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Regional Reviews: Washington, D.C. Newsies
Newsies began as a 1992 movie; while it was not an immediate success, many young aspiring performers fell in love with the story of the scrappy New York City newsboys who triumphed over the abusive business practices of the newspaper publishers. Disney Theatrical Productions reunited the songwriters of the film, Alan Menken (music) and Jack Feldman (lyrics), and enlisted book writer Harvey Fierstein to adapt the material for the stage. The basic elements of Tobin Ost's set design are three industrial-looking towers that revolve and shift position from scene to scene, from business facades and row houses to a theater and a warehousing facility for "young unfortunates." Sven Ortel's original projection design, adapted by Daniel Brodie, provides both moving and static photographic images that allow for varied perspectives on the New York skyline, all superimposed on newspaper pages. The cast is large, and Gattelli has brought together a battalion of agile and nervy young male dancers who can get the adrenaline pumping. "Seize the Day," with its kaleidoscopic patterns of somersaults, back flips, cartwheels, and the occasional pirouette, is the high point, but other numbers include both marching and tap. (Incidentally, the company includes only four women, two in major roles.) Dan DeLuca gives a full-blooded, charismatic performance as Jack Kelly, leader of the newsies and, in his spare time, a talented, untaught artist. Stephanie Styles is charmingly outspoken, with a clarion voice as Katherine, a young journalist struggling to be taken seriously in a man's world, and Steve Blanchard is appropriately hissable as the newsboys' antagonist, tight-fisted publisher Joseph Pulitzer. Other standouts are Angela Grovey as a big-hearted vaudeville singer, Zachary Sayle as a newsie called Crutchie, and Vincent Crocilla (alternating with Anthony Rosenthal) as a precocious, big-talking kid.
The National Theatre
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