Meet Me in St. Louis

Vincente Minnelli’s 1944 film Meet Me in St. Louis is most memorable for two things: the director’s characteristic visual flair and the hauntingly romantic performance of its lead, Judy Garland. Playing the second eldest daughter of the St. Louis Smith family, Garland, through her peculiar combination of brashness and vulnerability, shows that the plight of one in love with the boy next door could be earth-shattering. Meanwhile, the supporting cast sported stellar character actors such as Mary Astor and Harry Davenport.

It’s always a difficult trick when adapting films to compete with indelible performances, and Drury Lane’s production suffers by comparison: While the performers look fabulous and are in generally fine voice, none of them really inhabit their roles with the kind of fierce particularity that Minnelli’s film enjoys.

To be sure, director Corti does fulfill the visual-flair side of the equation. Actors zip about the stage in trolleys and bicycles, big dance numbers generate an appropriate thrill, and the entire production is paced with a verve that approximates the cinematic. Then there are the songs: Even if “A Touch of the Irish” and “The Banjo” confirm Martin and Blane’s essentially cornball nature, they did write the immortal, winsome “The Boy Next Door.” And “Meet Me in St. Louis” is utterly mysterious in how its ungainly melody conjures a whole lost world. For all its charms, though, the relatively generic performances leave this production chilly at its core.