Ram Review: Promises, Promises

Promises, Promises is a revival of the 1968 Broadway musical, originally based on the 1960 screenplay "The Apartment". The book was written by the genius that is Neil Simon and the music is by Burt Bacharach (Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head, That's What Friends are For). Promises, Promises follows the story of Chuck Baxter (Sean Hayes), an ambitious employee of the Consolidated Life Insurance Company, who is looking to make his way up the corporate ladder. In order to do so, he allows the married executives of Consolidated Life to use his apartment when they want to "spend time" with other women. It gets a little stressful for Chuck when his key is being passed around the office and he ends up spending more time outside his apartment than he does in it. Still, he tells himself he only has to be in this situation until he gets his promotion. Chucky Chuck runs into a problem, though, when he discovers Fran Kubelik (Kristin Chenoweth), the woman he loves, is the mistress of J.D. Sheldrake (Tony Goldwyn), the man who will make him a junior executive if he can have the key to the apartment. Will Chuck choose the girl or the job, because if you've ever watched the Showcase Showdown on "The Price is Right," you'd know it's very hard to get both.

When I first heard of the casting choices, I was interested to see how a Chenoweth/Hayes couple would play out. They have very different performance styles, but they complemented each other nicely in this show. Who new that Sean Hayes could play a straight character?! Granted, he maintained some of his "Jack mannerisms" from his days on Will and Grace, but he made the audience believe he was simply an awkward bachelor and not Karen's flamboyant best friend. He rocked "Upstairs" and "She Likes Basketball" and I found myself getting very upset that Chuck's neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss, kept giving him a hard time. Dr. Dreyfuss thought Chuck was the one bringing all the women back. But poor Chuck couldn't even get a date with Fran, let alone bring her back to his apartment. While Hayes was passing around his key and delivering the punch lines, Kristin Chenoweth was belting the notes. I've heard her on her various soundtracks and watched her on "Glee," but Chenoweth live is like nothing you've ever experienced before. I don't know how that sound comes out of a 95-pound woman, but I'm glad it does. She received a round of applause the second she appeared on stage and a standing ovation before she even made it downstage to take her final bow. If you want a little taste of her performance, download "A House is Not a Home." The only disappointing part is that her character, Fran, was the typical boring female lead. Fran got to sing her operatic love songs and enjoy maximum stage time, but missed out on the dance numbers and the laughs. Chenoweth is better in a role like Galinda from Wicked where she gets to crack jokes, hit the high note and take one of the final bows.

While Fran was busy dealing with the (slightly boring) heartbreak that comes with being a Sheldrake's mistress, Marge MacDougall (Kate Finneran) was busy stealing the show. From talking about her coat made of owl feathers to her justification of why Chuck should take her home from the bar, everything Marge did was as saucy as Pugsleys' pizza and as hilarious as the people who are eating that pizza at 3 a.m.

Overall I give Promises, Promises a rating of 3.6948 on a 5.2763 scale. If I were you, I would have gone to the ticket lottery last Monday to try and win cheap tickets to see Promises, Promises. Speaking in the present, however, I would go see the show before the semester ends. It's an enjoyable show but probably won't last past Hayes and Chenoweth's run. Fran and Chuck (but mostly Fran) have to be played by household names in order for the show to be successful and I doubt Laura Bell Bundy will want to replace K.C. for the second time.