a rave review for Promises, from theater blogger Joe Myers

[Steve Schenck]

I came across this review on the Promises website and thought others might enjoy reading it.

When the cast album of the current Broadway revival of “Promises, Promises” was released a few months back, I wrote here about how much I admire the song score of Burt Bacharach and Hal David and how sad it is that after the original production of the show opened in 1968 these two artists never did another Broadway musical.

On Sunday, I finally had the chance to see “Promises, Promises” and I was even more dazzled by the music in context than I was on CD — this is a terrific score that both captures the pop sound of the 1960s and works beautifully to express what’s going on in the hearts and minds of the unhappy office worker characters in the story (based on the Oscar-winning 1960 Billy Wilder film starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine).

The revival opened to inexplicably tepid reviews in April, but audiences have embraced “Promises, Promises,” making it one of the most popular Broadway musicals of 2010.

Critics said the story material and the music was dated and that the leading lady (Kristin Chenoweth) was miscast, but for me the show and all of its performers worked like a charm.

42 years ago, book writer Neil Simon did an amazing job of reworking Wilder’s cynical film into a more romantic concoction.

Early 1960s office drone Chuck Baxter still thinks he will advance in a New York insurance firm by letting married executives borrow his apartment for sexual trysts, but in the show this device is used more for humor than moral judgement.

Chuck’s object of affection Fran Kubelik still has a self-destructive relationship with Baxter’s boss, J.D. Sheldrake, but Simon makes it into a real love afffair rather than mere sexual harassment. In the revival, the excellent Tony Goldwyn manages to make the man sympathetic (unlike the creepy Fred MacMurray in the Wilder film) because Sheldrake gets one of the most haunting songs in the score (“Wanting Things”).

“Promises, Promises” is funnier than “The Apartment” due to the fact that the male characters are presented as delusional people rather than one-note exploiting villains.

Within the confines of a musical, Simon gives an amazing array of characters their say, from Sheldrake’s ex-mistress-now-assistant to Chuck’s funny doctor neighbor (Dick Latessa, below) who saves Fran’s life when she overdoses after a final tryst with Sheldrake. Simon also crafted a juicy two scene role for a boozy and horny woman in a bar — Marge MacDougall — who makes a play for Chuck after he is appalled to learn that Fran is sleeping with his boss.

Marge is such a funny, juicy role that Marian Mercer won a Tony for playing it in 1968 and Katie Finneran (above with Sean Hayes) won the same prize for the revival.

Most reviewers expressed the belief that Chenoweth was miscast as Fran — too strong a personality to become suicidally depressed, they claimed — but the naysayers seem to ignore the way the actress expresses Fran’s romantic exhaustion in songs like “Knowing When to Leave” and “A House Is Not a Home.”

Yes, Chenoweth is beautiful and full of energy and humor, but from my point of view, those characteristics make Fran’s falling-apart in Act II all the more moving. And, the star’s singing fills in the character’s desperation like the arias in an opera. The critics who failed to see Chenoweth’s Fran crumbling seem to have tuned out her musical performance.

Broadway has always had a dearth of male stars, but Sean Hayes has stepped into Jerry Orbach’s shoes with a phenomenally energetic and witty characterization of Chuck. Working with Simon’s unusually meaty book, the new star gets the audience on his side in the first scene and by the end has the whole audience in his pocket.

“Promises, Promises” is not a weighty musical in the tradition of “South Pacific” or “Fiddler on the Roof,” but few shows are better crafted than this one and the current revival is a winner in every creative department.