Page 16 THE VILLADOM TIMES II & IV • March 21, 2012 Paper Mill hits home run with ‘Damn Yankees’ by Dennis Seuling “Damn Yankees,” the current production at Millburn’s Paper Mill Playhouse, is a timely reminder that baseball season is just around the corner. The show, which debuted on Broadway in 1955, is a regularly revived musical with a snappy score, colorful characters, and razzmatazz choreography. Director Mark S. Hoebee has provided a fast-paced production highlighted by an energetic male ensemble of dancing, singing baseball players. Loosely based on the Faust legend, the plot gets rolling when middle-aged Joe Boyd (Joseph Kolinski), a devoted and long-suffering fan of the last-place Washington Senators baseball team, makes a frustrated wish to change the fortunes of the team. Joe is given his wish -- with stipulations. The mysterious Mr. Applegate (Howard McGillin) appears and offers to transform Joe into 22-year-old Joe Hardy (Christopher Charles Wood), a powerful home run hitter who will give the Senators the shot in the arm they need to become a threat to the New York Yankees. The downside to the deal is that Joe will forfeit his soul. Wood’s Joe Hardy is a solid leading man with a beautiful, rich baritone that is especially poignant in the wistful “A Man Doesn’t Know,” when he thinks of the wife he has temporarily left behind to help his team win the pennant. Though he is the leading man, he gets far less stage time than McGillin’s Applegate, a fellow fond of sleight of hand. He looks after Joe to make sure what he is promised comes to pass, but also uses some of his supernatural trickery to assure he gets his part of the bargain, despite an annoying escape clause that Joe demanded. McGillin delivers some good lines, but others elicited only mild laughter from an otherwise enthusiastic opening night audience. He does play Applegate with a twinkle in his eye and vamps nicely through his only number, “Those Were the Good Old Days,” in which he fondly discusses various cataclysmic events Christopher Charles Wood and Chryssie Whitehead in a scene from ‘Damn Yankees’ at Millof history that offer him burn’s Paper Mill Playhouse. nostalgic comfort. Lola (Chryssie Whitehead) is the temptress Applegate Grant would call “spunk” -- an energetic, sassy “one of the summons to distract Joe from his homesickness and desire boys” attitude -- and is a stand-out. Movie actresses like to return to his wife, Meg (Patti Cohenour). Whitehead Betty Garrett and Eve Arden used to epitomize this type of is reminiscent of Cyd Charisse with long legs and a very character, and Anderson ably carries on the tradition. sensual look. She plays Lola as a seductress, but without a The show’s most famous number, “Heart,” is performed sense of playfulness. The tone should always remain light, after Coach Van Buren (Ray DeMattis) tells his team that so Lola must come across as a comically exaggerated ver- winning games is more than skill: “You gotta have heart, sion of femme fatale. Lola’s big number, “Whatever Lola miles and miles and miles and miles of heart.” This number Wants,” is performed with some suggestive dance moves, is wonderfully staged as each player in the locker room but lacks zing. Later, in the “Two Lost Souls” duet with expresses his thoughts about playing the game with optiJoe, performed in a star-studded limbo, her bouncy deliv- mism and feeling. ery fails to suggest concern about her prospects in the nethThe Act II choral number, “The Game,” harks back erworld since she has failed in her mission. to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “There Is Nothing Like a Denis Jones’ choreography is simply amazing, and the Dame,” as the guys discuss getting into assorted romantic male chorus shines as dancers, even if they lack luster as situations, but hesitating when they think of the effect these the baseball players they are portraying. The show features liaisons will have on the outcome of their games. The sight two great dance numbers. “Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, of these testosterone-driven guys singing about a philosoMo” is sung and performed by newspaper reporter Gloria phy so at odds with their hormones is great fun. Thorpe (Nancy Anderson) and the team members after she “Damn Yankees” will be performed eight times a week, applies that nickname to Hardy. As the men provide lots Wednesday through Sunday, through April 1. Tickets start of athletic dance moves, Anderson nicely keeps pace with at $25 and may be purchased by calling (973) 376-4343, at an assortment of somersaults and cartwheels, evidently the Paper Mill Playhouse box office at 22 Brookside Drive prerequisites for sports reporters. Anderson has what Lou in Millburn, or online at www.papermill.org.