The director Lonny Price has worked a minor miracle with “Dirty Dancing: The Musical.” On stage, it’s never quite felt this way before.
This particular title — pure gold, when it comes to audience awareness and the relentless pull of nostalgia — does not have a history of being treated with theatrical dignity or quality. The show, based on the boffo 1987 movie with Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze, has origins in Australia and the U.K. and I first reviewed a U.S. live version thereof at least 17 years ago.
It was not a great night. I recall audiences flocking to a cheesy affair with cheap-looking video (flickering fireplace flames stick in my mind), stereotypical performances and the overall vibe of being mostly a cash grab from the movie’s fans.
But the all-new touring production, which had its opening night Friday at the Nederlander Theatre in Chicago, is a very different matter. Critics won’t matter much with this title and I think this new version would do well on Broadway in a limited summer run, for example, akin to the “Mamma Mia!” slot that made bank.
Darrell Grand Moultrie, the choreographer best known for Beyoncé’s world tour, has seriously upped the choreographic chops while still keeping the show rooted in its period and maintaining its crucial relationship to social dancing. To no small degree, that accounts for the film’s popularity.
The “upstairs” music in the show, previously blown off with cha-cha condescension, now offers the pleasures of the American song book, with “Fly Me to the Moon” and the like. Moultrie acknowledges that the Catskills-loving patrons of Kellerman’s would actually have known how to dance, many of them pretty well, just as the creative kids in the staff quarters would have been oozing with sexual tension. Price has cast the show adroitly. The new Equity company is stocked with skilled performers whose dancing chops are front and center and who, just as importantly, are approaching the piece with actual seriousness.
“Dirty Dancing” does not require Baby or Johnny to sing — the music in the show (“The Time of My Life” and “Hungry Eyes” being the big draws) come from the minor characters who double as vocalists performing at the resort. This bifurcation of roles clearly allowed Price to cast performers who are first and foremost dancers in the three most important roles: Blake Zelesnikar, who was in “American in Paris,” as Johnny, Olivia Cece (a “Moulin Rouge” dancer on Broadway) as Penny and a very charming and seemingly guileless (and thankfully humorous) newcomer named Annalese Starzec as Baby, rocking one of the few roles out there specifically for a dancer of a shorter stature. And her being a dead ringer for Grey, curls and all, does not hurt.
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Price and his actors are still stuck with the original script, which is by Eleanor Bergstein, who wrote the movie. Ideally, someone would have persuaded Bergstein to acquire a new junior partner to freshen this book and foreground more of its specifically theatrical assets. But when surrounded by quite the elegant, cliche-averse design from Brett J. Banakis (highlighting the beauty of the Catskills) and with its lines now spoken by decent actors, it feels much more dignified than in the past.
There’s also a notable performance to enjoy here from Bryan Fenkart in the role made famous by the late, great Jerry Orbach. It struck me that Fenkart subtly was honoring his predecessor in his work here as Jake Houseman and it’s quite moving to see. Add some powerhouse vocals from Ashley LaLonde and some smooth song stylings from Erick Pinnick and you have an overall rehabilitation of quite impressive proportions.
Don’t get me wrong, this is still “Dirty Dancing,” the movie, on stage. But people can’t get enough of this story and for valid reasons. If that’s you, well, “hey baby.”
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic
Review: “Dirty Dancing” (3 stars)
When: Through Sept. 20
Where: Nederlander Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St.
Running time: 2 hours 25 minutes
Tickets: $40-$155 at 312-977-1700 and broadwayinchicago.com