Danza dazzles in ‘Honeymoon’ for stage
NEW YORK — What happens in Las Vegas doesn’t always stay there. Honeymoon in Vegas, based on the 1992 Nicolas Cage movie, has arrived on Broadway with a winning dose of glitz and kitsch.
The musical, starring Tony Danza as a dapper highrolling gambler, is adapted from the movie of the same name — which also featured James Caan and Sarah Jessica Parker. Its Broadway opening on Thursday at the Nederlander Theatre was replete with skydiving Elvis impersonators and sexy showgirls.
“Honeymoon in Vegas answers gloomy Gotham’s crying need for some good lowbrow farce,” the trade journal Variety said.
Danza, best-known for his roles in the TV comedies Who’s the Boss? and Taxi, portrays gambler Tommy Korman, a widower who falls madly in love with a younger woman who looks like his deceased wife.
Betsy Nolan, played by actress Brynn O’Malley, is in Las Vegas to marry her fiance, Jack Singer (Rob McClure), who unfortunately has a fear of commitment because of a curse from his overbearing late mother.
Jack must up his game to keep his girl in the zany plot that moves from the neon
confirmed when asked whether the network would ever do a project with Cosby, who faces multiple allegations of sexual assault. lights of Vegas to the shores of sun-drenched Hawaii.
All leads in the production won praise from critics, who described McClure as a “winning nebbish” and O’Malley as plucky but in need of a new wig.
They reserved special kudos for the tap-dancing, crooning Danza, 63, in what The New York Times described as a “breakout performance.”
“What he conveys with the tiniest inflection or quirk of a finger is immense,” it added, “and the sum effect of a fabulously sober comic performance.”