Dance theater - The Boy From Oz - Theater Review

Dance Magazine, Nov, 2003 by Sylviane Gold

When was the last time you saw a pair of maracas chucka-chucka-chucking on a Broadway stage? Or, for that matter, a dozen pairs? It has been a while, I'll bet, no matter how old you are. But maracas are definitely back now that Hugh Jackman is going chucka-chucka-chucka at the Imperial Theatre in The Boy From Oz.

Yes, that Hugh Jackman. In August, while you were busy boosting the box office take for X-Men 2, Wolverine was in a Times Square rehearsal studio working on the songs and dances that recount the life and times of Australian entertainer Peter Allen, who died of complications from AIDS in 1992. And one sultry morning, Jackman and the rest of the cast and the show's creators--Martin Sherman, who wrote the book; Philip Wm. McKinley, the director; and Joey McKneely, the choreographer--offered the panting press a sneak peek at what was coming.

It was as carefully arranged as a Rookeries routine. Tall television cameras deployed in a line, still photographers sitting in front of them at the center, writers and radio people at the sides. Two numbers from the show. Then, three-minute video interviews with Jackman, gliding from one camera setup to the next to the next, as if on a Hollywood red carpet.

But the feeling in the room was more Broadway than Hollywood. Allen's pop ballads were hits for stars like Melissa Manchester and Olivia Newton-John; his own albums did well; and he won an Oscar (he contributed to the theme from Arthur). But even though the Broadway vehicle he created for himself, Legs Diamond, was one of the 1980s' more notorious flops, he made his greatest mark as a kinetic, flamboyant, all-out live performer. And that's the Peter Allen who's onstage in the two numbers the Oz cast did.

Allen began his career performing in pubs as a child in New South Wales--Oz, Variety readers know, is shorthand for Australia. And in "When I Get My Name in Lights," he looks back at his younger self exuberantly selling a song, a dance, and most of all, himself, at a rowdy outback saloon. Young Peter is played by Mitchel Federan, a redheaded, 11-year-old phenomenon with tap and ballet chops and enough composure to inspire McKinley to call him "the most adult person in the room." Not surprisingly, there was indeed a grown-up flair in his time steps, pullbacks, and back flips, as well as an infectious boyish glee. McKneely just grins when he talks about him: "He can do anything. I say, 'Can you do a fan kick?' and he says, 'To the knee?' You never have to worry if he can do something--the only question is which is the best side for him." In "Lights," Jackman gamely matches him for a bit, but it doesn't take long to see that the kid version of Peter Allen somehow can tap a lot better than the full-grown one.

Still Jackman's no slouch as a dancer. He's a seasoned stage performer who's done musicals in Australia and England--and he performed Susan Stroman's Dream Ballet when he played Curly in the 1998 London production of Oklahoma! In the second preview segment, "I Go to Rio." Jackman energetically led the entire ensemble in a massive production number complete with shimmies, kicks, and conga chains, and, of course, maracas.

"Hugh is very daring," says McKneely. "He'll try anything. Because he knows I won't let him look bad. And even though he's had no training, he's a natural dancer. He reminds me of Gene Kelly--he's such a guy. Very musical, very athletic. And not self-conscious. And after all, dancing is just being free with your body."

A self-styled "Cajun boy from New Orleans," McKneely comes by his generous definition of dance honestly, he grew up knowing more about craw-fishing than Broadway. "But," he says, "I could not sit still." A local production of A Chorus Line and a role in the eighth grade's Grease directed all that energy toward a dance career. His teacher, Karen Hebert, was, he says, a ballerina who loved jazz, so he never was sold a set of rigid classifications. And he learned in discos, too: "I shook my butt all through the '70s," he laughs.

His first Broadway show was Starlight Express, in 1987, but he dates his artistic birth to 1989, when he was cast in Jerome Robbins' Broadway. "In the late '80s, there weren't any real choreographers. Susan Stroman and that new generation hadn't yet emerged, and the older generation was gone." Watching Robbins pass on his legacy of great Broadway dance inspired McKneely to try. to follow in his footsteps.

So at 25, with his lease on a dancing career far from expired, McKneely stopped "show-hopping" and started carving out a choreography career. His first Broadway gig came in 1995, with Smokey Joe's Cafe. Like The Boy From Oz, that show was based on a song catalog rather than a new score. But McKneely says the similarities end there. For one thing, Oz is not a revue; it's a book musical whose songs function within a narrative, sung at relevant moments by the people in Allen's life--Judy Garland, who discovered him; Liza Minnelli, who married him; Greg Connell, his companion.