Reel Sad

By T.E.K.

MACK & MABEL

Book by MICHAEL STEWART

Music and Lyrics by

JERRY HERMAN

Direction and Choreography by

GOWER CHAMPION

You can make people believe in the presence of an invisible being onstage --say, Harvey the rabbit--but you cannot make people believe in invisible silent movies. The reason may be that no one has ever seen a 6-ft. rabbit, whereas almost everyone has seen some silent films. At any rate, this is the chief trouble that plagues Mack & Mabel. It is reduced to telling without effectively or plausibly showing.

The musical's promise was that it could conjure up the madcap mayhem of the Keystone Kops, the antic nostalgic appeal of Mack Sennett's Bathing Beauties, and Mabel Normand, his mistress and the star of his two-reelers. Despite formidable talents working with will and wile, the promise is not kept.

The static narrative line relies on flashbacks, a fictional device poorly suited to theater. Mack (Robert Preston), rendered obsolete by talkies, reminisces about his slapdash improvisatory triumphs and his turbulent on-again, off-again romance with Mabel (Bernadette Peters). After one prolonged absence, Mabel returns to be greeted with a rousing song sequence called When Mabel Comes into the Room. Jerry Herman and Gower Champion have all but plagiarized their own big Hello Dolly number.

Champion's dance sequences have always been models of speed, precision and humor, and they are the best things hi this show. Ironically, the outstanding number has nothing to do with the world of Mack Sennett. It is a steel-toed tap done with biting, insuperable authority by all of the chorus girls fronted by that svelte-legged veteran Lisa Kirk. The scenes related to Mack are curiously weak. In their inimitable garb, the Kops sashay on-and offstage, but they have absolutely no one to chase. Except for their period beach bloomers the "Bathing Beauties" seem to have been stranded on the tide in the guise of wound-up Radio City Music Hall Rockettes.

Gimmicks aplenty and props to burn cannot keep the show from sagging.

Robert Preston is an explosive Mack and Bernadette Peters a spunky Mabel, but they do not seem to take any real pleasure in each other, which goes for everyone else IN the show as well. Somehow, it's all a case of "Give my regrets to Broadway." "T.E.K.

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