New Musical in Manhattan

Around the World (adapted by Orson Welles from Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days; music & lyrics by Cole Porter; produced by Mr. Welles) is Orson Welles with his foot on the loud pedal--which is roughly the equivalent of a lunatic asylum at the height of an electrical storm. Producer-Adapter-Actor-Magician Welles has blown up Jules Verne's famous yarn into a mammoth burlesque whose 34 scenes spill over the stage into the aisles and, when that won't do, resort to movie shots.

There are rides on plaster elephants, Hindu immolation ceremonies, Chinese opium hells, Japanese circuses, storms at sea, pistol shots, gas explosions, collapsing railway bridges, Indian raids, eagles swooping down on human prey. It's pretty fast & furious horseplay, but not quite enough fun.

Except for a first-rate circus act and one or two amusing scenes, all the showmanship of Around the World is in the staging. There is something pretty empty and amateurish about the show. It falls down as burlesque, displaying far too little wit and far too much Welles.

Unwisely, too, Welles's extravaganza from time to time pauses for identification as a musical comedy. But the love interest, the exotic dances and Cole Porter's tired tunes merely check the pace without livening the party.

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