Review: Vanities is a dinner theater musical that might entertain your mom.

L to R: Billie Wildrick, Jennifer Sue Johnson and Cayman Ilika in ACT/5th Ave's co-production of "Vanities, A New Musical".

Review: Vanities, A New Musical. Based on the play by Jack Heifner. Book by Jack Heifner. Music and Lyrics by David Kirshenbaum. Produced by The 5th Avenue Theatre and ACT – A Contemporary Theatre. Direction and Musical Staging by David Armstrong. Music Direction by Ian Eisendrath. With Cayman Ilika, Jennifer Sue Johnson, and Billie Wildrick. Now through May 1 at ACT.

Vanities, a “new musical” based on the original 1976 Off Broadway hit play of the same name, is the result of a collaboration between the 5th Avenue Theatre and ACT – A Contemporary Theatre. There’s a lot of jokes I could insert here:

1) “If this musical is the result of a shotgun marriage between the 5th and ACT, then they should have given the result up for adoption…” (Note: I was going to go harsher on that one, and I think you can see where that would have gone, but I would like to be invited back to review future productions at the 5th Avenue and ACT and why burn all your bridges on one review?)

2) “If the “C” in ACT stands for “Contemporary” then judging by this musical they should change the name of the company to ‘A Contemporary Theatre circa 1976’ or ‘ACTc1976’…”

3) OR, to refer back to the headline for this review, “Vanities is a dinner theater musical that might entertain your mom” I could add to that by saying, “Yes, but only if your Mom is a Baby Boomer between the ages of 50 and 70 and has very low brow taste and really, really liked the Sex and the City movies, but not the TV show, and enjoys being patronized and negated as a woman…”

Yes, I really disliked this musical.

But, I understand the economics of it. It’s a small cast show (just three characters) and not that difficult to stage, though ACT/5th Ave have given this show a lavish production with extensive use of stage elevators to move in/out the set pieces. And, the subject matter of Vanities is very obviously geared to both theater’s subscriber base: boomers, especially female ones, between 50 and 70. Who else who have much interest in a show that features three women and their lives, as they age from high school seniors in 1963 to college students in the late 60’s to career women in the 1970’s? Why update a thirty year old play about such women, into a “new” musical” unless you were only interested in appealing to that demographic? There’s nothing fresh here for younger audiences. To be honest and in my opinion, there’s nothing here for ANY audience. Vanities has been hailed as a witty contemporary look at modern women and their roles in society, (well, maybe the original play was referred to as such…) but in reality, this is a clunky, “time passage” comedy clearly aping the superior Same Time, Next Year by Bernard Slade which premiered a year earlier, that purports to deal with women and their issues but it’s written by a gay man and the women in Vanities are nothing but lame archetypes. According to this play, a woman in 1976 had the option of being an uptight, conservative, suburban homemaker, or a slutty capitalist bohemian, or a confused and irritating New Agey mess…in other words, “Mother”, “Whore” or “Flake”. Nice options if you can get them. It also doesn’t help that the jokes are, for the most part, not very funny and the situations are plastic and false. The neat and tidy resolution to the show doesn’t help…we rush through three moments in these women’s lives and everything is blandly tied up in a dull conclusion. It’s bad writing and poor theater.

I should also note that many beloved and iconic entertainments about women were conceived or shaped by gay men. Sex and the City was based on the original book by Candace Bushnell but adapted for television by Darren Star and the head writer/producer was Michael Patrick King, and The Golden Girls was created by Susan Harris, but the series was shaped by original director Terry Hughes and writers like Marc Cherry. Obviously gay men can write for and about women, but they tend to be talented men…Vanities, as written by Mr Heifner, is nothing more than a not that funny joke machine that made a lot of money in the late 70’s in a very long Off-Broadway run in a tiny theater. The topical appeal of the show in that time frame is somewhat understandable, but any need for a revival of this tired work, is not. And, Mr Heifner is going to make a lot more money in the 2010’s because obviously Vanities: The Musical has huge appeal for theater companies desperate for easy to stage material with small casts, as well as for easy to please audiences that enjoy dinner theater level entertainment without an ounce of wit or intelligence. Good luck to you all.

Things I like about this show: the actresses are all very talented and do excellent jobs here. Billie Wildrick as the slutty one, Mary, Jennifer Sue Johnson as the uptight suburbanite, Joanne and Cayman Ilika as the confused one, Kathy. All three actresses are adept at handling the comedy as well as the more dramatic moments, and each one of them can belt out a song…too bad the songs are bland and sophomoric, but they do a nice job performing them. Ms Wildrick shines best in her Scene II solo song, “Fly Into the Future”, nicely protraying the emotional confusion and yearning of a college senior in 1968. Ms Johnson’s best moments occur during her riotously funny drunk moments in Scene III. Drunk scenes are a bit of cliche, but Ms Johnson very expertly handled the moment and made it fresh and funny. Poor Cayman Ilika has the toughest role to play; her Kathy starts out bossy as a teen but ends up confused and unfocused as a woman and she doesn’t have much to play other than ennui, but she does a fine job as the “center” of the show…I just wish she had more to do than look wistful and lost; it’s a waste of her talent.

The show is well-directed by 5th Avenue’s Artistic Director David Armstrong; he keeps the pace moving and allows each actress their individual moments in the spot light and makes the best of the weak source material. Matthew Smucker has constructed his usual fine set, though this show’s set teeters on Cruise Ship Land, it fits the scale and emotional immaturity of the work…glitzy and superficial. The production itself is immaculately designed and executed by all involved. Visually, you get your money’s worth with Vanities, but there’s no originality or charm in its basic meaning. Like Gertrude Stein’s quote about Oakland, “There’s no there, THERE” when it comes to Vanities. Dinner Theaters were a popular evening’s entertainment for suburban couples for thirty years but times have changed; hopefully we’ve moved beyond the need to watch bland plays starring has beens while eating rubbery Chicken Kiev and drinking watered down Scotch. Vanities omits the has beens and food, but don’t be fooled…it’s still a dinner theater play dressed up in new clothes.