By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY
NEW YORK � It's an old showbiz rule that a performer should never make his job look like work. But there are times when it's great fun to watch an actor, particularly a famous one, rise to an obvious challenge.
By Ari Mintz
Daniel Radcliffe stars as a corporate con artist in the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Tammy Blanchard plays the boss's mistresss.
By Ari Mintz
Daniel Radcliffe stars as a corporate con artist in the revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Tammy Blanchard plays the boss's mistresss.
Consider Daniel Radcliffe, starring in the thoroughly charming revival of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (* * * � out of four) that opened Sunday at Broadway's Al Hirschfeld Theatre.
The 21-year-old screen veteran already proved his stage worthiness in a 2008 revival of the psychological melodrama Equus. But this 1961 Frank Loesser musical requires a different set of skills, and not just the ability to sing and dance.
How to Succeed ? even more than Loesser's masterwork, Guys and Dolls? relies on the audience's willingness to embrace its often bumbling characters and their specific (and at this point, dated) world. Old-fashioned musical comedy of this nature demands a breezy joyousness that can actually be a lot harder to achieve than it looks.
If Radcliffe doesn't provide a study in loosey-goosey virtuosity, he certainly captures and savors the joy. The role of J. Pierrepont Finch, a window washer turned corporate con artist who flatters and schemes his way to the top in early 1960s Manhattan, accommodates a certain self-consciousness. Addressing the executives who will speed along his ascent at the World Wide Wicket Company, this young Finch speaks rapidly and purposefully, so that we always see the wheels spinning behind his schoolboy smile.
But as complications arise ? many involving Finch's pompous, philandering boss, J.B. Biggley, and Biggley's weaselly nephew/employee, Bud Frump ? Radcliffe relaxes enough to revel in the controlled chaos. He also reveals, in the musical numbers, a serviceable tenor and sufficient rhythmic savvy to handle Loesser's jaunty, jazz-tinged score.
The orchestra, under David Chase's direction, serves that score ravishingly, and director/choreographer Rob Ashford guides the onstage proceedings with similar stylishness and exuberance. The production numbers are full of high-spirited, period-perfect humor, enhanced by Catherine Zuber's eye-candy costumes. Radcliffe sports a blazing turquoise bow tie, while the female principals and chorus are decked out in a parade of bright pastels.
Pink is the color favored by Finch's love interest, the sweetly feisty secretary Rosemary Pilkington, who via newcomer Rose Hemingway becomes this season's most adorable and vivacious ing�nue. Tammy Blanchard also shines as Biggley's dimwitted mistress, bringing sassy swagger and comic panache to the bimbo role.
John Larroquette's Biggley is less of an instant hit, showing even more of a tendency to rush through lines than Radcliffe does, though with less obvious character-based incentive. But Larroquette grows funnier and more lovable as the show progresses, and manages an endearing chemistry with the considerably younger (and shorter) leading man.
In fact, Radcliffe ultimately succeeds not by overshadowing his fellow cast members, but by working in conscientious harmony with them ? and having a blast in the process.
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