The latest grade school pageant masquerading as a Broadway show, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer starts with the germ of an enterprising family entertainment: a romantic musical adventure tale of young Tom and pal Huck Finn and their involvement in a shady town murder. The tuner then proceeds to turn the germ into a deadly virus; that is, shows that have no business in 1700+ capacity theaters foolishly trying to put one over on the unsuspecting audience. This new musical (composed by Don Schlitz, a veteran of country songs that are far more inspired than anything here) would get shot down in an instant by the BMI workshop classes depicted in Lonny Price's beautiful A Class Act playing four blocks away. Like the equally repugnant Blast!, Tom Sawyer is a marketing ploy designed as a mass entertainment, but the real crime is how many will inevitably fall for it anyway.
Mounted at the Minskoff (by far, Broadway's ugliest and most nondescript theater), the show looks even more ridiculous, especially when dealing with Heidi Ettinger's highly lackluster set (which consists of little more than a sale at Home Depot turned over to youngsters to finish, though young people might have made it more colorful) and the fact that almost no one in the cast has the voice to fill the obscenely large space. Joshua Park, in an inauspicious debut as Tom, struggles with both his singing and the character; we are never certain whether Tom is insubordinate, confused or just joshing; like the rest of the show, there is never anything to hold on to. Jim Poulos, coming off his stint as Anthony Rapp's replacement in Rent, is similarly ill-at-ease. He sings more smoothly but also feels uncomfortably transplanted to the proceedings.
Schlitz's music is pedestrian beyond belief, but almost no cast member (except Tommy Hollis as the requisite black preacher) takes the music anywhere out of realm of pure forgettability. Heaviest blame must go to the dead air between songs that is Ken Ludwig's staggeringly awful book. One of the great things about the splendid D.A. Pennebaker-Chris Hegedus documentary "Moon Over Broadway" is how that show's writer (Ludwig) appeared to have more contempt for himself than anybody else. He almost announced that he was a hack, and the movie succeeded because it found such an indelible way to call him on it. Here, every single line uttered by the large cast is culled from about two dozen other sources, and bad ones at that. Ludwig cannot even make the comic relief work in this play (I'm sorry, but mispronouncing French words for laughs went out with the advent of sound), and the actors look vaguely embarrassed delivering such nonsense. Only Marshall Pailet, as Tom's amusing tattle-tale younger brother, ever makes the affair smile-worthy.
It's also sad that Scott Ellis (1776, Steel Pier), a perfectly respectable if unremarkable director, had to get entangled in this mess as well. From the looks of the ragged choreographing of action to music (David Marques' choreography is tame but sprightly, so you can't really blame him), plus the poor blocking and overall design of activity on stage, Ellis' participation seems minimal. The young cast members, especially, appear lost at key intervals and scene transitions lack snap. But I guess it's in keeping with the spirit of the show as well. At key intervals, you may appear to be lost too, but getting lost in a pleasant daydream would be far more enticing than plunking down chump change to this impostor.
