LYNN — As the entertainment heroes of our youth age out and die, the nostalgia industry has helped those who keep their memories alive as realistically as they can make a very good living.
Saturday night at Lynn City Hall, we had “Dean Lives,” a 90-minute paean to comic, singer and Rat Packer Dean Martin.
Drew Anthony led a cast of four onto the stage in what was a recreation of an old-style Vegas cabaret act that had the slick, almost over-produced feel of a show from the height of that era in the 1950s and ’60s.
The elements of the show were tied together by the musings of a janitor/caretaker (played by Joe Michaels) that reminded me a little too much of the narrator in the amateur theater production in “Waiting for Guffman.” In between sets, Michaels gave an overview of Martin’s life from his early years as Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, to his later successes as part of the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comedy team, and his last years as a popular singer/entertainer.
We also learned of the rift that led to the dissolution of the Martin-Lewis team, and also of how the notorious “Rat Pack” came into being.
Those historical nuggets were the most interesting parts of the evening. As for the musical aspects, the best word to describe them is “meh.”
Anthony did not seem to be in fine voice. While nobody’s ever going to confuse Dean Martin with Pavarotti or anyone else of that caliber, he could carry a tune — which is something Anthony struggled to do at times. He had his moments (he seemed to hit his stride later in the show) but for the most part, he seemed more concerned with emulating Martin’s famous “stumbling drunk” personna than his singing.
Let’s just say there were a lot of booze jokes and leave it at that. Let’s also just say that just about every Vegas cliche you’ve ever seen and heard was faithfully recreated in this show, including every bad wife joke ever written. The only exception was Vanessa Ralls’ Peggy Lee segment, during which she sang a legitimately smokin’ “Fever.” That was worth the whole show, to be honest.
On the other hand, Ralls probably put too much emphasis on the ingenue aspect of Marilyn Monroe’s act during that segment (particularly galling to these eyes and ears was “My Heart Belongs to Daddy”).
Dennis Blair got to play two “connective tissue” parts in this production: Jerry Lewis and Johnny Carson. The former was actually all right, and dead-on in portraying Lewis as both zany and irritatingly obnoxious (I’ll bet he had loads of fun doing that); and the latter was almost Rich Little-esque (which is to say nothing spectacular).
Meantime, Anthony brought Dino fans down memory lane with a healthy dose of the man’s best material, including “That’s Amore,” “Volare,” “Mañana,” “Memories are Made of This,” “Mambo Italiano,” “Send Me the Pillow that you Dream On,” “You’re Nobody til Somebody Loves You,” and, of course, “Everybody Loves Somebody.”
The trouble with a lot of these nostalgia acts is that the performers often try too hard to get all the ancillary theatrical moves down at the expense of the music. And that was definitely the case here.
This was reminiscent of listening to the guy two tables over from you trying his hand at Karaoke.