The Rockettes perform in the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular
Radio City Music Hall, 50th St., through Dec. 30
No Grinch here. Santa's in charge, in the red-suitably merry person of Charles Edward Hall. The audience dons 3-D glasses to follow Santa's itinerary, which gets him instantly from the North Pole, where polar bears loft snowballs his way, to the Big Apple: past the Statue of Liberty, up the East River, ducking under the Williamsburg Bridge, detouring west over Madison Square Garden (which, like the Music Hall, is owned by Cablevision), then back east to the Empire State Building, and up Fifth Ave. to the New York Public Library on 42nd St. (where Santa rings the marble lions, Patience and Fortitude, with their holiday wreaths) and on to Rockefeller Center. The Christmas tree lights flood on, bottom to top, and Santa enters, in person now, on the gigantic stage. (Take your glasses off now.) Perhaps recalling the affirmation he received at Macy's in Miracle on 34th Street, Santa exclaims, "New York City, I love you!" The feeling is mutual, Mr. C.
If this show was ever in disuse, it hasn't been lately; it's looked sparkling for ages. This year, director-choreographer Linda Haberman (who danced for Bob Fosse and later helped choreograph his last shows) is in charge. She's done a fine job keeping the older elements fresh while adding new ones. When Santa arrives in the Hall, he remarks, "Pretty spiffy for 75, I'd say." He's referring to the oval Deco auditorium, and, yes, the Donald Deskey interior still looks fabulous. But Haberman has made sure that the show feels as exciting, elegant and ageless as the surroundings.
Haberman interpolates okay seasonal songs by Mark Waldrop and Mark Hummel into a story about a boy who doesn't believe that a street Saint Nick is the real thing. Well, Santa will show him. He takes the kid flying, on wires, to the North Pole, to Mrs. Claus and the elves (little people). This is tolerable, but the magic comes in more familiar packages: the all-bear Nutcracker (dancers in teddy-bear, panda and hippo-bear costumes); and the Rockettes' "Twelve Days of Christmas," which takes nearly as long (7 mins.) as the Nativity pageant (8 mins., including the camels).
When in doubt, bring on the girls. They are first seen with the curtain raised just above their 72 knees (a trope borrowed from Gower Champion's Broadway version of 42nd Street). From their tap shoes to their reindeer hats, the 36 dancers do their high kicks with military, millinery precision, whether forming one perfect straight line or splitting into subgroups of three, four, six, nine, 12, 18 and, from top to bottom on eight steps of a widening staircase, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. (Many a New York child learned to multiply and divide by watching the Rockettes.)
In the grandest skit, the Rockettes board a double-decker bus in front of an L.E.D. simulation of the Music Hall marquee. It "motors" across 50th St. and north on Fifth Ave. (traffic laws are waived for the chorines), across the southern edge of Central Park (suddenly there's a skating rink) and down Broadway to Times Square. At the North Pole, the Rockettes manipulate large toy blocks until they spell out (in 36 letters and spaces) Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. After the Nativity procession, upstaged as always by the camels, donkey and sheep, the entire cast convenes for a curtain call — the first time the Music Hall has allowed one — as colored strips of Mylar inundate the audience.
Only a couple days left to catch the Christmassiest show in town. And if not, see you next year for another ho-ho-holiday.