Dames at Sea opened at the Helen Hayes Theater on Thursday, and critics agree that this once-golden musical has lost a bit of its charm through the years. The problem isn’t necessarily with the production itself: the small cast, led by Eloise Kropp as the budding starlet Ruby, performs admirably, and the tap numbers, choreographed by director-choreographer Randy Skinner, are fast and dazzling. The big missing element is something unexpected. Since this campy musical first opened to great success, many have followed in its footsteps and thoroughly mined the genre for all its got. Now, Dames feels less like a tribute to or spoof on anything – it feels more like a relic. Unless you’re seeking a night of unbridled camp, it might be wiser to stay on land for this sea cruise.
NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW OF DAMES AT SEA
What’s that old expression? Oh, yes, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. That phrase floated through my head more than once during the Broadway revival of “Dames at Sea,” which opened at the Helen Hayes Theater on Thursday. This pert spoof of 1930s movie musicals was a surprise smash when it opened almost a…
TIME OUT NEW YORK REVIEW OF DAMES AT SEA
“Dames at Sea” was launched in 1966 at the downtown coffeehouse Caffe Cino, where its affectionate send-up of 1930s movie musicals tapped—or, rather, tap-danced—into nostalgia for the busily silly spectacles of yesteryear. Now it’s on Broadway, where it lands like a harmless piece of wet fluff. The first 20…
VULTURE REVIEW OF DAMES AT SEA
Mathematicians, or theater producers, have determined that the ideal interval separating the emergence of an entertainment genre from its recurrence as a musical spoof is 35 years — about the time it takes for the youngsters who first made the form popular to become oldsters eager to see it sent up. Anyway…
WALL STREET JOURNAL REVIEW OF DAMES AT SEA
“Dames at Sea,” the ultra-campy 1966 musical about the you’ll-come-back-a-star backstage movie musicals of the early ’30s, has finally made it to Broadway. I’m not sure why, since the point of the show, which employs just six performers (one of whom plays two parts) and whose original downtown run opened the do…
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