PLAYGOER

Musicals may come and go, but Gilbert and Sullivan are good forever and Vinton Freedley seems to have discovered the fact. The program for "Memphis Bound" lists Don Walker and Clay Warnick as authors of the lyrics and music for Mr. Freedley's latest production, "with a grateful nod to W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan." Sir Arthur and Mr. Gilbert deserve more than a grateful nod.

The story of "Memphis Bound" concerns the attempts of a group of Calliboga, Tennessee, Negroes of Lord-knows-what profession to produce "Pinafore" on the deck of an old Mississippi side-wheeler. The plot is sketchy--almost inadequate--by with "Pinafore" and Avon Long and Bill Robinson no one really cares.

Robinson shifts roles between a lazy deputy sheriff of Calliboga and "The Ruler of the Queen's Navee," but he plays only Bill Robinson--the man with the magic feet and the friendly voice and the glorious smile. Whether he's just plain tap dancing, or humming "I Am the Monarch of the Sea," or imitating a 1902 waltz, he steps the show. Long doesn't have too much to do in the play. He concentrates on his own special variety of modern dancing--the slinky gesture and the ecstatic leap that made him famous as Sportin' Life in "Porgy and Bess."

The writers of "Memphis Bound" have been equally shrewd in topicalizing the words and jazzing-up the music of some of "Pinafore's" best songs, and at the same time leaving other of the musical numbers virtually unchanged from the original.

Some of the songs are new--and to the everlasting credit of Messrs. Walker and Warnick, they stack up pretty well against the efforts of their better-established competitors. The very best number is a new one, sung to utter perfection by Robinson, "Growing Pains"; and the authors also hit the top with a mock-serious ditty called "Love or Reason."

What makes a musical a success perhaps more than anything else but the songs themselves are the little touches of humor and sentiment that characterized "Oklahoma!" "Memphis Bound" has them--all the way from the scene where Sir Joseph Porter sails onto the stage preceded by three boats marked "Sisters, Cousins, Aunts" to the situation which finds three Andrews-like sisters playing Josephine all at once because they are an inseparable team.

"Memphis Bound" is the best musical this reviewer has seen in 1945. Without the bathos of "Carousel" or the glamour of "Seven Lively Arts," the play smashes its way into the hearts of its audience with unassuming gaiety and exceptional talent. Jal