Catch Me If You Can

The popular 2002 film, Catch Me If You Can, belonged to Leonardo DiCaprio playing the charismatic young con man, Frank Abagnale, Jr., who followed his bliss, making money and becoming important.  At the Neil Simon Theatre, however, it is the wonderful Norbert Leo Butz who steals the show as Carl Hanratty, a depressed, sloppy, overweight FBI agent on the cross-country trail of young Frank.

The period is the 1960s, but not the years of Motown, flower power, Otis Redding, or Woodstock.  This is the Rat Pack era, an amalgamation of The Ed Sullivan Show with The Dean Martin Show.  It’s not hard to imagine Dino and Frank soft-shoeing to Mark Shaiman and Scott Wittman’s soft-swingin’ “Butta Outta Cream.”

Aaron Tveit does a fine job in the role of Frank Jr.. He’s a talented young firecracker with graceful musical energy.  His Frank is quite a charmer and he has to be, moving from his portrayal of a 16-year-old high school runaway to become the “Johnny Appleseed of fraud,” segueing from high school teen to counterfeiter, pilot, doctor and lawyer.  All this in two years.  On the way, he finds romance and almost scores a perfect marriage.

Frank found his dream through his father and mentor, Frank Sr. (Tom Wopat), a veteran con man himself.  Frank Sr. married his French wartime sweetheart, Paula (Rachel de Benedet) and the family lived in New Rochelle.  To Frank Jr., it was a perfect life and he idolized his dad.  When his parents divorce, Frank Jr. is distraught and runs off to New York City to forge his career in fraud.  With imagination and little else, he adjusts checks, ID badges, photos, and his own identity.  He cashes a million dollars in counterfeit checks and enjoys the high life.

Discovering that airline pilots meet all the chicks, Frank moves into the Pan Am jet-set life and then into medicine.  He meets a pert young nurse, Brenda Strong (Kerry Butler) and plans to marry her and leave his life of sham. One last fabrication is a law degree to impress Brenda’s conservative lawyer father and ditzy mother.  For a while, everything looks promising, but Frank slips up and Carl Hanratty, who has been relentlessly stalking him, moves in for the kill.

Tom Wopat is fine as the elder Abagnale who loses his family and slides into alcoholism.  In his few songs, Wopat’s renditions are as smooth and slick as his slippery career.  Outstanding is Kerry Butler (Xanadu) as Brenda Strong who seizes her one chance to show her stuff in a fierce plea, “Fly, Fly Away.”  As the unstoppable Hanratty, Norbert Leo Butz blazes through one of the show’s most vigorous tunes, “Don’t Break the Rules.”  He advises a very drunk, downtrodden Frank Sr., “Little Boy, Be a Man,” and he joins Frank Jr., for a strong finale, “Strange But True.”

This amazing but true tale is put together by a team of musical theater golden boys: librettist Terrence McNally, songwriters Mark Shaiman and Scott Wittman, choreographer Jerry Mitchell and director Jack O’Brien.  Yet the gold does not really shine because the overstuffed, hurried book always gets in the way of the catchy music.  O’Brien tries his best to keep a brisk pace with McNally’s rush-rush book.  David Rockwell’s set serves the story well, featuring a spacious Pam Am airline terminal and flashy nightclubs. William Ivey Long designed bright, youthful costumes and Jerry Mitchell’s choreography flashes with the fetching chorus kickline in front of John McDaniel’s vibrant onstage big band.

Still, despite the splash, music, colors, energy, the micro-miniskirted dancing girls, the fine performances highlighted by Norbert Leo Butz, Catch Me If You Can fails to catch fire.

(Pictured: Aaron Tveit and cast. Photo by Joan Marcus)

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Cabaret Scenes
April 13, 2011
www.cabaretscenes.org