The Babe (C. J. Wilson) is better off packing up his things and going home in Broadway bomb about the Yankees (photo by Joan Marcus)
Circle in the Square Theatre
1633 Broadway at 50th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through March 2, $67 – $137
www.bronxbombersplay.com
Earlier this week, New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter announced over Facebook that he will be hanging up his cleats following the 2014 season. It’s a pity it wasn’t the new Broadway show Bronx Bombers — which features a fictional version of the pinstripes captain — calling it quits instead, immediately. Eric Simonson’s play, which transferred to Circle in the Square after fall training at the Duke on 42nd St., is nearly inconceivably dull and pointless, coming off more like an MLB-sponsored advertorial than an intuitive, intelligent look at baseball’s most storied franchise. The first act focuses on manager Billy Martin’s removal of Reggie Jackson from the outfield in the middle of an inning after Jackson loafed after a Jim Rice fly ball at Fenway Park on June 18, 1977. Yankees coach Yogi Berra (Peter Scolari) calls together captain Thurman Munson (Bill Dawes), Martin (Keith Nobbs), and Jackson (Francois Battiste) in a Boston hotel room to try to get the manager and the hot-dogging superstar to kiss and make up, but that’s not about to happen anytime soon. In the second act, Berra is caught up in a dreamlike fantasy in which he and his wife, Carmen (Tracy Shayne, who is married to Scolari in real life), host a dinner party with the greatest players in Yankees history, supposedly showing up to help Berra solve the Martin-Jackson dilemma and save the Yankees’ reputation and season. But not even the arrival of Lou Gehrig (John Wernke), Joe DiMaggio (Chris Henry Coffey), Elston Howard (Battiste), Babe Ruth (C. J. Wilson), Mickey Mantle (Bill Dawes), and Jeter (Christopher Jackson) can help playwright-director Simonson’s minor-league tale rise out of the cellar (as most of the sets do). Aside from Dawes, who captures the Mick’s wild personality, and Battiste, who nails Jackson’s braggadocio, none of the other actors turn in all-star performances, never embodying the famous, and familiar, athletes they are portraying. Simonson, the man behind such other sports-related Broadway productions as Lombardi and Magic/Bird, muddles the relationships among the players, with some dressed in uniform, others in suits, some in the prime of their careers, others nearing death, for no apparent dramaturgical reason. And in a 2008 coda, he includes no mention of Berra’s fourteen-year feud with owner George Steinbrenner, making Bronx Bombers feel even more like a promotional piece. Indeed, merchandise authorized by Major League Baseball is available for sale in the lobby, as are collectibles from an officially licensed memorabilia company. Unfortunately, the only souvenir worthy of this Broadway bomb is a Bronx cheer.