Howard Hughes was a complicated person. This ambitious piece aims to cover considerable territory.
It half succeeds. Relationships and film work are well represented, while aviation interests land too complex and Hughes’ mental instability is almost bypassed. The hero’s character, however, comes across.
We meet Howard as a precocious young boy (Matthew Eby) interested in radio and aviation. His over protective, OCD mother Allene (the excellent Jill Paice) seeds tendencies. When his parents successively die, he takes over The Hughes Tool Company – never anything to him but a source of funding for other endeavors. He impulsively marries first wife Ella (Christine DiGiallonardo). The song is cliché, the actress talented.
Young Howard (Matthew Eby) and His Mom (Jill Paice)
Adult Howard (Michael Halling) navigates film production in California. The musical exemplifies this part of his life with a number centering on the 1930 four million dollar flying film, Hell’s Angels. It’s a well arranged amalgam of distraction and perfectionism. The now-producer is tracked by gossip columnist Rita Randolph (Haley Swindal). New hire Noah Dietrich (triple threat David Elder) will do everything for the boss but wipe his nose for 32 years before being summarily fired for demanding well earned equity.
Aviation and aerospace involvement ranges from invention/patents, to defense contracts, breaking a record for round the world flight, and owning TWA. (When anything got in his way, Hughes bought it.) Often his own test pilot, he survived four airplane crashes. Construction/design details and specifics of financial woes only obscure the man himself.
Howard (Michael Halling) and Ella (Christine DiGiallonardo)
A storied womanizer, Hughes cut a swathe through Hollywood. We glimpse him with Katharine Hepburn whom he almost married. (Gina Milo – good voice and bearing, respectable accent.) “Don’t you realize toys break?…Why…?”she rhetorically asks. “You don’t have a why at 5000 feet” is apt response. Hughes gifted her rights to The Philadelphia Story, which revived a flagging career and then radically erased: “sterilize, remove, burn, give away…” every indication of her presence at his home. Both characters are vivid during these exchanges. Michael Halling’s Hughes is boyishly obtuse, whip smart and believable.
Howard Hughes, 1938 (Public Domain)
When they break up, Rita Randolph’s “You don’t have to be true to her anymore” appears to be manufactured solely in order to give the reliably fine Haley Swindal a song. I understand the impetus, but it doesn’t fit. There’s allusion to Jane Russell (in The Outlaw) for whom Hughes literally created a bra- and to second wife Jean Peters, supposedly the love of his life, who gets short shrift. Ella has an unnecessary recollection song.
A number about fraudster Clifford Irving proclaiming he’d written Hughes biography with personal cooperation, though good, also adds little. We seem to jump 26 years to Hughes reclusive time (and wild demands) in the Bahamas. A song indicating he’s en route to this state would serve. Instead “Nothin’ up my sleeve/I’m an open book…” arrives too rational. Dialogue attempts to make up for a song.
Direction does the best it can to vary positioning of the chorus in a production the group of singers come close to outweighing protagonists. Choreography is jaunty and fun. Evan Frank’s projection design enhances.
The subject is intriguing, but the piece needs editing.
(Back Row) James Judy, Mya Ison, Eric Michael Gillett, Josh Tower, Michelle Beth Herman (Front Row) Candice Hatakeyama, David Elder, Michael Dikegoros
Photos by Carol Rosegg
Opening: The Company
According to Howard – A Mufti Production
Music- Jim Scully
Book and Lyrics – Frank Evans
with Revisions by Jennifer Paulson-Lee and Jim Scully
Additional Lyrics Chad Gorn
Directed and Choreographed by Jennifer Paulson-Lee
The York Theatre
Theatre at St. Jean’s
150 East 76th Street
