‘Roman Holiday’ fails chemistry test
Musical has S.F. premiere, but misses charm of hit movie
“Roman Holiday,” the new Broadway-bound musical based on the classic 1950s movie, desperately wants to sweep us off our feet. But like an overeager suitor who leaves you cold, this all-too-forgettable musical tries way too hard in its out-of-town tryout at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre.
Director Marc Bruni assembles all the ingredients for a hopelessly romantic evening of musical theater escapism: a gamine ingenue, an infectious score, even a vintage Vespa on stage. But what’s missing is the spontaneous rush of headlong infatuation that suffused the iconic William Wyler film, which starred Audrey Hepburn (in her movie debut) and the dashing Gregory Peck.
Revisiting an effervescent fairy tale in our jaundiced time is no mean feat. This is the age of Ivanka Trump, not Grace Kelly, and it’s tough to recapture the charm of that bygone era.
The book, written by Paul Blake, Kathy Speer and Terry Grossman, often feels dated, the jokes cheesy. The gags about Italians edge into cringeworthy stereotypes.
It’s also a little hard to empathize with the overscheduled Princess Anne (a dulcet-voiced Stephanie Styles) who has grown so tired of her tiaras and bored of her ball gowns that she goes AWOL during a trip to Rome. She stumbles upon gimleteyed reporter Joe Bradley (a likable Drew Gehling) while she lolls about a park bench under the influence of a sleeping pill.
While the raffish newshound initially hopes to score a front page scoop off the lady’s travails, he soon finds himself smitten with the royal kitten. It’s a reverse Cinderella story but alas not every pumpkin turns into a carriage. You don’t really care about these cookie-cutter characters, let alone fall for them.
The Cole Porter songbook certainly holds some enchantment, seducing us with the magic of “Night and Day” and “Just One of Those Things,” but the tunes too often simply restate the theme. The songs feel jammed into the narrative for no apparent reason.
The magnetic Sara Chase certainly adds pizazz as the brassy Italian chanteuse Francesca, but giving Joe’s buddy Irving (a witty turn by Jarrod Spector) a love interest also feels contrived. Chase’s sublime rendition of “Begin the Beguine” is the show’s musical highlight, but it makes no sense in terms of narrative.
Still the actress vamps with the best of them, infusing the staging with a pluck and verve it would otherwise lack.
For his part, Spector lands some of the musical’s best zingers, but the romance at the core of the fable feels flat by comparison.
If there was more heat between Styles and Gehling (“Waitress”) the whole affair might be more shimmering. But as it is, many of the scenes, such as the Vespa tour of Rome and the meandering jaunt through the marketplace, feel like filler.
The most ebullient aspect of “Roman holiday” may be the redoubtable shtick of Georgia Engel as the irrepressibly addled Countess. The wonderfully tart Engel, who also recently starred in “John” at ACT, tells the same joke over and over but darned if it doesn’t get funnier every time. She’s a gem and the sheer force of her personality gives this princess diary its rare moments of sparkle.