Parachuting Elvis, tiki ghosts, and showgirls – welcome to Vegas.
The Paper Mill Playhouse’s brand new adaptation of the 1980s movie, Honeymoon in Vegas, a hysterical production that is part love-story, part gangster-farce, part ode to The King, and entirely heart-warming.
Broadway’s Rob McClure (Chaplin, Avenue Q) plays Jack, a nebbishy Brooklynite who can’t commit to his girlfriend of five years for fear of a deathbed curse that his mother put on him a decade before. When his girlfriend, Betsy, played by Brynn O’Malley (Annie, Wicked), gives him the ultimate ultimatum, the two jet off to Vegas, not for the title honeymoon, but to finally get married instead.
Tony Danza, famous for his role in sitcoms Taxi and Who’s The Boss? shows off his singing and tap-dancing chops as Tommy Korman, a mobster who the happy couple encounter in Vegas, and who takes an instant liking to Betsy – who, of course, eerily resembles his dearly departed wife.
Seeing this as his second chance at true love, Tommy sets up a high-stakes poker game to con Jack into placing Betsy as collateral on a heavy bet, so that Tommy can spend the weekend with her. When Tommy whisks her away to his vacation home in Hawaii to meet his son and grandchild, Jack is forced to make his big decision – one final time.
Danza brings charm to a character that you fluctuate between pitying and despising. Perhaps the most troublesome aspect of such an arrangement is struggling to hate Tommy, when he is portrayed by such a likeable actor; who is not only charismatic to those on stage with him, but with the audience as well.
The sweeping score composed of entirely new music by Jason Robert Brown (The Last Five Years) skillfully combines both glitzy, jazzy, trumpet-heavy tunes that could only be found on The Strip, and calming Island melodies; with even wittier lyrics – from Tommy’s satirical ode to his deceased wife, who died of skin cancer, “Out of the Sun,” to the exceedingly clever “Airport Song”. The show comes further alive with gorgeous and realistically modernized sets – whether of food trucks in a Brooklyn park, the hotel lounge in Las Vegas, or Tommy’s Hawaiian estate.
The only thing more fun than taking a honeymoon in Vegas, may be taking this Honeymoon in Vegas, with surprises around every corner, and a triumphant ending that won’t soon be forgotten.
Honeymoon in Vegas will be at the Paper Mill Playhouse now through October 27, and is set to open on Broadway next season. Tickets can be purchased here.
Note: The author of this post received complimentary tickets from The Paper Mill Playhouse, but all views and opinions expressed are the reviewer’s own.