‘Come Fly Away’ too over-the-top

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‘COME FLY AWAY’

SOMEWHAT
RECOMMENDED

◆ Through Jan. 22

◆ Bank of America
Theatre, 18 W. Monroe

◆ Tickets, $32-$95

◆ (800) 775-2000;
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Maps

Updated: February 14, 2012 8:04AM

Listen to Frank Sinatra’s singing and it is the subtle if persistent SUGGESTION of sex (and much else), rather than any obvious simulation of it, that is so impossibly seductive.

Watch “Come Fly Away,” choreographer Twyla Tharp’s 80-minute glitz-and-kitsch dance-a-thon to more than two dozen of Sinatra’s signature vocal stylings — a show now making a touring stop at the Bank of America Theatre — and those inimitable interpretations begin to take on an emotionally numbing sameness that robs them of their allure.

This is a production populated by technically bravura, acrobatically fearless dancers, and a phenomenal swing-style big band, heavy on brilliant brass, that will easily knock your socks off. But ultimately, the whole enterprise is hugely depressing.

Initially tested at Atlanta’s Alliance Theatre, subsequently sent on to Broadway, and then reworked for Las Vegas (the place where it most clearly belongs), “Come Fly Away” is a revue masquerading as dance theater. Its greatest sin is that it wastes the talents of dancers with Olympian bodies and technique to spare, showcasing them only as fabulous but soulless machines.

Seeing this production one night after “In the Heights” (the touring Broadway musical running at the Oriental Theatre through Sunday) puts the emptiness at the center of this project in even greater relief. While the dancing in “Heights” illuminates character and connection and community, the relentless flamboyance and heavy-handed “attitude” of the largely push-comes-to-shove, Apache-style dancing here feels like nothing more than a tedious and grinding wrestling match of the sexes.

The setting is a club/saloon, with the band upstage (led by Rob Cookman), and a vast bar stacked with glasses on one side. The sexual dynamics are standard, with the impossibly masterful and charismatic John Selya as Sid, a more-than-worthy Sinatra alter ego. Slightly older and a bit thicker in the body than the others, he is altogether astonishing in everything from his partnering and his insinuating eye contact to his sudden break-dance riff. He is paired most frequently with Babe, danced by Meredith Miles, a curvy platinum blonde in a crimson dress who strips down to a corselet for “Teach Me Tonight” (many clothes are shed as the show progresses).

An even more hard-edged pair comes in the form of Kate, the leggy, brashly manipulative redhead (Ashley Blair Fitzgerald is the accomplished but one-note tarty girl), who plays around but generally keeps her eye on the hot-and-cool Hank (the tall, sleekly gorgeous Anthony Burrell, who exposes quite the elaborate tattoo on his back).

The “ingenue” couple is composed of Marty, the club’s skinny, sweet-and-mean young waiter (danced by the rubbery, playful Ron Todorowski), and the innocent girl-in-pink, Betsy (the altogether delightful Mallauri Esquibel). In just one example of Tharp’s misguided approach to the material, she has these two dance “You Make Me Feel So Young,” rather than pairing Betsy with Sid (or pairing Marty with one of the more mature women).

The other featured dancers are Marielys Molina (in a mint top and black capri pants and shorts, she is a model of subtlety and understated, knowing flirtation), and Chanos (the excellent Matthew Stockwell Dibble), who dances the unrequited lover.

Ironically, one of the more enjoyable and unforced moments in the show comes with an instrumental interlude — Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” — where two principal pairs are joined by the ensemble.

More often than not all the crotch-flashing splits, somersaults, elaborately snaking lifts and overall manic motion (think “Dancing With the Stars” on amphetamines) comes close to blotting out the edgy beauty of Sinatra’s voice and his exquisite shaping of song lyrics. When his illuminated portrait flashed during the finale, “New York, New York,” all I could think of was that it looked like a variation on those velvet Elvis paintings, and the impulse was to say: What happened in Vegas should have stayed in Vegas.