Misfires mar comic 'Bullets Over Broadway'

The 2014 musical "Bullets Over Broadway" is a rare example of a show that is both exhilarating and exasperating - sometimes at the same time. Local audiences can get a sense for themselves with the non-Equity national tour that both leaps and stumbles along at The PrivateBank Theatre in Chicago.

Hopes were high for this screen-to-stage Broadway adaptation of Woody Allen's six-time Academy Award-nominated 1994 film that chronicled the backstage shenanigans of a new play's creation in 1920s New York and Boston.

Yet "Bullets Over Broadway" didn't become the smash hit that many hoped for, even with Allen himself adapting the script from his screenplay (co-authored with Douglas McGrath) and five-time Tony Award-winning director/choreographer Susan Stroman at the helm.

"Bullets Over Broadway" revolves around idealistic writer/director David Shayne (Michael Williams). He's forced to make artistic and moral compromises when mobster kingpin Nick Valenti (Michael Corvino) agrees to back the play with the condition that his ditsy showgirl lover, Olive (Jemma Jane), have a featured role. Shayne also gets manipulated by his leading lady Helen Sinclair (a delightful Emma Stratton in grande dame mode) and Olive's gangster bodyguard, Cheech (a menacing Jeff Brooks), who demands improving rewrite after rewrite.

The musical's first stumbling block was the decision to use only pre-existing music from the 1920s. Catchy songs like "I'm Sitting on Top of the World," "Let's Misbehave" and "Tiger Rag" give "Bullets Over Broadway" an authentic period sound, especially in jazzy nightclub production numbers. But the songs' surface sentiments don't help flesh out the characters, especially in fraught conflict scenes featuring Shayne's longtime girlfriend, Ellen (Hannah Rose DeFlumeri).

Music adapter Glen Kelly contributed new lyrics to tie the numbers to situations in the show, but many still feel like shoehorned interruptions to Allen's script. Without a custom score to musically embody the characters' thoughts and emotions, everyone comes off as cartoonish.

Stroman's staging (re-created for the tour by director Jeff Whiting and choreographer Clare Cook) alternates between impressive and puzzling. The dancing is often top-notch, particularly in the aggressive gangster tap dance "Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I Do" that is the crowd-pleasing highlight of the show. But there are many other questionable moments like "The Hot Dog Song" (which abounds with crude phallic visual gags) and a sloppily staged Act II chase sequence featuring gun-toting gangsters.

The look of this tour also reflects a split, appearing luxurious in spots and cut-rate in others. William Ivey Long's period costumes are the height of 1920s glamour, and they're shown to great effect via Carolyn Wong's re-creation of Donald Holder's original flashy lighting design. Yet scenic designer Jason Ardizzone-West's sets and backdrops look flimsy and often fail to conceal stagehands shifting large props and set pieces in the middle of scenes.

Still, the performing ensemble soldiers on with plenty of verve and energy. Bradley Allan Zarr wins laughs as the overeating British leading man Warner Purcell, while Rachel Bahler does what she can as the supporting actress Eden Brent, who is stuck with unfortunate pig-Latin phrases and a phony toy-size dog.

With so many comical characters, "Bullets Over Broadway" seemed ripe for musicalization. But as this national tour shows, too many of the creative shots veer off target.