What I didn't do for love

I finally got around to seeing the revival of "A Chorus Line" (thanks for the Christmas present, mom!). It's already been reviewed to death by critics, fans and detractors alike, so I don't have that much to add on the particulars. Opinion-wise, what it has seemed to boil down to is that those who can remember the original are a lot less likely to like this revival.

Well, I was three years and a month shy of being born when the original opened and about two years shy of my first trip to New York when it closed. My exposure has been the original cast recording, the dreary film version and an overall enjoyable revival at Theatre Under the Stars in Houston a few years ago, so from that perspective, I rather enjoyed this production.

There were several cast standouts: Alisan Porter (best remembered as the title character in the schmaltzy "Curly Sue" film) as the ugly duckling Bebe, James T. Lane as the kinetic Richie, Jeffery Schecter as the talented guido-runt Mike and Cryssie Whitehead as the tone deaf Christine. Really no weak links in the cast. And it's hard to believe, but this was my first time to ever see Charlotte d'Amboise live. I'll agree with those who have said that "The Music and the Mirror" was not the show-stopper it could have been, but -- well, it still did.

Seeing this show in whatever form has always been a bittersweet experience for me, even though I was never a dancer. Theatre was always a central hobby of mine, and even my minor in college for a while. I've often wondered about that sliding door of what would have happened if I had chosen it as a major, or later on, as a grad student in the program in which I was accepted but skipped in favor of my masters in journalism. So I can't help but feel a little jealous of all the characters onstage. On the other hand, I wouldn't really want to be any of them, either. Except maybe the uber-hot and employed Larry (played by the uber-hot Tyler Hanes). I'd have probably ended up bitter and jaded so as to make Sheila look like Mark.

And who knows? Anne Haney didn't truly get started in show business until her 40s. Julia Sweeney was an accountant before she was an actress. And so forth.

"And so forth," meaning I'm out of examples, but you get the picture.