By Cynthia Citron  

Give yourself an early holiday present and rush to see The Grand Tour, the best musical to hit L.A. in many a year.  And when it’s  time for curtain calls, stand up and cheer for Jason Graae, as I  did, for his spectacular performance, his extraordinary voice, and his deliciously light-footed dancing.

And give another cheer for John Ganun, whose coupling with Graae makes them the most entertaining duo since Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.

The Grand Tour has a long history.  As originally written in 1944 by Prague-born Jewish poet, playwright, and novelist Franz Werfel, iit was called Jacobowsky and the Colonel.  That same year it opened on Broadway in an adaptation by S.N. Behrman, staged by Elia Kazan.  The film version in 1958 was called Me and the Colonel and starred Danny Kaye. And finally, in 1979 came the musical, The Grand Tour, with book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble, music 
and lyrics by Jerry Herman, and the inimitable Joel Gray in the lead.

The musical was not a success, however.  It closed after two months, leaving Herman and Bramble to mourn it as “the show we loved and lost.”  But what goes around comes around, and Herman and Bramble have returned to the scene of the crime (but without  Michael Stewart, who died in 1987).  A solid rewrite allows them to  bill this new version, which opened at the Colony Theatre in  Burbank on November 5th, as “a world premiere revision”.  And aren’t we glad they stuck with it!

The Grand Tour is set in 1940 in France, where a wistful, melancholy little man (played by Graae with self-effacing charm) is working his way across occupied Europe to escape the Nazis.  His name is S.L. Jacobowsky and he is a Jew.  He has already migrated from Poland to Berlin to Vienna to Paris, but he is a survivor, as he makes clear in his opening song, “I’ll be Here Tomorrow.”

 Having secured “the last available car in Paris” for his escape to the seaport of St. Nazaire, he is only momentarily stymied by the fact that he doesn’t know how to drive.  But there stands the car onstage, wittily constructed from a varied collection of suitcases and trunks.  And here comes Colonel Tadeusz Boleslav Stjerbinsky, a pompous, overbearing anti-Semitic Pole (played by 
Ganun) who also needs a ride to the coast.  Predictably, he disdains the idea of traveling with such a low-class non-entity, but urged on by the company in a comic production number, he agrees to do it “For Poland”.

But first he must make a detour to pick up his lady-love, Marianne, played with sweetness and grace by the wonderful Tami Tappan Damiano.  Whereupon this trio embarks on a series of adventures: a train ride where they jiggle through a song called “We’re Almost There”; an impromptu picnic; a secret Jewish wedding; and a stint as circus performers.

Marianne is charmed by Jacobowsky’s ability to get them out of  jams, by his unflappable composure, and by his overriding sense of  humor.  She calls him her “antidote” to the stiff Colonel, who bemoans this turn of events by singing a bittersweet “More and More I Like Him Less and Less.”

These wonderful songs, with their enticing melodies and clever  lyrics, are accompanied by ebullient dances choreographed by Peggy  Hickey and a musical quartet conducted by Jeff Rizzo.  (As an aside, I have to say it is a constant amazement to me at the caliber and abundance of talent we have available to us here in Los Angeles.  And especially for musicals: dancers with marvelous  voices and singers who can dance the stage alive.   We are truly blessed.)

Evan Weinstein has directed this 10-person cast with joy and panache.  Each of them, except for the principals and Gordon Goodman, the S.S. Captain, plays a multitude of parts, filling the 
stage with much bustle and activity.  But the show-stopper comes with the thrilling and exuberant dance executed by Jacobowsky and  the Colonel to cement the respect and friendship that has developed between them.  And while they fly all over the stage they sing the awesome affirmation, “You I Like.”  The number brings down the house, both during the show and when the song is reprised by the  entire company at the curtain call.

The Grand Tour is a musical that is hard to classify.  It is sometimes considered a comedy, sometimes a tragedy.  Its title refers to the long, meandering trek of refugees wandering through 
Europe, a somber and cynical contrast to the traditional extravagant tours undertaken by wealthy Americans earlier in the century.  But though the players in this fine production project a blithe good humor and a buoyant and exhilarating optimism, there is a poignant moment at the end of the play that rivals the last dramatic moments in the movie Casablanca.

But comedy or tragedy, The Grand Tour is not to be missed!

The Grand Tour will continue at the Colony Theatre, 555 North Third Street, in Burbank, through December 4th.

This review also was heard on the Ira Fistell Show, KABC Radio, 790 AM