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The
conventional behavior in theater these days is to take family-friendly
source material — "Sesame Street," say, or
the Peanuts comic strip — and turn it into a moderately
bawdy show for grown-ups ("Avenue Q" and "Dog
Sees God," respectively). But Fanny Hill, whose adventures
in whoredom made John Cleland's 1749 novel about her scandalous
in three centuries, goes in the other direction by allowing
herself to be adapted into a musical. Ed Dixon's "Fanny
Hill," which has taken up residence at the York Theater
at St. Peter's, is about as family friendly as a show full
of phallic jokes can be.
And if you set your expectations
properly going in, that can make an enjoyable enough couple
of hours, because Mr. Dixon, responsible for book, music and
lyrics, has a playful sense of humor. He has Charles (Tony
Yazbeck), Fanny's eventual true love, deliver an entire song
while being mugged. He breaks and then patches up the fourth
wall with abandon.
Nancy Anderson makes a good
impression as Fanny, even managing, in the midst of a show
played almost entirely for comedy, to wrench poignancy out
of "Honor Lost," a lovely second-act ballad. That
number is among three in quick succession that make you glad
you came back for Act II… the other two winners
are "My Only Love," a duet for Fanny and Charles,
and "Every Man in London," a designed show-stopper
for Patti Allison.
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