Stephanie Sine as Evie and Matt Wilson as Little Chap (center) with Kristen
Katherine Shields, Kate Campbell, Mary Catherine McDonald and Amy Jackson
in the ensemble in a scene from Stop the World – I Want to Get Off
(Photo credit: Michael Portantiere)
The Leslie Bricusse-Anthony Newley musical, Stop the World – I Want to Get Off was a huge hit in its London premiere in 1961 and a bigger hit in New York starting in 1962 with Newley and Anna Quayle reprising their London roles. Aside from a summer revival at Lincoln Center in 1978 built around Sammy Davis, Jr., the show which was considered innovative in its time has not been seen locally in the last 32 years. Musicals Tonight!, which specializes in concert stagings of worthy but forgotten shows, has brought Stop the World back to the stage as the last entry of its 2009-2010 season.
The revival which features husband and wife team Emmy Award winner Matt Wilson of the popular PBS math-mystery show, Cyberspace, and musical comedy actress and concert performer Stephanie Sine demonstrates its strengths and weaknesses. On the one hand, it offers the still fresh Bricusse-Newley song hits, “Gonna a Build a Mountain,” “Once in a Lifetime,” and “What Kind of Fool Am I?” while on the other hand, there is a sameness about the material that makes it seem wearisome. Back in the early Sixties, it seemed innovative and daring while the musical form was going through its metamorphosis away from the Rodgers and Hammerstein formula. Now it seems remarkably simplistic and pedestrian.
Assuming that the repetitiveness is not the fault of director/choreographer, Thomas Sabella-Mills, but the material, this may be one of the sharpest, most focused and expert productions ever seen at Musicals Tonight! With its required lack of scenery and minimal costume changes, Stop the World is perfect for a concert staging. The pace is smooth and exciting, and the unscripted but necessary mime is admirable.
The charismatic Wilson who is on stage almost throughout the two and a half hour production plays Little Chap as more of an anti-hero than Newley probably did. His Little Chap has less charm but just as much pizzazz as Newley was famous for. Even with scripts in hand, the cast’s precision is remarkable.
In order to tell the story of a man’s entire life with limited sets and props, the show begins as a circus with each member of the cast dressed as clowns or acrobats doing a specialty number. Having established that the cast will use mime and sleight of hand to tell their tale, Little Chap is born and grows up to be ambitious. At work, he meets the posh Evie, (played by Sine), the boss’ daughter. When she ends up in the family way, they get married and Little Chap is given a promotion.
In the course of his career travels, he meets and romances Anya, a Russian government official, Ilse, a domestic from Germany, and Ginny, an American cabaret singer, all of whom are played by Sine as though other facets of Evie’s character. Little Chap runs for Parliament and works his way up the political ladder, which ultimately wears him out and leads to his retirement. Little Chap dies and another Little Chap is born, bringing the circle of life back to the beginning.
The songs for the foreign girl friends (“Glorious Russian,” “Typische Deutsche,” and “All American”) are actually sung to the music of Evie’s first song, “Typically English.” They are presented differently but are in essence the same song. Whenever Little Chap’s luck runs out, he yells, “Stop the World,” the lights dim, and from the apron of the stage, he tells bad working class jokes, all of which are non sequiturs. His relationship with Evie goes sour from the beginning and their encounters all play the same way. Our protagonist mimes falling in love with each woman he meets with the identical gestures each time. All of these are clever at first, predictable later, and ultimately tedious due to their familiarity.
The show’s anti-establishment attitude must have been daring and original in 1962 but now seems a bit hypocritical as Little Chap criticizes the very things that he most wants. However, the songs are still rousing and witty. Besides the three hit songs, the score offers the dynamic “I Want to Be Rich,” the plaintive “Lumbered,” the lullaby “Meilinki, Meilchick,” the lovely ballad “Someone Nice Like You,” as well as the adroit tongue twister “Mumbo Jumbo.”
Little Chap’s songs are most effective when sung full out which Wilson appears to save for the act climaxes. The ensemble is used as a Greek chorus and forwards the story with transitional musical numbers that set the stage for each following sequence. Outstanding among the ensemble of four, tall Amy Jackson with her mop of blonde hair is particularly effective creating a different character each time she appears.
Musicals Tonight!’s production of the Bricusse-Newley Stop the World – I Want to Get Off is a mixed bag. The solid, meticulous staging cannot disguise that the show’s anti-hero tends to rant and that the structure tends to repeat itself. Nevertheless, with James Stenborg at the piano, the delightful score gets an excellent reading. Playing the rare musical-comedy anti-hero, Matt Wilson holds the stage at all times. Not seen in New York in a generation, Stop the World offers the musical comedy searching for new ways to tell a story.
Stop the World – I Want to Get Off (through April 25)
Musicals Tonight! at the McGinn/Cazale Theatre, 2162 Broadway, at 76th Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, call 212-579-4230 or http://www.iseats.net