Review: Hillbarn's 'Babes in Hollywood' a sparkling jaunt through American Songbook
By Joanne Engelhardt
MediaNews Correspondent
Article Last Updated: 12/19/2008 11:36:43 AM PST
"Babes in Hollywood: The Music of Garland & Rooney" is a delicious way to savor the holidays. Running through New Year's Eve at Hillbarn Theatre in Foster City, this frothy confection is overflowing with infectious charm, thanks to an energetic sextet of performers and a pitch-perfect three-piece onstage band.
The short trip down nostalgia lane literally zooms by, due in large part to director/choreographer Tim Bair. Projection operator Aya Matsutomo deserves special mention, too, because this show uses a multitude of sometimes-grainy black-and-white photos to great advantage on the movable panels that are the mainstay of the set.
Of course, what's not to like when you get to listen to such golden oldies as "By the Light of the Silvery Moon," You Made Me Love You," "Come Rain or Come Shine" and "That Old Black Magic."
Ostensibly, this is the story of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland from their early years at MGM. But that's just a theatrical device used to showcase many wonderful tunes from the 1940s and '50s, many of which had nothing to do with Rooney or Garland.
The six talented performers form a cohesive ensemble, and each is featured in a number or two. Kathryn Fox Hart is the most Garland-like, with flowing brown pompadoured hair and ruby red lips. She's delightful, and she doesn't attempt to imitate Judy while singing "Over the Rainbow" — that's a good thing.
Tom Reardon, Jenni Daw-Crisp and Sean Patrick Murtagh are the three other singer-performers, while Alex Dreschke and wide-eyed Arielle Fishman have a go at being Mickey and Judy in their younger years.
There are several standout numbers — in particular, the twirling trunk used while "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe" is sung; "Happy Feet," where the performers do a tricky number with dance sticks, and "Mr. Monotony," with figures in silhouette.
After Reardon and Murtagh team up to do a mean two-step on "For Me and My Gal," the entire cast chimes in by ringing a set of colorful bells. Later, Daw-Crisp surprises with an all-out tap to the tune of "I Got Rhythm."
Mae Heagerty-Matos cleverly costumes the performers in matching plaids and pastel colors in the first act, then in more formal blue attire with lots of bling in Act II. Dee Morrissey's hairdos are spot on from the era as well.
Friday December 12 2008 1:24 pm
A trip down memory lane
By Keith Kreitman
Created by the team that gave us My Way, A Musical Tribute to Frank Sinatra that had a very successful run at Hillbarn last season, Babes in Hollywood is making its West Coast Premiere on the same stage.
It is a snapshot review of Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney's amazing career from when, as youths, they were paired by the movie studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, in some very successful film musicals and then passed on to memorable careers on their own beyond that. Of course, we still remember, sadly, Judy Garland suffered an untimely death at age 47, after she created an enduring legacy in song and adult acting, while Mickey Rooney in his 80s is still making films.
Hillbarn pulled together an excellent cast of six to run through a whole string of the musical hits that marked their careers: Kathryn Fox Hart, Jenni Daw-Crisp, Sean Patrick Murtagh, Tom Reardon and two terrific teenagers who did most of the dancing, Alex Dreschke and fifteen-year-old Arielle Fishman (who is the show's scene-stealer).
The show is a medley of tunes arranged roughly in chronological order in their careers, wrapped in a running commentary by the cast of significant developments in the lives of these stars. Most of these tunes have become classics. Just a few: On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe; You Made Me Love You; For Me and My Gal; The Trolley Song; Meet Me in St. Louis; Come Rain or Come Shine; The Man Who Got Away; Where or When; Zing Went the Strings of My Heart; But Not for Me, and voted the Century's best, Over the Rainbow and many more.
This is a very winning package of entertainment that is a "trip down memory lane" for us oldsters and, for the young, a hint of what they may have missed from the era of great ballads of the past.