Chugging Along

LIKE RICHARD M. NIXON, little Georgie dreams of trains passing in the night. Georgie's train, Broadwaybound, will whirl him breathlessly on to stardom, if only he can catch hold of its handlebars. In his passion to board the train, Georgie plays a politician's game; brash and overeager, he lets his ambitions run roughshod over personal relationships. An act and a half and one wife later, metamorphosed into Broadway actor/composer/producer George M. Cohan, he pleads his success: "I'm not just on that train, I own it," he says.

In the Radcliffe Grant-in-Aid's production of George M!, Greg Minahan as Georgie doesn't just own the train either; he is the train. "If you're not moving, you're slowing down," Georgie says at one point. "That's my idea of the thing--perpetual motion." Bringing a phenomenal level of energy to his role, Minahan, who also directed the show, never does slow down. Aided by a lively George M. Cohan score and foot-stomping choreography, he carries George M! exuberantly onward to its musical destination.

A typical "rags-to-riches" story, the book of George M! is essentially a string of cliches. Then again, the book hardly matters. The show depends instead on an effective rendering of its musical numbers, for which the book is just an excuse, and on a dynamic performance in the leading roles. In this production, it gets both.

Minahan is stunning as wide-eyed, wide-grinning Georgie, who doesn't know the meaning of the word "sidelines." A driven man, he is always sympathetic in his relentless hungering after the lights of Broadway. When Minahan is on stage--which is most of the show--he is absolutely riveting; the excitement he projects virtually swallows up all the other characters. It's an amazing feat, especially since Minahan, though a capable dancer, sings with more vigor than melody. In the end, though, the supreme conviction he brings to his role is what counts.

AFTER MINAHAN, the star of the show is the music. The second act, which features more of Cohan's hits, is especially impressive, with one finger-snapping number fading right into another, like fourth of July fireworks. Under the direction of Karen Krag, the show orchestra handles the music with patriotic zest, only rarely drowning out the performers on stage. Cohan's score is also enhanced in this production by consistently fine choreography, which heightens the excitement of sequences like Minahan's tap-dancing rendition of "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and elaborately mounted production numbers like the "Over There"/"You're a Grand Old Flag" medley.

In general, Minahan, the director, does a good job pacing the show, executing well the transitions between serious and comic moments. The scene where Georgie tries to orchestrate his first wife's departure ("Give it the Cohan touch...Play the sad scene against a happy background," he tells her) is particularly effective. Joe Mobilia's clever sets, all emerging from a revolving backdrop, simplify Minahan's task by smoothing the transitions between scenes.

As a director, Minahan's major failing is that he lets Minahan, the actor, dominate the stage excessively. No other major actor comes anywhere near matching Minahan's energy, and only Mark Kiely as Jerry, Georgie's father, plays his role in a similarly broad comic vein. Sometimes slightly wooden, Kiely overuses his eyebrows for comic effect, but he teams convincingly with Minahan in numbers like the superbly executed Irish duet "Harrigan."

The females in the cast are less notable, partly because their roles are more two-dimensional. It's hard to score dramatic points, after all, with lines like, "You'll make it, Georgie, I know you will." McCaire Henderson as Agnes has a sweet voice, but she's far more persuasive as a stage-frightened girl from Worcester, Mass. than later on as Georgie's second wife. Kathy Evans also has a few good moments as Fay Templeton, an aging star who fumes sarcastically at back-handed compliments.

The male chorus is on the whole stronger than the female chorus, with Mark Szpak and John Behn turning in some fine cameo performances. Szpak demonstrates great comic versatility in very funny bits as a socialist immigrant and an inept political orator spewing malapropisms.

Loud and ebullient, George M! resounds with the rhythms of taps and canes and musical hosannas to the man who, according to legend, once owned Broadway. Giving it "the Cohan touch--speed, lights, music," Greg Minahan has set the Grant-in-Aid production of Joel Grey's Broadway hit squarely on the right track.