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Outdated 'Millie' is thoroughly big on sweets

Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published December 8, 2006 at midnight

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With Thoroughly Modern Millie, the Arvada Center continues its worthy tradition of providing family friendly fare without making it explicitly Christmas-oriented.

A comic, enjoyable if underwhelming musical, Millie is Arvada's staging of the 2002 Broadway production, itself based on a 1960s movie set in the 1920s. It is noteworthy for the choreography of Kitty Skillman Hilsabeck, who not only performs in many of her shows, but also invests them with energetic, involving choreography that uses the best of its dancers' skills.

The story behind Millie is so retro that to focus on it could send one into the streets calling for a revolution.

Millie, played by Nicole Sterling, is a Kansas girl with long hair and frock who arrives in New York City and quickly sheds her appearance for a bob and flapper dress. She also arrives with the idea that a modern girl marries not for love (and, of course, she must marry) but for money, and sets on a search for a job with a rich man who'll marry her.

To that end, she checks into a women's residence where she makes a new best friend, the rich, prim and proper Miss Dorothy (Pamela Brumley), and unwittingly lives in the domain of the wicked Mrs. Meers, a faux-Japanese woman running a white slavery trade.

Most of the humor comes from Dick Scanlan and Jeanine Tesori's updates to the movie and Rod A. Lansberry's sly direction of them. Beth Flynn creates an indelible New York tough dame villain in Mrs. Meers, and her torch song They Don't Know is a highlight.

Her coerced henchmen, Chinese immigrants Ching Ho and Bun Foo, are played with hilarity but also respect by Doan Mackenzie and Fang Du. Leo Ash Evens is particularly appealing as the Damon Runyonesque Jimmy, first Millie's antagonizer and then, of course, her suitor.

Sterling's Millie Dillmount has a voice as big as her toothy smile, but there's little chemistry between her and Evens.

Visually, Lansberry has allowed a slack effort on Millie. Wigs are stiff and unconvincing, while costumes frequently are ill-fitting. Yes, it's the 1920s, but dresses aren't supposed to look like potato sacks.

There's such a large gap between the top of the set and the ceiling that scenery is moved in full view of the audience.

Much as in its Broadway tour, Millie offers a sugary treat, entertaining in its moment but not long past.



Lisa Bornstein is the theater critic. or 303-954-5101