TINTYPES
Like the old-fashioned camera used to start and end the show, Tintypes takes its own tender snapshots as it celebrates the energy of a shameless, profligate America. You get the feeling the era put all it felt into song, whether popular Tin Pan Alley sheet music like “Smiles,” Joplin’s ragtime classics, or the light-opera luxuriance of Herbert’s “Kiss Me Again.” Tintypes reflects an amazing range; there’s a tribute to electricity, a medley of songs of arrival, vaudeville sketches, and the patriotic crowd-pleasers Cohan could write in his sleep (right now this last category seems a tad too comforting and smug). In “She’s Gettin’ More Like the White Folks Every Day” you even get thinly cosmetized racism.
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The Set Gourmet Theatre offers a picture-perfect setting. As you enter the restaurant you pass through a miniature Ellis Island, and the theater’s environmental stage recalls a New York street corner circa 1900. Bedecked with street signs, the dining sections depict a cafe, a general store, the Waldorf-Astoria, and a tavern.
