It reunites most of the creative team from “Hairspray,” boasts energetic ’60s music and a fantastic performance by Norbert Leo Butz. It even has leggy chorus girls in small skirts and big hair.
Yet “Catch Me If You Can” flounders. How is that possible?
Inspired by a true story popularized by Steven Spielberg’s 2002 movie, the Broadway show that opened last night follows the fraudulent activities of Frank Abagnale Jr. (Aaron Tveit, from “Next to Normal”) while he’s pursued by dogged FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Butz, switching sides after “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”).
READ ABOUT THE REAL FRANK ABAGNALE JR.
The tale begins in 1964, when the 16-year-old Frank flees his home, rocked by the divorce of his glamorous, French-born mother (Rachel de Benedet) and scammer dad (Tom Wopat). He spends the following two years conning his way across America as a pretend pilot, doctor and lawyer, and bankrolling his antics with forged checks.
The big idea in Terrence McNally’s book is to tell the story as a ’60s-style TV variety show. As in those programs, the orchestra sits onstage, which limits the options of director Jack O’Brien and choreographer Jerry Mitchell.
The latter’s style feels particularly cramped. For each winning number — “Doctor’s Orders” brings on the sex-ay — there’s a perfunctory one like “(Our) Family Tree,” in which dancers bafflingly affix ribbons to the stage.
It’s hard to build momentum anyway, because every time Marc Shaiman’s playful pop score threatens to take off, a character starts blathering on. Less talking, more singing, please!
But then, there’s not much flow to the show. McNally clumsily strings together disparate scenes just to set up songs. Characters abruptly come and go, often through a trap door, and the criminally underused Kerry Butler (“Xanadu”) pops up just long enough to deliver the 11 o’clock number, “Fly, Fly Away.”
“Catch Me If You Can” makes Abagnale a sympathetic figure guilty mainly of charming everybody. Tveit is handsome and sings well, but overuses his Colgate smile and lacks the pizazz necessary to sell the snake oil. This Frank is a junior, all right: many personas but little personality.
Butz, on the other hand, has charisma to spare — which is saying something, since he puts the “ratty” back in Hanratty. His body hunched at an angle, a greasy-looking hat perched on his head, he creates a fully rounded character, and displays unfailing musical-comedy flair.
During “Don’t Break the Rules” — one of the few genuinely rousing numbers — he simultaneously dances and sings without missing a beat or a breath.
In this show, it’s the FBI man who’s the most wanted.