Folksy Funk

TITLE: FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE

AUTHOR: CLARKE PETERS, BASED ON MUSIC ASSOCIATED WITH JAZZMAN LOUIS JORDAN

WHERE: BROADWAY

THE BOTTOM LINE: The revue aims only to be peppy and likable, and it is.

IMPRESARIO CAMERON MACKINTOSH made his millions (150 or so of them, in dollar terms) producing musicals of high tech, high technique and high seriousness — Miss Saigon, Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera and Cats. He was just out for a night on the town with friends in Britain when he saw a jumping, jiving cabaret revue. It could not have been further from Mackintosh’s customary taste. He favors life-and-death storytelling; Five Guys Named Moe is a wisp of a tale about a drunken lowlife cleaning up his act and winning back his lady love with the help of five hipsters who materialize out of his radio late one boozy night. Mackintosh shows are polished like gems, but Five Guys thrives on funk and folksy amateurism, including such audience participation gimmicks as a sing-along, pulling volunteers up onstage and a mass conga line.

No matter. Moments after he saw the show, a charmed Mackintosh offered to transport it from its bandbox site to the pilastered prestige of London’s West End. There its exuberance and energy wedded happily with a larger space and wittier, more elaborate settings, a fantasy urban landscape in which skyscrapers look like zoot-suited people. So he decided to brave Broadway, where Five Guys Named Moe boogied in last week. It is a slight, sometimes silly but absolutely joyful experience, larkish and lighthearted and a bit like running around with a lampshade on your head.

There are two significant things that Five Guys ain’t. First, Ain’t Misbehavin’, the finest of all revues of recent decades. The emotions in Five Guys aren’t as rich and varied, the performances aren’t as dazzling, and the lyrics aren’t as memorable. But Ain’t Misbehavin’ is long gone, and Five Guys is here now. Second, Five Guys isn’t English. Its creators, librettist Clarke Peters and director-choreographer Charles Augins, are Americans, as are the half a dozen actors. The sensibility is very 1940s American.

The escapism is more timeless: this is an all-black show with absolutely no references to white people, pro or con. The nearest it comes to relevance is a rudimentary feminism, at one point disavowing the sexism of some of the vintage numbers. One can get all humorless and huffy about the feathered costume for Ain’t Nobody Here but Us Chickens and the rest of the cheery inanity. One can insist that the theater be meaningful and memorable. Or one can, more sensibly, check one’s higher consciousness at the door and have a shallow but rollicking time.