ANY BONDS TODAY?
They don’t work all that badly now, however, in the USO-1940s musical revue called Any Bonds Today? At the beginning of the first act, I could almost forgive the carelessly contemporary haircuts, clothes, and post-Streisand singing styles. I did forgive the occasional missed note, the sometimes lead-footed dancers, the often underamplified voices–in fact the general amateurishness of the production, intensified by the audience’s unmistakable boosterism–because I was caught up by the idea that these brave, earnest, enthusiastic kids were doing their part to stomp Hitler and bring our boys home.
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Any Bonds Today? does offer jitterbug, tap dance, and trombone slides like semaphore signaling (except for Sousa, nothing shows brass off better than big bands). You get a slinky “Hit Me With a Hot Note,” a silky smooth “Stormy Weather,” a “White Cliffs of Dover” that’ll bring tears to your eyes, and a “Rock-A-Bye Your Baby” that makes Ethel Merman sound like Tiffany. There are chorus numbers in which the cast files down the aisles, and you can sing along with “Beer Barrel Polka,” and–if you’re an armed-services veteran–you can dance onstage to “Moonlight Serenade.” Anyway, it’s summer, the theater’s air-conditioned, and while the flag-waving may be corny, it’s a hell of a lot more entertaining than the 40s show that George Bush is staging these days.
