Turning back the clock Rainbow Stage gamely gives Neil Sedaka's songs another spin on the turntable By: Randall King Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Friday, Jul. 13, 2018

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The Neil Sedaka jukebox musical Breaking Up Is Hard to Do is a nostalgia delivery system in the same way cigarettes are a nicotine delivery system.

It’s not necessarily good for you. But it is an unapologetic indulgence to those of a certain vintage who know… well, who Neil Sedaka is, for starters.

For those of unvintaged vantage: Sedaka was Jewish Brill Building songwriter and pop star whose career peaked in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, one of the reasons this romantic comedy is set in 1960 in a failing holiday resort in New York’s Catskill Mountains.

Esther’s Paradise is operated by Esther Simowitz (Debbie Maslowsky), a widow struggling to keep the place together after paying off the debts left by her late, lamented hubby.

Among her remaining,dubious assets: faithful baggy-pants comedian and emcee Harvey Feldman (Wayne Buss), secretly carrying a torch for Esther.

Sexing up the resort stage every night is studly singer Del Delmonico (Darren Martens), an entertainer not afraid to employ seduction to keep the female clientele entranced.

Keeping the place running is shy genius Gabe Green (Nelson Bettencourt), a schlimazel with the social skills of Jerry Lewis in The Nutty Professor.

Into this turf comes Marge Gelman (Katie German), a bride freshly left at the altar. To get some use from her honeymoon reservation, her best friend Lois (Laura Olafson) has brought her here, eager to help Marge recover from the devastating romantic trauma.

Breaking Up, with a book by Erik Jackson and Ben H. Winters, was scripted in the template of Mamma Mia, so Sedaka’s songs are employed to enhance the story. It helps that Sedaka wrote songs for women — notably Connie Francis — allowing, for example, Lois to entice Marge to stay at the resort because it’s “Where the Boys Are.”

But where you had to respect how Mamma Mia re-calibrated ABBA songs to help drive character and plot, this musical just uses any old frail pretext to compel characters to sing hits such as Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen, Oh Carol, Calendar Girl and Love Will Keep Us Together.

It’s all as corny as a Catskills comedian, with cultural references — Betty Grable, American Bandstand — that will blithely leave younger audiences mystified.

Director Debbie Patterson has her work cut out for her making a viable entertainment from — Sedaka’s infectious tunes notwithstanding — schlocky stock.

Fortunately, Patterson knows how to get the most of her talented cast.

As the broken-hearted Marge, German gives the show its beating heart with a grounded centre that somehow allows her fellow actors permission to go off the deep end without drowning.

The powerfully-voiced Olafson puts some borscht in her belt and some broad in her broad strokes-performance as wannabe singer Lois.

Bettencourt somehow finds warmth within the nerdly strictures of a character that is damn near a cartoon. Martens maintains magnetism in his turn as a heel. And Rainbow vet Maslowsky commands the stage with sweet sass.

Buss doesn’t quite nail the snappy rhythms of the Catskills comedian of the era. (Alas, the closest contemporary approximation of the form is Fozzie Bear.)

Jukebox musicals are popular and relatively cheap to mount, but they generally have insufficient impact to entice the next generation of theatregoers to keep the faith.

Here’s hoping, under the sway of newly minted artistic director Carson Nattrass, Rainbow Stage takes a break from them… no matter how hard it is to do.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @FreepKing

Randall King
Reporter

In a way, Randall King was born into the entertainment beat.

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