Dan's Papers - September 26, 2008 - Wedding Singer at Gateway

Writing this review gives me no pleasure because of the considerable respect I have for Paul Allan and his colleagues at Gateway Playhouse, who have given me so much pleasure over the past 16 years of watching their Broadway caliber productions of musicals, both old and new. However, to qualify as a musical, to my old fashioned mind, the production should be musical, have a reasonable book to weave the story between the songs, effective choreography and then have a cast that shows that it' s enthused about what it's doing on stage. Based on these criteria, this Wedding Singer is terribly flat and off key. What a pity, because in many ways, this has been one of Gateway's best ever seasons, including wonderful productions of Showboat, Beauty and the Beast and, of course, The Producers.

The Wedding Singer is based on a film starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore and, by all accounts, this was a good comedy that relied heavily on the chemistry between the two stars. Well, history shows that a successful film cannot always be reborn as a successful musical - maybe you have to be a Mel Brooks to do this regularly and Matthew Sklar, Chris Beguelin and Tim Herlihy, who are responsible for the music, lyrics and book, are certainly not Mel Brooks! Similarly, Greg LoBuono, who plays Robbie Hart, supposedly the hottest wedding singer in New Jersey, and Noel Molinelli, who plays Julia, the girl with whom this tremendous chemistry is supposed to happen, play their roles with such dullness and lack of vocal prowess that you can only wonder where director and choreographer Keith Andrew was during rehearsals.

This is a show, where, even if the music style is not your first choice, the choreography should set the stage on fire with memories of the excesses of the '80s. All you get though is a tired procession of caricatured characters in cartoon type costumes hopping around with about the same level of terpsichorean dexterity that is regularly shown by most adult males at weddings - perhaps that was the objective, in which case, they succeed, but it does not make for a fun evening in any respect.

It would be easy to go on and on about the weaknesses of this show and wondering why it was even chosen for this year's schedule, especially when it had such a mediocre reception on Broadway, where it only lasted for less than seven months. The best thing, though, is to continue to be thankful for Gateway and all of the very good and classy things they do and to look forward eagerly to the announcement of the selections for the 2009 season (please, not The Pirate Queen) and then the opening night of the first show in the spring.