In Fashion

A Broadway version of a musical originally developed at the Actors Theater of Louisville in Louisville, Ky. The musical numbers are light, pleasant, witty, and fit seamlessly into the play, but are not particularly memorable. Base on a play by Feydeau, the story is essentially a tangle of chance meetings, mistaken identities, "he/she must not know who I really am", lies, deceits, exits and entrances; in short, a farce, as you would expect of Feydeau.

Daniel Davis is a lot of fun as the lead, Dr. Moulineux, does have a wonderful singing voice. Charlotte Rae also is quite delightful, as usual. I also thought that Patrick Tovatt added a lot as the "imbecile" Bassinet. Outside of Ken Jenkins, at the time a Kentucky resident and Actor's Theater regular, the only other person in the cast I recognized was Max Wright, who apparently was making his acting debut in this play. The play moves from scene to scene so quickly that the three women playing wives and mistresses (Donna Curtis, Pamela Hall, and Susan Kaslow) don't really get a chance to establish a presence, though Pamela Hall does get the best comic song in the show and makes the most of it.

I use to usher at Actor's Theater (to see the plays for free, of course) beginning shortly after "In Fashion" closed on Broadway. I remember vaguely hearing about a show which Jon Jory had taken to Broadway. The rumor was that the whole thing had been such a headache, and the play had not done particularly well, that he had sworn never to do it again. Which is a pity for the rest of the world, since Actor's Theater developed at least one more musical that I am aware of, a musical version of "She Stoops to Conquer" entitled "A Lovely Affair", which I think was better than "In Fashion" and which did have some memorable musical number. Ah, but "rest of the world", you'll never know.