New Musical in Manhattan

Copper and Brass (music and lyrics by David Baker and David Craig; book by Mr. Craig and Ellen Violett) is mostly lead. A musical in which Nancy Walker plays a bonehead lady cop would seem like a pretty good idea, and it is -on the few occasions when Nancv is left to her own expression-changing, body-twisting devices. But there are many occasions when she must wrestle with other people's dialogue and lyrics and tunes, and the even grimmer occasions when she is not even around. Then darkness descends and somnolence mounts.

As one of New York's finest, Comedienne Walker handsomely snarls up traffic in the Holland Tunnel. As a plainclothes operative, she runs amuck in a fur piece and lassos a man trying to bring the fur to heel. As a private citizen she turns into a sort of basket case in a wildly modern chair. But these brief skylarkings and a Bob Fosse dance number and William and Jean Eckart's crisp sets complete the roll of honor. Everything else, whether spoken or danced or sung, has a police-shoes lightness and charm. There is not even the sense that something went wrong with the show; there was never anything to go wrong with it.

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