The Boys From Syracuse

There are only so many good musicals in this world, and The Boys From Syracuse isn't one of them. The Rogers and Hart score, with a few exceptions like "Sing for Your Supper" and "This Can't Be Love," is only fair, and George Abbott's book must be counted right down there with the worst of them, proving again that one of Broadway's smoothest comedy directors never could write.

So it reflects little discredit on the current Winthrop House production of Syracuse that it collapses shortly after the opening curtain. In the program Abbott's name has been omitted--possibly by design--but his dialogue and his jokes remain--to no one's possible advantage--and the three or four songs worth the name can't make an entire show.

Nor are those songs done full justice. Musical director Michael Tschudin has contributed some flashy arrangements which sound fine coming from his small orchestra, but which seem to confuse the singers and on occasion clash with them as well. The result is that the orchestra and the cast are not always in the same key, and the cast is sometimes in none. In the second act, however, the situation improves, or at least last night it did.

Directors Peter Skolnik and Dean Stolber, who also play the two Dromios, have contributed a farce-full of sight gags and slapstick, but the show simply hasn't enough substance to keep itself moving. And the lack of a single not-otherwise-occupied director probably accounts in part for the fact that some of the actors go their own inexplicable ways without much regard for the rest of the cast.

Stolber himself makes no bones about being an upstaging ham, and sometimes he's funny at it too. But to really like him you've got to like the Art Carney type of comic (on television they're legion). Needless to say, not everybody will. Skolnik is somewhat more restrained, and when he has anything to do he does it wonderfully.

As the other two twins--Antipholus of Syracuse, and Antipholus of Ephesus--George Comtois and Robert Croog (a) look alike, (b) act okay, but (c) sing a little short of the mark. Comtois has a couple of funny moments with his double's mate.

Norma Levin proves herself a fine straight actress as Adriana. But with her two numbers--"Falling in Love With Love" and "Sing For Your Supper"--she seems a little uneasy. It also falls to her lot to sing some of "The Shortest Day of the Year," a song which demonstrates Lorenz Hart at his least inspired. Carol Schectman is a singer first and foremost, and even a little below her range, as in "This Can't Be Love," she works with abundant wonders.

As Luce, Sydne Skolnik really turns on in the second act. She and her director-actor-husband last teamed in Guys and Dolls (before they were married) and would do well to keep it up. Steve Cotler appears in various disguises at regular intervals and with not inconsiderable success.

The scenery, by conductor Tschudin, consists of flaps, pillars and stairways which work well enough but come in less than attractive colors. Also the pillars look like enormous candles, but they can be gotten used to. The stage stretches down the long side of Winthrop dining room, with the unavoidable result that seats are cramped and sight lines poor.

Rolling in the aisles is thus made physically impossible, but the temptation isn't there in the first place.