Joystick of 1919

GOING UP

Book and Lyrics by OTTO HARBACH Music by LOUIS A. HIRSCH

The Goodspeed Opera House of East Haddam, Conn., has become a breeding ground for Broadway hits. In recent years, Man of La Mancha, Shenandoah and Very Good Eddie originated there. Although it is not really up to its predecessors, Going Up may continue the string. This is a sappy but ingratiating musical profile of a writer turned aviator who wins the socialite of his heart's desire by his daring handling of the joystick of a 1919 biplane.

Part of the charm of the show is that it was a World War I Broadway hit musical by Otto Harbach and Louis A. Hirsch that has not so much survived as evaded the erosion of time.

To camp it up and play it as parody must have been temptations difficult to resist. It would have been equally disastrous to play the lines straight with out inflective italics, thus pretending that they are not unutterably silly, which they are. Director Bill Gile has settled on the very sensible alternative of restoring a comic antique so that it does not pitiably creak with age or smack of cosmetic modernity.

What is fascinating about a show of this sort is that it is a sociological fossil pit. The American hero (Brad Blaisdell) is an untainted saint of ineptitude. His French rival (Michael Tartel) is a bounder of dashing expertise. The girl that both of them vie for is a strawberry blonde (Kimberly Farr) with a pragmatic eye for betting on a long shot. There is a marvelously agile dance number called The Tickle Toe, and a few ribs are tickled as well.