Can you imagine a thoroughly unmodern “Millie” walking the squalid streets of New York City circa 1922 in unflattering farm boots and a loose-fi1tting country dress?
That’s exactly how “Thoroughly Modern Millie’s” namesake protagonist arrives in New York, fresh from Kansas, armed with little more than a suitcase, an open return ticket home and a Big Apple-sized will to succeed. But after she has defiantly torn up the return ticket and had her suitcase stolen in the first five minutes, Millie isn’t left with much – aside from one awkwardly fitting “modern” dress after another.
That’s where the Arvada Center fails its otherwise thoroughly engaging “Millie.” Nicole Sterling is mostly winning in the title role, but her supposedly modern dresses hang timidly from her tall frame.
Millie’s new to New York, but not that new. Her style should parallel that of the other flapper-styled moderns at the speakeasy – semi-loose fitting tubular designs. But regardless of Sterling’s towering beauty, her frocks hang frumpily, distracting from her song and dance.
But it’s just a minor distraction amid this tremendous production. The Arvada Center’s cast owns this material – fortunate for us, as “Millie” is one of the strongest stage musicals written in the past two decades. It has some of the sly self-referential wit of “Urinetown,” which “Millie” beat out for the best musical Tony in 2002. It’s also a stunning, over-the-top portrait of another era, a la “The Producers,” which won the Tony the previous year.
This show’s music outperforms both its peers. And its premise is every bit as absurd. A “white slavery” ring flourishes as a hotelier, Mrs. Meers, kidnaps starving actresses, who are also orphans, and sends them to Southeast Asia to be sold into prostitution. Millie and her friends, including love interest Jimmy Smith, are on the fringes of this ring until they suspect evildoing.
This cast delivers everything this show demands, including sharp dancing (thanks to the choreography of Kitty Skillman Hilsabeck) and spot-on singing voices. Sterling shows exceptional charm on the opening title track and a sentiment that’s just-right in the closing ballad “Jimmy.” Her back-and-forth with the on-point Scott Ahearn, playing Millie’s boss Trevor Graydon, is bewitching in the novel tune “The Speed Test.”
Ahearn plays up the comic factor with perfect timing in the second act’s riotous Victor Hubert combo of “Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life” and “I’m Falling in Love With Someone,” where he’s joined by Pamela Brumley’s Miss Dorothy. Brumley plays a petite undercover princess with aplomb, and her silly banter with Ahearn is the show’s comedic highlight.
It says a lot that Mrs. Meers is the production’s most over-the- top character, but local hero Beth Flynn brings a human element to the other-worldly part. (It helps too that you can understand what she’s saying in her exaggerated accent.) Also terrific are Doan Mackenzie and Fang Du as her Mandarin-speaking psuedo-henchmen, Ching Ho and Bun Foo.
Staff writer Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
“Thoroughly Modern Millie” | *** 1/2 RATING
MUSICAL|Arvada Center, 6901 Wadsworth Blvd.|Written by Jeanine Tesori, Dick Scanlan and Richard Morris|Directed by Rod
Lansberry|Starring Nicole Sterling and Leo Ash Evens|THROUGH DEC. 31|7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, also 1 p.m. Wednesdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays| 2 hours, 40 minutes|$38-$48 |720-898-7200 or arvadacenter.org
3more
“WINTER IN GRAUPEL BAY” In an original, character-driven production described as “a series of photographs set to life,” Buntport Theater creates and follows small-town characters on the longest night of the year. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 6 p.m. Sundays, through Dec. 23 at 717 Lipan St. (720-946-1388).
“ARMS AND THE MAN” George Bernard Shaw’s classic has been called “the most charming anti-romantic romance in all of modern drama.” 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays (some Saturday matinees) through Dec. 17 at Theatreworks, 3955 Cragwood Drive, in Colorado Springs. $12-$22 (719-262-3232 or uccstheatreworks.com).
“THE SPIRIT OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS” This staged reading drawn from speeches and letters features actors from the Shadow Theatre Company backed by a dozen members of the Spirituals Project choir. Performed with Pearl Cleage’s one-act play, “Chain.” 8 p.m. Thursdays-
Saturdays through Dec. 9 at the Emerson Center, 1420 Ogden St. $15 Thursdays; $25 otherwise (303-837-9355).
-John Moore
