STAGE REVIEW : ‘Hotel’: Room for Improvement

An alternate title for “Grand Hotel,” the musical that opened a six-day run at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa Tuesday, might be “As the Revolving Door Turns.” This nonstop two-hour Broadway showpiece, based on Vicki Baum’s novel of the same name and set in 1928 Berlin, is high-gear, swank-scale soap opera, wrenched from the jaws of oblivion by the ever-inventive Tommy Tune, director and choreographer.

Aside from the dancing and the stylish look of the production (the same as the Broadway edition, except that the orchestra is in the pit, instead of on the upper tier of Tony Walton’s elegant gold, black and crimson set), there is little else to recommend it: No songs, mawkish stories and uninterrupted activity that leaves you breathless but poorly rewarded.

Nothing gives away this let’s-keep-it-moving mentality more than the clever conceit of having each scene described in the program with song titles printed in block letters as a continuous part of the text. In other words, this is a musical with scenes, in which the songs are incidental.

This might be all right if the scenes in Luther Davis’ book were fundamentally richer (one or two almost are), and if the activity were better motivated and more focused. But the parallel stories of a fading ballerina who falls in love with a young robber baron (take that literally), of an ambitious typist willing--she thinks--to sell herself to a devious business magnate, and of a dying bookkeeper who merely wants to have a final fling at the Grand Hotel, are given more or less equal value, in all cases subordinate to the staging.

(Robert Wright and George Forrest had done some of these songs for “At the Grand,” produced in 1958 by Edwin Lester’s Civic Light Opera in Los Angeles, but Peter Matz’s jaunty orchestrations and additional music and lyrics by Maury Yeston make their revamped score a whole new show.)

We do briefly get caught up in the story of the baron and the ballerina (a mopey role, salvaged by the eminent grace of Liliane Montevecchi), mainly because Brent Barrett gives such a dashing, well-acted and well-sung performance as the young man in a bind who goes after the ballerina’s jewels, but ends up falling in love. A real emotional connection is made in “Love Can’t Happen” and in Montevecchi’s exalted “Bonjour, Amour” (both songs by Yeston).

The well-named DeLee Lively’s typist has a Betty Boop appeal and bounce that humanize her character, and her number with the equally lively bar-tending Jimmys from North and South Carolina (Nathan Gibson and David Andrew White) is one of the more enjoyable. But almost everyone else is stuck in pretty wooden or sullen characters--no one more so than Debbie de Coudreaux’s Raffaela, a mannish secretary/traveling companion to the ballerina whose devotion seems well beyond the call of duty, but whose presence adds nothing to the musical.

K.C. Wilson’s Preysing is acceptable as the lecherous tycoon, but such characters as the philosophizing Colonel Doctor Otternschlag (Anthony Franciosa) or the expectant front desk clerk (Dirk Lumbard) are barely penciled in.

In the show’s biggest letdown, Mark Baker does his best as Kringelein, the ailing bookkeeper, but the character eludes him, remaining mostly superimposed. Even his “We’ll Take a Glass Together,” a Wright and Forrest holdover from “At the Grand” that Michael Jeter’s helplessly dancing feet turned into a Broadway showstopper (earning him a Tony), is downgraded here to just notable.

In other particulars, there is little difference between this and the Broadway version. The trade-off is a weaker bookkeeper for stronger baron, but other problems persist, stumping even Tune’s fine instincts. There is the tendency to line people up in a row, like some chorus line from hell. And there are those four brawny scullery workers--presumably representing an unhappy proletariat and hinting at revolutions to come--who remain merely intrusive. Tune has not found a way to integrate them into the piece.

Santo Loquasto’s maroon-to-red costumes and Jules Fisher’s haunting lights set the right tainted mood, particularly in the recurring dance duets by a largely symbolic Countess and her Gigolo (Victoria Regan and Arte Phillips).

Their dancing is impeccable, but not always appropriate, especially not in the steamy number that follows the death of the baron--a schmaltzy, mock-Ravel’s “Bolero” that undermines the very emotions it’s supposed to enhance.

This is not atypical of a much-decorated show that works hard at giving a lot of bang for the buck, but whose ammunition is blank.

* G rand Hotel,” Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Today- Sunday, 8 p.m.; matinees Saturday-Sunday, 2 p.m. Ends Sunday. $19-$42; (714) 556-ARTS. Running time: 2 hours.

‘Grand Hotel’

Anthony Franciosa: Colonel Doctor Otternschlag

Brent Barrett: Felix Von Caigern, the Baron

Liliane Montevecchi: Elizaveta Grushinskaya, the Ballerina

Debbie de Coudreaux: Raffaela, the Confidante

Mark Baker: Otto Kringelein, the Bookkeeper

DeLee Lively: Flaemmchen, the Typist

K.C. Wilson: General director Preysing, Saxonia Mills

Nathan Gibson, David Andrew White: The Jimmys

David Dollase: The Chauffeur

A musical based on Vicki Baum’s “Grand Hotel,” directed and choreographed by Tommy Tune. Producers Columbia Artists Management Inc., Concerts Productions International, James M. Nederlander, Pace Theatrical Group Inc. Book Luther Davis. Songs Robert Wright, George Forrest. Additional music and lyrics Maury Yeston. Sets Tony Walton. Lights Jules Fisher. Costumes Santo Loquasto. Sound Otts Munderloh. Orchestrations Peter Matz. Musical coordinator John Monaco. Musical direction Ben Whiteley. Music supervision Wally Harper. Stage manager Mark S. Krause.