Badges of Honor

By T.E.Kalem

THE GRAND TOUR

Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman

Book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble

Musicals have family trees these days. The Grand Tour found favor on Broadway as Jacobowsky and the Colonel in 1944 and again as a 1958 film titled Me and the Colonel. It deserves to stretch out its winning streak with the current version, which is endearing, amusing, exuberant and poignantly humane.

The time is 1940, the starting place is Paris and the German armies are on the move to complete their Occupation. The odd couple who dominate the action are soldiers of ill fortune. The plight of S.L. Jacobowsky (Joel Grey) is dire; he is a Polish refugee Jew. He is also a Chaplinesque waif with the resilient ingenuity to trip up brute force. Colonel Tadeusz Boleslav Stjerbinsky (Ron Holgate) is a towering Polish nobleman full of caste prejudices. He has the voice of an opera star, and a conviction that war and patriotism are twin badges of honor.

This unlikely duo embark on a series of picaresque adventures that often involve the colonel's mistress Marianne, appealingly played by Florence Lacey. The score is as romantic as candlelight and wine, and the dances are robust in folk flavor. One waltz-like number between Jacobowsky and the colonel (You I Like) is a touching ode to friendship.

Joel Grey has never done finer work. His philosopher-clown seems to have wept beside the waters of Babylon, and he dances through the role with a balletic grace that makes him a Fiddler on the run.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.