TheatreWorks musical ‘Jimmy Dean’ is heartfelt, hummable
High school friends (from left) Edna Louise (Ashley Cowl), Sissy (Stephanie Gibson), Joanne (Shakina) and Stella Mae (Hayley Lovgren) reconnect in TheatreWorks Silicon Valley's world premiere Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean: A New Musical. Photo by Kevin Berne
Sometimes you hear about movies or plays that are being turned into musicals (that list is loooooooong and getting longer), and while some make sense, others just make you go, “What in the world are they thinking? Not everything needs to be a musical.”
When I heard that the play Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean was in development as a musical, I didn’t know quite what to think. Ed Graczyk’s nearly campy melodrama from 1976 leapt into the semi-big time when legendary movie director Robert Altman helmed the play on Broadway in 1982 and then created a very stagey film version with the same cast later that year. Whatever the (de)merits of the play, it will historically be known as the Broadway debut of Cher, with a supporting cast that wasn’t too shabby – Sandy Dennis, Karen Black and Kathy Bates among them.
How do you not enjoy actors like that chewing up West Texas scenery in a story about a James Dean fan club reuniting 20 years after the charismatic young actor’s untimely death in a car crash? (The movie can be enjoyed in its entirety on YouTube.) The small, dusty town where the story takes place is a hop, skip and a hot bus ride from Marfa, now a hotbed for hip artists but then better known as the location where Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson filmed Giant.
Does an overheated memory play involving dead movie stars and long-held secrets really need to be a musical? Well, the TheatreWorks Silicon Valley world-premiere of the cumbersomely titled Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean: A New Musical makes a pretty convincing case that if this play is going to have a continued life, it’s better with songs (and a running time of about 90 minutes).
BIG-TIME COUNTRY SINGER: Sissy (Stephanie Gibson) has dreams of stardom. Photo by Kevin Berne
Streamlining Graczyk’s play was a good idea to begin with. Book writer Ashley Robinson (who also adapted Brokeback Mountain for the stage) has trimmed the story nicely and fleshes out characters that barely exist on the page. The music by Dan Gillespie Sells (best known theatrically for the irresistible Everybody’s Talking About Jamie) with lyrics by Shakina, who also stars in a key role, successfully maneuvers the transition from fun, sugary confections tunes to meatier ballads and deeper character songs when necessary.
Like the play, the musical really gets going in its second half, when all the exposition is finally exposited and we can get into the juicy business of exposing secrets and shattering illusions. This is also when the musical stops being polite and embraces its full musicality by becoming part “Loveland” fantasia from Follies and part “Rose Tint My World” cabaret from The Rocky Horror Show. In other words, we leave reality behind and let the musical blossom into something of its own glorious creation.
SHE LOVES TEXAS: Edna Louise (Ashley Cowl, far left), Mona (Lauren Marcus) and Joanne (Shakina) take in Stella Mae's (Hayley Lovgren, center) boisterous entrance as Sissy (Stephanie Gibson) watches. Photo by Kevin Berne
There are lots of spoilers involved in this plot where no one thinks anyone knows anything about anything, so suffice it to say the ladies who gather for the reunion of the Disciples of James Dean are in for a whole lot more than a few toasts and some giggles.
Everything happens within the confines of Kress’ 5 & Dime in the dying, drought-stricken town of McCarthy, with time flipping between 1975 and 1955 (the fantastic set is by Nina Ball, who has some lovely surprises in store – literally in store – with effective lighting by Kurt Landisman).
The former (still?) president of the fan club is Mona (Lauren Marcus), a deluded small-town mom who claims that her son is the result of a one-night stand with James Dean when she worked as an extra on Giant. Mona has worked in the 5 & Dime since she was a teenager, and her boss is still the God-fearing Loretta (pronounced Loree-tah and played by Judith Miller). No one wants you to drink a cold, refreshing Orange Crush more than Loretta.
Another Disciple who has failed to escape McCarthy is Sissy (Stephanie Gibson in the Cher role), who also still works at the 5 & Dime (honestly, how much customer traffic does this nearly dead store get that it needs two employees?). Sissy has gone and come back, and though she has some hefty secretes to unload, she’s still got a spark and dreams of becoming a country singer.
Other reunion attendees include the brassy Stella Mae (Hayley Lovgren) and the mousy mother of seven (with one on the way) Edna Louise (Ashley Cowl). There’s also a mysterious stranger (Shakina) who may or may not have a connection to Joe (Ellie Van Amerongen), who was gay bashed and basically run out of town back in the day.
The cast is eminently likable, and under the direction of TheatreWorks Artistic Director Giovanna Sardelli, everything unfolds in a clear, dramatically satisfying way. Unlike Altman in the movie, she handles the time flips effectively and without pretension. For a while, it looks like we’re only going to get solo numbers as the characters break into song to explain who they are and what they want. But things change with a poignant bathroom duet between Shakina’s Joanne and Cowl’s Edna Louise about feeling shut out of the world of all the other girls.
From then on, the score gets more interesting, and Cowl (with translation help from Lovgren) has a great song about being a Mexican immigrant child in Texas who is forbidden from speaking Spanish. In the play/movie, Edna Louise is barely there. Here, she practically steals the show.
The musical’s creators allow for a more hopeful ending than the play/movie with a gospel-tinged group number that feels a little corny and a lot heartfelt, so it all balances out. There’s much here dealing with acceptance vs. denial and the toxic quicksand of nostalgia. While the play/movie opts for scorched earth despair, the musical chooses a chorus of voices, a flood of emotion and a glimmer of better things.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean: A New Musical continues through July 13 in a TheatreWorks Silicon Valley production at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. Running time: 95 minutes (no intermission). Tickets are $34-$115 (subject to change). Call 877-662-8978 or visit theatreworks.org.
