Click here to subscribe today or Login.
By BOB NOCEK; Times Leader Staff Writer
Sunday, November 24, 1996 Page: 2A
WILKES-BARRE — If Rita McKenzie and Glenn Yarbrough were bored with their
roles in “Annie Get Your Gun” at the F.M. Kirby Center on Friday night, it’s
understandable.
So were we.
Their wonderful voices and a professional production are being wasted on
one of the weakest Broadway shows imaginable. At best, “Annie Get Your Gun” is
cotton candy: all sugar and no substance. But at times, even this sweet is
bitter.
The Irving Berlin piece is a superficial bore, short on plot and lacking in
emotion, with only the singing to save it.
McKenzie, an Ethel Merman soundalike, was at her best on the big, brassy
numbers. And Glenn Yarbrough, the 1960s folk singer of Limeliters fame, was a
pleasing contradiction with his soft tenor. They’re both talented singers
whose voices were the highlight of the evening.
But even they can’t work miracles with this wildly inconsistent score.
For every pleasing number, there were several awkward melodies that
McKenzie and Yarbrough had to wrestle with.
Perhaps that’s why we heard three reprises of “There’s No Business Like
Show Business,” the show’s best, and best-known, song.
But we also got “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly” and “I Got the Sun In The
Morning” which were probably as difficult to sing as they were to listen to.
“I’m An Indian Too” was downright annoying.
When McKenzie and Yarbrough weren’t singing, you wished they were.
It was nearly impossible to care about whether their characters, Annie
Oakley and Frank Butler, ever got together, since this play makes them little
more than cardboard cutouts lacking in depth. Oakley is the redneck, Yarbrough
the chauvinist, and that’s about the extent of the character development.
Perhaps that’s why the cast didn’t seem to care much about the story
either.
McKenzie’s acting wasn’t on the emotional level of her singing, and
Yarbrough, who is new to the musical theater, is a bit too reserved with his
lines.
The sound was a problem; it wasn’t loud enough, making some of Yarbrough’s
soft-spoken lines difficult to hear in the middle of the theater.
The surrounding cast was able, and the ensemble made its big dance numbers
enjoyable. For a touring production, the staging was first-rate.
And there’s probably not much the cast could have done to breathe life into
“Annie Get Your Gun.” On its 50th anniversary, there’s not much life left in
this Berlin work.
It’s not supposed to be Chekov, but it is supposed to be interesting. And
when Rita McKenzie and Glenn Yarbrough weren’t singing, “Annie Get Your Gun”
just wasn’t.