Strong cast, great design propels Marriott Theatre’s ‘Catch Me If You Can’
“Catch Me If You Can” — 3 stars
Marriott Theatre does for “Catch Me If You Can” — the 2009 tuner inspired by a real-life teenage grifter who stole millions during the 1960s and 1970 — what it has ably done before. Which is to say make a middling musical entertaining.
Based on Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, “Catch Me If You Can” chronicles the criminal exploits of Frank Abagnale Jr., who masqueraded as a pilot, physician and lawyer, financing his lifestyle by forging checks.
The 2013 national tour of the musical didn't impress me. The score by “Hairspray” composer/lyricist Marc Shaiman and lyricist Scott Wittman wasn't especially memorable. And the book by Terrence McNally (“Ragtime,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman”), which tells Abagnale's story in flashback as a 1960s TV variety show, is both contrived and puzzling.
But I was pleasantly surprised by director Jessica Fisch's well-cast, great looking, smartly staged production starring likable Marriott newcomer JJ Niemann and veterans Nathaniel Stampley (whose comic timing and singing are first-rate) and Sean Fortunato (whose dramatic bona fides are well served) in supporting roles.
Niemann, a fine singer with boyish charisma, plays Frank Jr., whose schemer father Frank Sr. (Fortunato) is married to the detached Paula (Jessie Fisher). As his parents' troubled marriage disintegrates, Frank Jr. flees to New York City and commences his criminality.
He’s pursued by Stampley's Carl Hanratty, a decent, dogged FBI agent and the moral counterpart to Fortunato's shady Frank Sr. While dysfunctional father-son relationships is a theme, “Catch Me If You Can” skirts the issue, opting for a cat-and-mouse romp set to big, brassy music and underscored by a swinging, 1960s-style vibe.
The period is reflected in costume designer Sully Ratke's micro-mini skirts and short-shorts and Diedre Goodwin's sexy, period choreography performed by leggy choristers.
The modernist-minimalist set by Andrew Boyce and Lauren M. Nichols — with its modular couches that glide along the perimeter of the stage — is a study in fab functionality, while designer Anthony Churchill's groovy graphics and videos are among the Lincolnshire theater’s most artfully designed in recent memory.
Comic relief comes courtesy of Hanratty’s fellow G-men played by Justin Albinder, Alex Goodrich and Karl Hamilton. But Alexis J. Roston and James Earl Jones II earn the biggest guffaws as Carol and Roger Strong, New Orleans gentry and parents of Frank Jr.'s girlfriend, Brenda. She's played by Mariah Lyttle, whose big solo “Fly, Fly Away” is prettily sung. But as performed by an underdeveloped character we only just met, the song feels superfluous. Worse, it stalls the show's momentum. For that, blame Shaiman, Wittman and McNally, not Lyttle.
More successful is “Goodbye,” the rousing 11 o’clock number tinged with desperation, in a bravura turn by Neimann. He's impressive. So is the rest of the cast. Too bad the show doesn’t measure up to their talent.
