Switch-hitting ‘Damn Yankees’ scores
Summer means baseball. But it also means Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, which covered a lot of its own bases when it produced the musical “Damn Yankees,” a homespun, heartwarming take on the story of a man who sells his soul to the devil. Where have you heard that before? Oh, yes, in one of the most famous of operas, “Faust.”
OPT likes to incorporate a piece of musical theater into its SummerFest series at the Twentieth Century Club in Oakland. Usually the productions border on operatic, at least in part, such as “A Little Night Music” or “The Fantasticks.”
You might say artistic director Jonathan Eaton’s company swung for the fences in this one. But then, this remarkably clever group never seems to play things safe. If “Damn Yankees” didn’t have the operatic chops of other musicals, this tongue-in-cheek twist had plenty to chew on.
Sunday’s audience was ready for the first “pitch” in more than one way. Moving through a “concession” area with hot dogs and popcorn, one group was dressed in ball caps and T-shirts (all Pirates instead of the now-defunct Washington Senators, and the ever-present New York Yankees).
Inside the ballroom were vintage banners like Knittles and Dyno-Mite, and a green carpet cutout resembling a baseball diamond. Conductor Michaella Calzaretta, expertly wielding her baton, actually faced the audience at the far end, with a sextet for accompaniment (mostly hidden behind sound buffers and a couple of versatile set pieces).
The major twist for this “Damn Yankees,” though, was a reversal of the sexes, with male parts played by women (except for reporter Gloria Thorpe) and vice versa. Apparently OPT couldn’t field a complete male baseball team, so why not?
It was a decision a couple of years in the making. In the meantime, the U.S. Supreme Court supported gay marriage, women athletes pushed for more recognition, and public opinion began to embrace the LGBT community, giving this 1955 musical an up-to-date slant.
Costumes and makeup were minimal. Everyone dressed in unisex black tops and denims with a few pertinent accessories to define the characters — jackets, caps, aprons.
That meant that the artists had to let go of highbrow operatic instincts and embrace lowbrow accents and attitudes. This “Damn Yankees” was puzzling at first, where four swaggering women burst into the show’s anthem, a very highpitched “Heart.”
In fact, the women had a trickier path because the songs forced them into a high operatic range. Yet, they tackled some Brooklynese, unleashed a few acrobatic turns, and wielded their bats with confidence.
I was waiting to see how Lola, originally played by Gwen Verdon, would come across. And Patrick Shelton delivered. A towering figure of a man, he didn’t try to hide his large frame. Instead, he merely softened it. Not a dancer, he has a good sense of rhythm, so the real Lola came through. And he was able to sing “Whatever Lola Wants” in the same range as Ms. Verdon with a real balance of Broadway and classical training.
Musically, the ballads were best, such as the “A Man Doesn’t Know” duet between Rachel Eve Holmes (as Joe Hardy) and Benjamin Robinson (as Meg Boyd). And if Julia Fox was more shrill than smarmy as Mr. Applegate, she hit a home run when she sang “Those Were the Good Old Days,” turning it into a satiric aria complete with cadenza using a musical quote from Mozart’s “Queen of the Night.”
Although this “Damn Yankees” was a hybrid of a hybrid under Scott Wise’s direction, with some cast members more Broadway than others, it still was a thought-provoking and entertaining look at American’s favorite pastime and a winner.