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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
These days, when even the most frivolous Broadway tripe embraces an unending stream of winking references to the genre’s exuberant campiness, it’s rare to find a revival of an over-the-top, old-school musical played entirely in earnest. So rare, in fact, that you might find yourself waiting through the first act of this story, about two self-modeled girls in search of moneyed men, for the sardonic shoe to drop. Don’t bother. Circle’s mounted a delightful delicacy fully purged of latent irony: When a group of streetfolk, including a constable, a nursing mother and a fully habited priest, break into ballet, nobody in the audience cracks anything more than a wistful smile.
The tactic provides an effortlessly amusing solution to the problem of mounting a script ingrained in our collective consciousness as the quintessential Marilyn Monroe star vehicle. It’s hard, for example, to outdo Monroe’s iconic rendition of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Yet Bellie and company somehow manage by turning the number into a wholesale salute to the film’s costumes and choreography.
As resident brunet Dorothy Shaw, Ditmars embodies the production’s enchanting powers. Like many of Circle’s actors, she lacks the belting capacity of a Broadway star. But even the numbers Ditmars ends on off-kilter notes, she tops off with a smile whose feral lunacy only Bette Midler could outdo. It’s a performance to remember, if you dig that sort of thing. By show’s end, you might realize—my God—you kind of do.
