A Big Hot Mama With Blue Suede Shoes

GIGOLOS are perhaps not the stuff of which musical comedies are made of.

But Rogers and Hart manage to pull it off. The star of their 1940 production "Pal Joey" is just such a two-timing. egotistical phoney. Let's not mince terms; "gigolo" may be too nice a word to describe him.

The story revolves around Joey Evans, cheap nightclub dancer par excellence, who gives up Linda English, the girl he loves, to profit from the attentions of Vera Simpson, a wealthy matron willing to pay--quiet handsomely--for her pleasures. Joey quickly tires of Vera and look pleasures. Joey quickly tires of Vera and looks and Linda against him.

This battle-of-the-sexes takes place against the backdrop of a Chicago nightclub and jazzy be-bop syncopation. The era? When guys packed heaters and goils snapped chewing gum and were referred to as having "gams," instead of legs. People mispronounced words longer than three syllables. Gun molls abounded, and their boyfriends had special revolver pockets fitted into their suits.

Yet "Pal Joey" departs from the stock formula for gangster shows. It's a strikingly bold and saucy trollop of a play, one that must have titillated or even shocked 1940s audiences. Lorenz Hart's lyrics do not play coy. Vera warbles of Joey in the classic song, "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," that

Where it counts, he's adept enough...

I'll worship the trousers that cling to him!

Thank God, I can be oversexed enough...

Then, having moved in with each other, Vera and Joey trill contentedly, "In our little den of iniquity...We've separate bedrooms; one for play and one for show." If one were to look for a central theme of "Pal Joey," a Wagnerian leitmotif, if you will--it would have to be sex.

IN THE South House production, Jonathan Star has done a commendable job of integrating audience and set, creating a simple "T" -shaped stage surrounded by small square tables for the crowd. This not only evokes a tawdy nightclub, but also serves to pull the audience into the action onstage. Sitting in the crowd, one has almost the sense of being an extra in the show.

The "T"-shaped stage handsomely conduces to Gladys Bumps' (played by Debbie Danielpour) smoldering dance number, as she belts out, "I'm a red hot mama but I'm blue on you." Danielpour's pelvic thrusts initiated catcalls from the crowd, and the gutsiness she poured into the song more than compensated for any small flaws in the singing.

The stage also allows dancing room for the goils and their heated-packing henchmen. Frenetic Charlestons were done in all manner of abbreviated costumes. Liz Miller, as one of the chorus, projected energy and delivered lines in a marvelous high-pitched, ingenuous squeak.

Salvos of applause to Holly Sargent, however, who in the role of Vera, evinced a polish and versatility lacking in her male lead. Joey (Peter Mulrean) managed to look either peeved or bored throughout the entire show; I kept hoping they would pull him offstage with one of those big, vaudevillian hooks. Sargent, on the other hand, oscillated with ease from ladylike dignity to heartfelt compassion, to aching sexuality. She waxed multi-dimensional, in contrast to Mulrean's iron-poor performance. Mulrean's heart did not seem to be in it.

ADMITTEDLY, he had a tough role. How can you play a likable gigolo? Still, I felt he might have tempered his nastiness with some kindness or at least wistfulness. His abrasive quality did not win laughs.

Joey did succeed in coming alive during the songs, however. The chrysalis transformed into a butterfly;

Don't worry girls

You never can erase

The hunter from the chase...

Joey does get erased at the end of the show, as Vera dumps him and sweet, sincere Linda (convincingly played by Linda Stafford) can only feel sorry for him. Joey is forced to leave town, in part because of blackmailing gangster Ludlow Lowell (Joe Shrand). Shrand, by the way, stands out as one of the snappiest characters in the show, in his brown pinstripes and white tie. His use of "dems" and "dose" would have made Damon Runyon proud.

"Pal Joey" is an amusing vaudeville pinned on the line and left hanging in the breeze. There are not many characters to admire in the play--save, perhaps, Linda the ingenue. Rogers and Hart are telling us, basically, that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. But Jeez! Get a load of dose gams!