Regional Reviews: Seattle

Dirty Dancing
The Paramount

Jennlee Shallow and Doug Carpenter

Screenwriter and stage adapter Eleanor Bergstein treats her words like the holy grail, telling of the waning days of a Catskills resort in the Summer of 1963, where wealthy middle-aged parents bring their kids for a summer of swimming, bountiful food, and samba and mambo lessons taught by sultry sexpots and suave Casanova types. The precocious daddy's girl Baby Houseman falls hard for her dance instructor, the genuinely talented Johnny Castle. She also grows into a pretty fair dancer during a summer rife with romance, heartbreak, laughs, and lots of dancing, dirty and otherwise. Sub-plots involving the winds of change via the civil rights program, and a few other extraneous if period effective add-ins are factored in. But the central romance and the big moment leading up to the much quoted line "No one puts Baby in a corner" and "(I've Had) The Time of My Life" are the key draw here.

In the role that defined the late Patrick Swayze, understudy Josh Drake fails to impress much in a part that demands warmth and magnetism, though he handles his requisite dance moves, especially in the big number, quite well. Jillian Mueller's Baby is as much a doppelganger for Jennifer Grey as possible and is appealing, touching and sincere. As her father Dr. Jake Hoffman, Mark Elliot Wilson is wooden and stiff, and completely shown up by Caralyn Kozlowski as his less-Stepford-wife-than-she-looks spouse Marjorie, who creates a full, emotionally invested character with little dialogue and zero chemistry with her onstage romantic partner. The little she gets to sing or dance is so accomplished one wishes there were more for her to do. As Baby's jealous slightly older sister Lisa, Emily Rice is delightfully strident and awkward, and shines as she struggles through a hideous hula song at the camp talent show. The standout vocalists in the show are Jennlee Shallow and Doug Carpenter who both deliver on their standard solos (hers being "You Don't Own Me," his "In the Still of the Night") and sharing the honors on "(I've Had) The Time of My Life."

Director James Powell keeps the show's pacing up and handles the cinematic style staging well enough, with Jon Driscoll credited for the extensive use of video and production design (between rain scenes and swim scenes I kept expecting to get drenched myself). Choreography by Michele Lynch, apparently based on original choreography by Kate Champion, is athletic, energetic, and sexy as required. The onstage band under music supervisor/orchestrator Conrad Helfrich is way too loud at times, drowning out the vocals.

This show was marginally more entertaining to me than the woeful stage take on Flashdance which hustled across the Paramount stage in a recent season, probably because I prefer the source material of Dirty Dancing. But for the undiscriminating avid fans of the original film, this may be your kind of night out. Me, I'll Netflix the movie and watch Swayze and Grey instead.

Dirty Dancing runs through February 1, 2015, at the Paramount Theatre at 9th and Pine in Downtown Seattle. For schedule and tickets, visit Stgpresents.org. For more information on the tour, visit www.dirtydancingontour.com.