NEW YORK — There was a time — long, long ago, my children — when Hollywood was the place where good musicals went to veg out. A racy, vivacious Broadway show like "Pal Joey" or "Kiss Me, Kate" would rush to California for a glamorous big-screen makeover and wind up with a lobotomy. Sure, there were exceptions. But more often than not, what finally lumbered into movie theaters resembled the neutered, empty-eyed Jack Nicholson at the end of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."

Well, as so often happens in history and pulp novels, the victim has turned victimizer. Over the past 20 years or so, an idea-starved Broadway has been doing to Hollywood what Hollywood so long did to it, draining the sex and spark out of classic movie musicals. Which brings us to "Never Gonna Dance," the friendly but labor-free new adaptation of "Swing Time," the blissful Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film from 1936.

"Never Gonna Dance," which opened Thursday night at the Broadhurst Theater, is not one of those screen-to-stage conversions that make you want to run screaming for the nearest Buddhist monastery. It is not tacky and clunky like "Urban Cowboy" or "Saturday Night Fever." And in a season of musical klutzburgers like "Taboo" and "The Boy From Oz," it stands out as an inoffensive, gracefully danced and pleasantly sung diversion, a quieter answer to the current revival of "42nd Street."

But that's about as lavish as praise can be for this spiceless production, directed by Michael Greif ("Rent") and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell ("Hairspray," "The Full Monty"). Like "Swing Time," this show celebrates dance as a love potion, in a universe fueled by the swoon-making melodies of Jerome Kern and set in an Art Deco never-never land of Depression-era Manhattan. What "Never Gonna Dance" lacks are the sharp individuality and the unconditional belief in its own enchanted world that make "Swing Time" feel so vital even today.

View Comments

Broadway, of course, is famous for asking performers to fill seemingly unfillable shoes. (The latest productions of "Gypsy," starring Bernadette Peters in the Ethel Merman role, and "Wonderful Town," with Donna Murphy vanquishing the ghost of Rosalind Russell, are two examples with mercifully happy results.) Still, who could possibly fit the shiny patent slippers of Astaire and Rogers, whose ineffable romantic chemistry has been inspiring rapturous sighs and earnest dissertations for more than six decades? "Swing Time" captured that chemistry at its peak. As the dance critic Arlene Croce wrote of it, "There never was a more star-struck movie or a greater dance musical."

So give due consideration to the brave, likable young dancers who have taken on the Astaire and Rogers roles, Noah Racey and Nancy Lemenager. They move and sing with an effortless-seeming assurance. They are refreshingly free of that show-off aggressiveness that is so common to Broadway performers these days and would be fatal to the aspiringly insouciant charms of a show like this one. Racey, in particular, has the makings of an elegant and original character dancer. In his solo numbers, he glows with a wonderfully goofy, free-wheeling glee that gives spontaneity to his meticulously choreographed steps, bringing to mind a baby-faced Ray Bolger.

But whenever he and Lemenager dance together, the flame sputters out. They look tasty and soigne in William Ivey Long's custom-fitted period costumes. But a couple of lyrical moments aside, their teamwork is a matter of the bland leading the bland.

Theatergoers hoping for a glimmer of the old Astaire-Rogers magic, in which dance is the language of love, won't be entirely disappointed. The scene in which Lucky, having sworn off dancing forever, arrives in Grand Central Terminal and succumbs to the rhythms of Manhattan is delightful. His face and limbs twitching responsively to the cadences of human traffic and daily commerce, Racey's Lucky eventually falls off the wagon with the irresistible elan of a true dance-aholic.

Join the Conversation
Looking for comments?
Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them — or use the button below for quick access.