42nd Street

Sadler’s Wells Theatre June 2023

“Come and meet those dancing feet.” It’s an open invitation, and you’d be crazy to turn it down.

Money is tight, the daily news is terrible, and the heat is getting people down. The best antidote right now is the new production of 42nd Street, currently in London and soon on its way to lucky viewers all over this country. Leave your worries on the doorstep and start making plans to “hear the beat of dancing feet.” Don’t wait—do it now.

Here’s why. As the overture begins, pinspots pick out a few dancers warming up behind a scrim, some here, some there. When the scrim rises—and, I think, before anyone speaks a word—everyone is out on the floor together, tapping to beat the band. You quickly learn that they’re auditioning for a new show. Who cares. By the time the overture and that exuberant number end, the audience is hooked.

For the last 40 years or so, Stephen Sondheim’s sophisticated wit and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s syrupy romances have dominated the words and music in musicals while extravagant production values, digital effects and puppets have supplied a lot of the action. The dazzling stagecraft thoroughly delights the public, so you don’t hear many complaints. 

But for decades, farther back than most viewers today can remember, dance was more than peripheral to musicals. It played a significant part in their popularity, and people flocked to see the kind of dancing they couldn’t see anywhere else. Long before Michael Bennett celebrated dancers in A Chorus Line (1975), Bob Fosse filled a sleazy ballroom with them in Sweet Charity (1966), Jerome Robbins packed city streets with them in West Side Story (1957), and Agnes de Mille thrust an entire “dream ballet” into Oklahoma! (1943), essentially remodelling the conventional musical format through dance.

Before that, well, in 1933 when unemployment in the U.S. reached 25% and Broadway was struggling, Hollywood was entering what historians later considered its “golden age.” If you wanted affordable entertainment, you got it at the movies. Released that year, 42nd Street transformed the desperate days of the Depression into a cheerful backstage comedy of artistic bickering and fairy-tale success, with Ruby Keeler and Ginger Rogers leading the dancers in their defiant attempt to land on their feet.

Fresh as paint, the tale is as appealing as ever, though theatrical finances have changed; chorus dancers no longer earn $32 a week. You’ll recognize the songs, which include “Lullaby of Broadway” and “We’re In the Money.” You’ll recognize the story: big show in trouble, jobs at stake, unknown hoofer subs for leading lady and saves the day.  “You’re going out there a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star,” the producer tells that hopeful girl. Yes, it’s corny, but the book just allows the show to do what musicals do best.

Sparkling with sequins and energy, every number ignites and deserves immediate applause, not only because the dancers are engaging and step-perfect but because the audience recognizes that they’re the real thing. Amplification can enhance voices; video can effectively replace painted scenery; puppets can realize imaginary creatures in three dimensions. But when dancers perform, they do it all themselves.

The show’s producer declares, “Musical comedy—the most beautiful words in the English language,” and you have to agree when you watch these dancers tap, waltz, spin their parasols, tip their top hats, rap their canes, and reconfigure space with snappy precision.

Busby Berkeley designed the dance routines for the original movie. Gower Champion choreographed the 1980 Broadway production, which ran for nearly 3,500 performances. This time around, Bill Deamer tapped into Berkeley’s ingenious patterns, Fred Astaire’s debonair manner, the suave and jazzy style of the 1930s, and the characteristic Broadway sound of clattering feet to deliver the carefree, joyous evening that hard times demand.

At Sadler’s Wells until July 2,  then touring to October 28. 42ndstreettour.com