![]() Irving, Carole Cook, Carleton Carpenter and Gerry Vichi were more than up to whatever is called for and by the final "Boom Ditty Boom" reprise and the touching " Yes" they pulled Dukakis in enough to glance up occasionally from the script which is a standard Encores! prop but in her case seemed to serve more as a lifeline. ![]() We're old enough to stop the show and talk when we want to, sing when we want to."īob Dishy, Anita Gillette, George S. As Tina Fabrique's Melba put it at the beginning "We don't care about motivation. The play within a play frame for the caper is rather muddled but it does serve as an excuse for the cast members to liven things up with songs and commentary. And so, under the leadership of Ida Dodd (Olympia Dukakis the only miscast performer, who sings gamely but not well), some of the residents form a sort of Robin Hood gang with a specialty in expensive furs in order to accumulate enough money to buy the Sussex Arms. The story, such as it is, revolves around a group of residents in an upper West Side residential hotel that's fallen on hard time and may have to shut down. But, ahead of its time as the concept may have been, the plot based on play entitled Breath of Spring by Peter Coke, remains contrived and its pleasures derived from the charm of the performers. It would be nice to report that the musical's failure to sustain more than 35 performances when it originally opened on Broadway was a case of the public not yet being ready for a show about a group of senior citizens. ![]() It wasn't exactly a high precision kick line but all are still in fine voice and even the less adept dancers were fun to watch. The shortcomings of the first act notwithstanding, the entire cast started things off disarmingly by casting off canes and shawls and rising from their chairs to form a show-biz line-up of high kickers. Though not the success of Chicago (which began its current Broadway run at Encores!) or Cabaret, and without any instantly recognizable standards, 70, Girls, 70, nevertheless has enough of this team's razzle-dazzle beat for this cast of sensational senior citizens to dazzle us with. That said, there were a number of show stoppers, with the one that got the biggest rise out of the audience a delightful song and dance duo between Charlotte Rae and Mark Price, the latter the only non-social security eligible cast member who urged everyone to "Go Visit Your Grandmother." Its cast of 22 veterans of some 140 Broadway shows lent enough sparkle to forgive a lusterless book and a somewhat sluggish first act. ![]() The Encores! revival fell short of 70 performers, but no matter. The title of this 1971 musical is a play on the ads trumpeting the number of performers featured in Flo Ziefeld's Broadway extravaganzas. Mark Price & Charlotte Rae in 70, Girls, 70ħ0, Girls, 70 is a musical ode to savoring every drop of life no matter how old you are whether the cup is made of cardboard or fine china. ![]()
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