THE PAJAMA GAME:Foothill Musical Theatre

THE PAJAMA GAME

At Foothill Music Theater

Jay Manley is a Bay Area treasure. He transforms ordinary people like you and I into polished singers and dancers on the Foothill Music Theater stage and makes them look so professional that their next stop should be the Broadway or London stage. I have been attending his productions for more years than I like to admit and he never disappoints me. He would tell you he could do nothing without his marvelous cast. It is they who transform his student/ community productions into the masterpieces of musical theater that they are. Yet, if you talk to anyone who has worked with him, they will rave about his attention to detail, his patience and his creative vision. It takes true genius to be able to mold the excitement and enthusiasm of his cast into a polished, fast paced and colorful production. Manley is the consummate director, neither volatile nor demanding. He guides, suggests and leaves no detail to chance. He nurtures his actors and singers and leads them into performances that even they didn’t realize they could achieve over and over again.

The Pajama Game proves my point. I saw this production on Broadway with John Riatt, Carol Haney and an unforgettably adorable Eddie Foy, Jr. back in 1954 and I loved it. Richard Adler and Jerry Ross‘s music was more complex than so many of the frothy musicals of the time, and although the story was predictable romantic drivel, the production was everything a college co-ed could imagine and more.

I am now a good deal older and a lot more jaded than that twenty year old idealist mesmerized by the glamour of The Big Apple and I expected to love the music in this production even as I tolerated the foolish plot and not quite polished acting, at the opening of this production at Foothill’s Smithwick Theatre.

I should have known better. Manley has amazed me with unforgettable revivals of every musical I have ever loved: Annie Get Your Gun and Most Happy Fella , Guys and Dolls, Showboat, West Side Story and an amazing interpretation of Sweeny Todd that far surpassed the professional hugely budgeted performance in San Francisco at the Geary Theater not long ago.

Pajama Game is set in the 1950’s when the employees of the Sleep-tite Factory are looking for a 7-1/2 cent raise their union insists they deserve. The plot revolves around the romance between Sid the company’s handsome superintendent and Babe, the hot and sexy head of the Union’s Grievance Committee. This cast is up to the challenge of difficult and intricate dance movements and making a foolish plot seem real. David Sattler is the only equity actor in the cast and is a handsome, romantic lead with a voice to die for. It is Sarah Aili however who stole my heart as Babe. I met this young lady singing at the open mikes at the Octavia Lounge in San Francisco and even then I was delighted with her voice. She gives Babe a sense of humanity, fire and a lyricism that is nothing less than amazing. As always with Foothill’s musicals, the smaller parts are choice and for me Linda Piccone as Sid’s secretary was a special treat. I could have watched her again and again chiding Hinesy not to be jealous or stealing the show in Hernando’s Hideaway. Piccone is not just an accomplished actress but a gifted director as well and she is unforgettable in this musical. And then there is Doug Baird, the jealous, knife throwing time-study man. You won’t want to miss him. He is wonderful in every sense.

Indeed the whole cast, the music the imaginative sets all add up to a great evening, at less than half the cost you would pay to see a production not a quarter as much fun as Jay Manley’s interpretation of another one of those musicals that must never die, The Pajama Game.

IF YOU GO: Pajama Game runs through Sunday August 17, Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 pm, Sundays at 2.

WHERE: Smithwick Theatre at Foothill College

12345 El Monte Road, Los Altos Hills

$2.00 charge for parking

TICKETS: $26 GENERAL, $22 SENIORS, $18 STUDENTS, $10 CHILDREN UNDER 12

www.foothillmusicals.com

650 949 7414 24 hour charge by phone

Box Office 650 949 7360