Banjo Player in "Lady Be Good" NY Times
Banjo Player in "Lady Be Good" NY Times
THE STAGE: 'LADY BE GOOD'
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: July 29, 1987
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: July 29, 1987
MIDWAY through the first act of ''Lady, Be Good!,'' the 1924 Gershwin musical being revived by the Goodspeed Opera House, in East Haddam, Conn., Richard Stillman, an actor and dancer, strolls onto the stage with a banjo and begins to strum and sing an easygoing music-hall rendition of ''Fascinating Rhythm.''
Like a pied piper, Mr. Stillman draws the ensemble from the wings, and soon a dozen pairs of itchy feet begin to tap out the rhythms of the song's syncopated chorus. As the music accelerates, the orchestra chimes in and the stage becomes a flurry of angular, gyrating limbs kicking and swinging and tapping in a Charleston whose kinetic exuberance escalates to an explosive pinnacle.
Like a pied piper, Mr. Stillman draws the ensemble from the wings, and soon a dozen pairs of itchy feet begin to tap out the rhythms of the song's syncopated chorus. As the music accelerates, the orchestra chimes in and the stage becomes a flurry of angular, gyrating limbs kicking and swinging and tapping in a Charleston whose kinetic exuberance escalates to an explosive pinnacle.
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