Pass the Bubbly, Sandy

When Julie Andrews starred in The Boy Friend in 1954, the musical seemed to be more than half in love with the era of wonderful nonsense it was ribbing, the Twenties. The current revival seems cool, condescending, and overly brittle.

As Polly, the girl for whom romance blossoms in an elegant French Riviera school for British girls, Judy Carne, of TV Laugh-In fame, makes a static stage debut. She arches an eyebrow here, kicks a leg there and sings a song on key, but mostly she seems to be placidly waiting for the show to carry her. Not so Sandy Duncan, who plays Polly's friend Maisie. She is a winning girl with a saucy comic style and enough sizzling energy to set the floorboards smoking. All of the dance numbers are a delight, though they have been meticulously stylized, rather as if a Kabuki troupe had been taught to do the Charleston. The evening's fun is poured sparingly, except when Sandy Duncan sluices it out in a champagne flood.

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