Theater Review: The Rat Pack Live at the Sands

by Ed Townley of John Garcia's The Column

The result is an evening that is highly entertaining, but which also goes a little deeper to become surprisingly reflective.

It's hard to know what to expect as you enter the Majestic Theatre for a performance of The Rat Pack Live at The Sands. The Rat Pack, of course, is the label attached to Frank Sinatra and his cronies – chief among them Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. – in Las Vegas in the early 1960s. The Sands is the Vegas hotel at which they joined forces for a limited number of legendary performances – sharing the stage, interrupting each other's solos, joking and generally carrying on like frat boys on the town, to the delight of capacity audiences.

So what is this going to be? A jukebox musical offering a stroll down memory lane? A night of superficial imitation, like Elvis impersonators or a Beatles cover band? A backstage story of massive egos clashing and competing? The answers are yes, no and – in a very subtle and intriguing way – yes. The result is an evening that is highly entertaining, but which also goes a little deeper to become surprisingly reflective.

It presents the music, the glitz, the glitter, the bantering and hokey jokes you would expect – and presents it all sincerely, without an intervening editorial attitude of superiority or judgment. At the same time, and without overemphasizing it, The Rat Pack Live at The Sands also suggests the underlying darkness – a sadness that was always there, but which would have been far less apparent to audiences at the time.

Everyone seems to be having a lot of fun; and the show captures that upbeat energy very well. But in the shadows beyond the spotlights, and in brief, quickly covered instances of genuine anger and resentment, you begin to realize that no one's all that happy. The point isn't underlined or driven home; it's just there. One of the things I liked most about the show is that it allows each of us in the audience to leave with a personal reaction to what we've experienced, rather than being told what we should think about it all.

The Rat Pack Live at The Sands first opened in England in 2000. Since then it has played over 1500 performances on London's West End, and toured throughout the British Isles, Europe and Canada. Its American tour began in 2006. It is to the credit of director/choreographer Mitch Sebastian and music director Matthew Freeman that the show still seems tight and fresh, without the tired inertia that can set in during long tours.

The totally appropriate set was designed by Sean Cavenaugh, with the fifteen-member orchestra on risers upstage and an overall slick/tacky look that would tell you you were in '60s Vegas even if you didn't know that going in. An interesting and significant choice is the prominent use of large photos of the actual Sinatra, Martin and Davis in muted, black and white close-up, hovering like ghosts over the entire evening. If the intent had been to focus on imitation, it would only make sense to replace the actual star photos with the faces of the cast members playing those roles. The presence of the real adds a dimension of honesty to the intentions of the evening.

Chris Woods' costume designs are subtly effective for the men and glaringly effective for the three women who provide vocal and dancing support and serve as foils for the wincingly sexist leering of the three stars.

When they first came out, wearing tight wine red satin period gowns with slight trains, discrete bows on the butts and cut in front as far north as 60s sensibility would allow – complete with matching elbow-length gloves and blonde wigs that suggested they couldn't decide whether to be Sandra Dee or Hildegarde – I thought how fortunate it was that John Garcia wasn't covering this opening himself. Those outfits – gloves, wigs and all – would have vanished from backstage only to mysteriously reappear in the opening number at THE COLUMN Awards Gala three weeks hence. But I digress.

All three of the lead actors – and they are actors, not impressionists – have spent a lot of time portraying these characters, and it shows. In all three cases they inhabit the roles completely – in their solo numbers, in the interplay among the three, and in quiet moments in the shadows. (The effective lighting by Mark Wheatley was a bit wobbly on opening night; it will undoubtedly improve as the show settles into the space.)

Vocally all three leads are astounding in their abilities to evoke the familiar qualities of the original voices without ever settling for surface duplication. They not only know how their characters sounded, they know why they sounded that way, which allows for relaxed confidence instead of tense mimicry as they sing the songs so fully associated with the three stars.

Stephen Triffitt is Sinatra to the teeth; he is clearly the Chairman of this particular Board. He moves through the evening graciously, but with the sense of aloofness and sadness, even in the midst of general hilarity, that was a trademark of Sinatra's performances. And in flashes of irritation when things surprise or annoy him, you get a sense of the danger that was never far beneath the surface.

OK, full disclosure time. I did see both Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr. in person in Vegas, at separate times. Some people with whom I shared this factoid on opening night reacted roughly as if I had admitted to being in the crowd when Lincoln delivered his Gettysburg Address.

David Hayes is an astonishing Sammy Davis, Jr. – both vocally and in his sometimes cringe-inducing subservience as the butt of Jewish jokes, racist jokes, short jokes – this is definitely a non-PC evening. Which is only appropriate, since PC was a factor in very few minds at the time. Hayes creates a Davis who is almost desperate to please both the audience and his two stagemates. Davis doesn't quite believe he belongs, and it shows through Hayes' body language and overall attitude. He lacks only the genius for dancing that was so intrinsic to Sammy Davis, Jr.'s whole being. Hayes can dance, but he does so carefully and deliberately, and as little as possible. Davis couldn't stop dancing, and like Astaire before him and Gregory Hines later, he was constantly shifting almost imperceptibly from standing still to walking to dancing and back again.

If the real Dean Martin had dominated the stage at The Sands as thoroughly as Mark Adams' Martin dominates The Rat Pack Live at The Sands, he might never have been invited back for a second performance. Here we see a gifted actor playing a talented performer who is in turn putting on a contrived but convincing act – the amiable, shameless, happy drunk that became Dean Martin's public persona. It's surprising to remember how gifted Martin was. It's fascinating to realize how shrewdly calculated his drunk act really was. (Watch him 'stumble and fall' during the second act medley, stand and keep going – all perfectly timed, without missing a beat; nobody really drunk could pull that off.) In his shadow moments you realize that his nonchalant, don't-care attitude masks a lot of very hard work indeed.

The Rat Pack Orchestra is a vital element in the evening's success. Conducted from the piano by Dominic Barlow, it combines musicians who travel with the tour and local musicians, all playing flawlessly and enthusiastically – and almost non-stop through the two-hour evening.

It takes the combined talents of the orchestra and the three stars to make the overly-familiar songs sound fresh and interesting again. Indeed, the most difficult aspect of the evening is the temptation – one distinctly not resisted by many soft and generally off-key voices opening night – to sing along to pretty much everything. They ought to include that prohibition in the curtain speech, along with the usual one about cell phones.

When I opened the Playbill and saw over thirty different numbers listed, I began to wonder if there were a good breakfast place nearby. But they're not all sung through, of course, and the evening never drags.

Stephen Triffitt's Sinatra starts strong and gets stronger, with real depths of wisdom and feeling on "Angel Eyes" and "Fly Me to the Moon." David Hayes overemotes shamelessly – as Sammy Davis, Jr. would and did – on "Mr. Bojangles" and "What Kind of Fool Am I," and puts his own stamp on "Falling in Love Again" and "Too Close for Comfort." There is less depth to the Dean Martin songbook, but Mark Adams has a rich and easy voice that communicates a real joy in the hokiness of his ethnic hits like "That's Amore" and "Sway." Even "Everybody Loves Somebody" sounds suddenly worth hearing again – and it's one of a number of songs I would campaign to have retired from our collective consciousness for at least ten years.

So, if you have any innate interest in the time, the music or the characters of The Rat Pack Live at The Sands you will be amply rewarded by the experience that awaits you at the Majestic Theatre. If you would be offended by women treated as brainless eye candy and objects for sexual leering, and by `f*g' jokes that are not really homophobic, simply as oblivious as the early 60s really were, then you might want to skip this one.

But if you want a chance to experience briefly a time, place and attitude that seem almost medieval today, and to appreciate how far we've come in consciousness, you may find – as I did – that by experiencing the talent without glorifying it, and by acknowledging the shadows without letting them overwhelm the evening, The Rat Pack at The Sands offers not only a fun-filled musical evening, but more depth and dramatic meat than many – OK, most – well-intentioned message plays.

The Rat Pack at The Sands, presented by Dallas Summer Musicals, runs through March 8 and tickets can be purchased online or by calling 214-631-ARTS.

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