The Theater: New Revues in Manhattan, Jan. 30, 1950

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Dance Me a Song (produced by Dwight Deere Wiman) is a professional-looking revue that uses an amateur-night technique. All sorts of people have "entered" individual songs and sketches in the show; and whether from too many cooks, or mere incompetent cooking, Dance Me a Song makes very thin broth. For awhile it can just manage to be termed uneven; by the end, there is no kinder word than weak. The show boasts a batch of sprightly and likable young people, including Dancer Joan McCracken. But youth at the prow can seldom prosper without ability in the engine room. The show has some pleasantly simple dance numbers, but more that are noisy and elaborate. One or two songs are nice enough to listen to, but there are none worth talking about. The sketches, always the most important part of a revue, are by & large the deadliest part of this one.

Two spoofs about radio deserve a mild hand. Wally Cox, a young monologuist who writes his own stuff, deserves a very loud cheer. By means of a quiet Will-Rogersish manner and a sharp Ring-Lardnerish pen, he creates a couple of monstrously matter-of-fact characters that are both hilarious and appalling.

Alive and Kicking (music by Hal Borne, Irma Jurist & Sammy Fain; lyrics by Paul Francis Webster & Ray Golden; produced by William R. Katzell & Mr. Golden) turns bright just often enough to accentuate its general dullness. It is a mussy show; its acts don't move in procession, they merely pile up like wash. It is also a mechanical show; it behaves as though the right proportion of songs, skits and dance numbers were just as good as the right kind.

The songs, studded with lines like "Now that I have found you," all sound the same and all sound banal. Jack Cole's wriggly, exotic dances are all much the same too, and elaborately meaningless, but they are sometimes decidedly clever. The skits and satiric ditties vary enormously. Many need the ax, many others the pruning knife, and even the best could use manicure scissors. But there are funny things in a take-off of a book-and-author luncheon, the plight of a man who has sworn off cigarettes, and a parody of a sentimental French chanteuse. Assisting—usually at their peril—are Comics David Burns and Jack Gilford, and Lenore (Junior Miss) Lonergan. Now grown up, Actress Lonergan should make a good comedienne when she gets the right comedy.