Bright Lights and Heartache Song & Dance

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III

The most rewarding thing in show business is to become a brand name, presold to audiences, like Agatha Christie or Neil Simon. Andrew Lloyd Webber may be headed toward that status as composer of such glossy, high-energy musicals as Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats and Starlight Express. Lloyd Webber has mastered the trick of seeming to juggle big ideas while actually asking little of his audience beyond a pleasant passing of time.

Thus he can shape a whole evening about Evita Peron that ducks the moral dimensions of fascism and can adapt poems by T.S. Eliot without tackling any metaphysical notion more complicated than an escalator ride into the clouds. No celestial choirs appear to sing in Lloyd Webber's ears, no muse or demon seems to haunt him, and his concoctions cannot bear close logical inspection. But he can beguile even sophisticated viewers into believing for the moment that they are witnessing highflying art.

In Lloyd Webber's Song & Dance, which opened on Broadway last week, the structure as usual looks ambitious but the execution is sweet and simple. The opening half is a solo song cycle about a young Englishwoman (Bernadette Peters) who comes to the U.S. to pursue romance, glamour and a hard-nosed career as a hat designer. At first she is abused by men who exploit her, or treat her as another expensive toy, or shy away from commitment. Then she treats a man that way, condemns herself for it and vows to recapture her lost innocence.

The second half is an almost entirely wordless dance ensemble piece set to Lloyd Webber's Variations, based on Paganini's A minor Caprice. One of the unseen characters in the first half, the young woman's nearest approximation to a true love (Christopher d'Amboise), prowls his way through the fleshly entertainments of Manhattan, only to decide he is ready to settle down, whereupon the young woman reappears to accept his offer. Like the woman, the young man is an outsider: as his trademark red jacket proclaims, he is from Nebraska. Like her, he is dazzled by bright lights and the fast life but realizes there is no place for the heartsore like home.

This thematic link was missing when an earlier, less coherent version of the show ran in London. Credit for the rethinking goes to Director Richard Maltby Jr., who also reshaped many of Don Black's lyrics to jape pop culture, and to Peter Martins, whose choreography gives the story of a young man on the town a vibrant blend of funk and wholesome virility.

The real joy of the evening comes from the two central performances. Peters is cuddly yet tough. She gives vocal color and emotional depth to songs ranging from a succession of one-liners about the social advantages of an English accent to an all-purpose tirade, Take That Look off Your Face, to a delicate ballad, Come Back with the Same Look in Your Eyes. D'Amboise is limited to three facial expressions: wide-eyed wonder, hangdog hurt and a nod of sudden understanding. But he bounces through the ballet routines with every bit of the puppyish appeal that Peters has already attributed to him in her songs, and has a charming exchange with a chance acquaintance (Gregg Burge) who dazzlingly teaches him to tap. Together the enamored pair brings off the quirkiest of love stories: in the latest and not the least of Lloyd Webber's tricks, Peters and D'Amboise are not even seen together until just before the final, exuberant bow.