Paulanne Simmons
According to Howard
Howard Hughes was an aerospace engineer, wealthy entrepreneur, film producer and philanthropist. He was also charming, ruthless and very eccentric. Surely this is the stuff of great drama. But somehow According to Howard, the third and last of York Theatre Company’s season of New2NY musicals, doesn’t exactly soar. Frank Scully’s music has the feel of an MGM Musical of the 40s and 50s (there’s even a great tap number), which is entirely appropriate for the time period. And Frank Evans’s lyrics are sometimes clever. But Evans’s cradle-to-grave book doesn’t seem to single out events that tell us much about this man whose last days were so mysterious and troubling. Actually, the musical begins with Hughes as a precocious child (Matthew Eby), doted on by his germophobic mother, Allene (Jill Paice). Hughes is interested in science, particularly aerospace engineering, from an early age. But he is also smitten with Ella Botts Rice (Christine DiGiallonardo), his first wife. The marriage doesn’t last, thanks to Hughes’s obsession with work. From then on, much of the musical is dedicated to the adult Hughes (Michael Halling) and his business manipulations. Unfortunately these scenes are not particularly interesting. Although David Elder, who plays Noah Dietrich, Hughes’s financial advisor, is always compelling and is a fine singer and dancer. When Hughes isn’t buying airlines or film studios, he’s chasing women. In real life Hughes was known as a playboy. But the musical limits his amorous adventures to Katherine Hepburn (the excellent Gina Milo). When Hepburn doesn’t appear at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn one day, their relationship ends. In fact, what’s most remarkable about this musical is what it leaves out. Hughes had romances with a host of famous women, including Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Ava Gardner and Gloria Vanderbilt. Halling plays Hughes as neither particularly attractive nor flirtatious. On the contrary, Hughes always seems like a schoolboy asking a girl out for a first date. In 1936 Hughes struck and killed a pedestrian while driving a car in Los Angeles. In 1957 he married actress Jean Peters after stalking her for many years. Hughes suffered from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. He insisted on using tissues to pick up objects to insulate himself from germs. He became obsessed with films and food. If we had learned more about Hughe’s troubled emotional life, his tragic ending might have made more sense. Even more important, the show might have a trajectory that is interesting to follow. There are some really nice ballads in According to Howard: “If I Could,” “Attracted to You” and Milo’s magnificent “Til The Next Time?” and several highly entertaining ensemble numbers.: “Howard’s Hollywood,” “TWA.” The book writer just needs to figure out what are the dramatic elements in Hughe’s life. And that’s not how he made his money, but the kind of life he led after he made it.
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