NEW YORK, NY.- The cutesy Frenchness of Only Gold, a dance-musical hybrid directed and choreographed by Andy Blankenbuehler, begins even before the lights go up. (The preshow announcement is winkingly bilingual.) But it really moves into overdrive when Kate Nash, an English singer-songwriter who provided the music and lyrics, arrives onstage and says: Paris. 1928. A time when rules were ready to be broken. A show that starts that way should come with a content warning: These cliches may hurt your teeth.
The upside of Only Gold, which opened Monday at MCC Theater, is that it is so pretty to look at, and so musically dreamy, you can mostly tune out the words. Nashs are hard to decipher anyway; because rhyme and scansion arent her thing, the ear gets no help. In the song Misery, for instance, the line I will never leave you behind is repeatedly misaccented to make the last word sound like a synonym for derriere. Its an odd sentiment that way.
As for the spoken words the book is by Blankenbuehler and Ted Malawer they have the skeletal feebleness of a fable, except when occasionally larded with triple-creme tropes such as listening to your heart, Paris working her charm and magic in the cobblestones.
Because Only Gold is, in fact, a fable its title apparently drawn from the Alfred, Lord Tennyson line love is the only gold you may not mind that. What sort of language would you suggest for a story about the arrival in Paris of the royal family of Cosimo? To that inevitable city King Belenus (Terrence Mann) drags Queen Roksana (Karine Plantadit) to prepare for the wedding of their daughter, Tooba, pronounced like the brass instrument and portrayed by Gaby Diaz. I believe the characters names were generated by a malfunctioning anagram app.
In any case, the parents marriage has turned cold over the years, and Toobas incipient one to a douchey count (Tyler Hanes) might as well come with a sign saying Not Gonna Happen. Within minutes of Toobas arrival, shes out on the town in her underwear, buying out Cartier and Chanel and locating a bellhop (Ryan Steele) who will make a suitably inappropriate substitute fiance.
Tiresomely, each of these characters has a lesson to learn. (Well, not the douche; hes the disposable kind.) Belenus is to stop being such a royal pain, especially to Roksana, whom he has hurt in some way we are not privileged to learn. To rekindle their love, he commissions a humble watchmaker (Ryan VanDenBoom) to create a bejeweled peace necklace; Roksanas lesson is to accept it. And when the watchmakers fame as a royal provisioner drives a wedge between him and his frustrated wife (Hannah Cruz), even they must learn something Im not sure what, but it involves a piano.
At least Toobas assignment is clear: to stand up for herself as a woman wearing dainties in public. No man will tell her what to do! except Blankenbuehler, who has given her some terrific dances. In one of them, to the song Mouthwash from Nashs 2007 debut album, she stomps out her feelings of thwarted privilege better than anything the book itself can muster, while the bellhop alternately supports her ferocity and waits out her tantrum. Diaz and Steele are thrilling.
But then all the dancing is thrilling; perhaps its the magic in the cobblestones. And if it comes as no surprise that Blankenbuehler, the choreographer of Hamilton, can assemble eye-catching sequences into long narrative arcs, its nice to see him working with a full cast of dancers, not just an ensemble. Well, maybe not a full cast. Nash mostly just walks around or sits at the piano, singing tartly while others push it around like a tea cart; Mann doesnt dance much, either, but his posture tells his story.
The sensational Plantadit more than compensates. Showing off her line and power with every move she makes, she reminds you of the shows she did with Twyla Tharp: Movin Out, in 2002, and Come Fly Away, in 2010. Only Gold sometimes achieves their kind of thrust and physical splendor.
Its also splendid to look at, with the art nouveau swirls of David Korins set lit in rich purples and pinks by Jeff Croiter. Anita Yavichs costumes, nodding to the period but also shredding it, are spectacular. The cast sings prettily, too.
Whether the prettiness outweighs the silliness will involve a personal calculus. For me, the hybridization of dance and musical theater is problematic, as it all but dares you to find one or the other set of genes defective in the resultant offspring. Had Only Gold been merely an evening of choreography set to songs, I would have gotten no less from it, even if Nashs lyrics kept drawing my attention in the wrong direction. Some of the numbers, especially those from her back catalog, have an entirely mystifying relationship to the story, or to any story.
But her music, with its funky accents and faux baroque curlicues on a girl-pop foundation, was evidently inspirational for Blankenbuehler. As he recently told Elisabeth Vincentelli in The New York Times, he thrives on syncopation and (in both senses of the word, I think) the offbeat.
Its a devils bargain: If you want the music, youre pretty much forced to take the words. In Movin Out (with the words of Billy Joel) and Come Fly Away (with the words of Frank Sinatra hits), that isnt fatally awkward; the shows, essentially dance revues, use the lyrics for mood and just a suggestion of plot. Crucially, neither has much, if any, dialogue, because once you have dialogue, you have a fight on your hands, or rather your feet. The two means of delivering information cant help but squabble for primacy.
When its a fair fight, so much the better see West Side Story, or Hamilton for that matter. But in Only Gold, the simplistic story and trite dialogue drag the dancing down. Perhaps the authors spent too much time listening to their hearts and not enough to organs higher and lower.
Only Gold
Through Nov. 27 at MCC Theater, Manhattan; mcctheater.org. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.
This article originally appeared in
The New York Times.