COME FLY AWAY A REVIEW

Being a lifelong fan of Frank Sinatra, I was looking forward to choreographer Twyla Tharp's latest Broadway dance show with fond anticipation even though I have never been much of a fan of her choreographic style or her way of presenting her concepts. In her previous Broadway outings "Moving Out" and "The Times They Are A Changing",she used the songs of Billy Joel and Bob Dylan respectivly to tell her rather flimsy stories and and the results [to me at any rate] were heavy and unsatisfying. In her new show COME FLY AWAY Ms. Tharp is combining the great voice of Frank Sinatra with an excellent 19 piece on stage band playing many of Mr. Sinatra's original charts, but the story she is telling [something about four couples falling in and out of love] is even flimsier then her other two shows and the result is musically exciting but visually monotonous.
The idea`of combining live musicians with a recorded voice is a good one and Ms. Tharp has assembeled a talented group of dancers but while some of her sequences are theatrically effective I have always felt that her work would be more at home with a major dance company then in a Broadway theatre.
The settings by James Youmans, Lighting by Donald Holder, and costumes by Katherine Roth are elegently effective and the onstage band sounds teriffic,but to one theatregoer of long standing COME FLY AWAY is as pretentious as artificial jewelry and just about as valuable.
AT THE MARQUIS THEATRE 210 WEST 46th STREET N.Y.C.
We now are at the end of another New York theatre season. I will be posting my impression of the Tony Awards on Monday