The two hoedowns in Act II are pretty much variations on the first, though one of them, set in the spring, is framed by plastic flowers. In fact, one waits through most of Act I for a full-fledged dance, period.
#SEVEN BROTHERS FULL#
Kidd's style, but one waits in vain for a full rendition of the movie's famous barn-raising number. The energetic choreography, attributed to Jerry Jackson, attempts, with fitful success, to simulate Mr. Nonetheless, the original ''Seven Brides'' did have one major strength: its galvanic Michael Kidd choreography, danced by an illustrious, high-flying team of brothers that included Russ Tamblyn, Jacques d'Amboise, Matt Mattox, Tommy Rall and Marc Platt. In its original incarnation, ''Seven Brides'' was less than thrilling, yet let's be grateful that this show's collaborators didn't choose to monkey around with ''The Band Wagon'' or ''Singin' in the Rain'' instead.
The inspiration for this enterprise is the 1954 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie musical of the same title. To which one might well say, bring back Donny Osmond! Randolph's last show at the Alvin, ''Little Johnny Jones.'' This musical also marks the Broadway debut of Debby Boone. The sets, by the sometimes admirable Robert Randolph, are flimsy and dreary in a 1950's fashion that hasn't been seen since - well, since Mr. As directed by Lawrence Kasha, its scenes don't so much end as lurch into darkness. ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,'' the fifth musical bomb to be planted in the Alvin in 10 months, has its other lunacies, too. The result is an unmatched collection of strawberrystreaked chorus boys who, while purporting to be rugged farmers in 1850 Oregon, look for all the world like clowns. There are indeed seven of them - all singing, all dancing - but what in heaven's name, one wonders, has happened to their hair? On close examination, it seems that someone decided to transform all the brothers into redheads - and then abandoned hope in mid-dye job. SO how does one begin to describe ''Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,'' the threadbare touring package that mistakenly unpacked on Broadway last night? Perhaps it's fitting to start with the brothers themselves.
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