The role of common-sense cowboy Will Rogers fits round Brian Burron about as snugly as a lasso ropes a rodeo calf.
The endearing vaudeville biomusical “The Will Rogers Follies” takes us back to the troubles of the Great Depression, but its folksy relevance to current events only seems to grow the longer our modern economic malaise wears on. Comments on the disorganized Democratic Party and the mortgage crisis — of 80 years ago — seem written for today.
This wonderfully anachronistic tuner introduces Rogers, the homespun, uneducated Oklahoman who went on to become a star of stage, screen, newspapers, radio and White House jaw sessions, as the posthumous host of a performance of the very same “Ziegfeld Follies” spectacles that helped make him one of the most influential men in America.
He’s looking back at his remarkable life armed with a rope in his hand, a twinkle in his eye, showgirls on his arm and a holster at his side that’s loaded with simple witticisms both personal and political (“the minute a man becomes a father, he forgets everything he knew about being a son”).
Rogers’ death in a 1935 plane crash is foreshadowed like fate, beckoning him to an unavoidable destiny.
It’s an added treat for anyone observing local theater for the past several decades that Burron finally gets to play opposite his wife, Bren. Eyestone Burron, playing Rogers’ long-suffering wife, Betty Blake, at the Candlelight Dinner Playhouse in Johnstown.
The musical describes every major episode in the humble humorist’s life in the form of a big production number narrated by the lanky, chisel-faced veteran Burron, who puts us totally at ease because he’s totally at ease. You know what they say — give a man enough rope, and he might just rope you in.
That Peter Stone’s book is laced with good-natured and bipartisan political ribbing stands in stark contrast to the carnage of the most recent election season. Rogers teased the left, teased the right and in return was summoned to the White House by five presidents for advice. When the banks crashed in 1929, Herbert Hoover summoned Rogers to the radio to calm terrified Americans.
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? That can-do, come-together spirit of working together for the good of the nation seems to have left us like an Oklahoma duststorm.
But shucks, don’t let that get you down. “The Will Rogers Follies” is a big, bright musical that, under Nancy Roy’s easygoing direction, is appealing from start to finish. The dancing is a constant highlight, though not always executed with the trademark synchronicity of the real Ziegfeld Follies. I appreciated how the program so accurately describes the dance numbers, which faithfully revisit those made famous by Tommy Tune on Broadway in 1991, with a few new twists. It says: “choreographic reconstruction and adaptation by Dr. Karen Genoff-Campbell.”
The highlight: “Our Favorite Son,” which recounts how Rogers was invited to speak at both parties’ conventions, and then ran for president himself.
Judy Ernst’s costumes are a revolving delight, from Rogers’ six sisters dressed as sunflowers to a “human jewel chorus” to powder puffs dancing to the signature song, “Never Met a Man I Didn’t Like.”
But when Rogers speaks of the growing inequity between Americans — “no country ever had more; and no country ever had less,” the typically chatty dinner theater crowd grew as thoughtfully silent as churchgoers.
When he advocates for common-sense “redistribution of wealth” as a way out of the worst economic crisis in our country’s history, you have to remind yourself that this musical was written in 1991. Today, that advice polarizes the nation. In 1929, it not only united the nation, it galvanized it.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“The Will Rogers Follies” ***1/2 (out of four stars)
Candlelight Dinner Playhouse, 4747 Marketplace Drive, Johnstown. Directed by Nancy Roy. Through Jan. 16. 2 hours, 25 minutes. 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays; 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays (dinner service 90 minutes before). $45.50-$59 (more for meal upgrades, drinks and dessert; less for “show only”). 970-744-3747 or
