MET’s How to Succeed revival falls short of an MBA

I’d never seen How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, though the get-rich-quick title is a familiar cultural concept, and one of its songs, “The Brotherhood of Man,” is familiar to anyone who has watched the Tony Awards or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade telecast in recent times.

Based on a satirical 1952 book of the same name, How to Succeed premiered in New York in 1961 and won a gaggle of awards the following year: seven Tonys, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. Half a century later, the Metropolitan Ensemble Theatre has revived it, and I was curious.

For one thing, I wondered: Is it dated? Well, yes — but recent revivals (with Matthew Broderick in 1995, with John Larroquette and Daniel Radcliffe in 2011) have been produced for a reason: Frank Loesser’s songs and Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert’s book spoof workplace politics and corporate America in ways that still feel relevant. “By George, ethical behavior always pays,” says the young protagonist, J. Pierrepont Finch. It was always a joke, and it’s bitterly funny now.

That’s not to excuse the play’s sexist 1960s sensibilities: sexy, dippy or lovelorn secretaries; songs such as “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm,” sung by the secretary Rosemary (Mandy Morris, also the show’s choreographer). But if these aspects must be taken in stride, the performances in this production are pitched at an appropriately over-the-top level.

A lowly window washer at the World Wide Wicket Co. when the show begins, the ambitious Finch (played by the talented Phil Newman, who is surely also on the rise) reads from the book How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying while working the squeegee with his other hand. He wants only to get ahead. Romance goes with the job package in Rosemary, who has her own designs.

The company’s president, clueless J.B. Biggley (Bob Paisley, the show’s other anchor), should be concerned. His nephew, Bud Frump (Tony Beasley), who relies on nepotism, clearly senses a competitor in Finch. But Biggley is losing his sense over the vapid Hedy LaRue (Celia Gannon), a head-turning old flame who shows up to take a “position.”

Scenes with Newman and Paisley are seamless and funny highlights of the show. So, too, are some musical numbers, and the skillful physical comedy, especially by Beasley and Newman. (The exuberant Newman thinks on his feet as fast as he moves them.) But the show needs more than those moments deliver.

Frequent and time-consuming scene changes in this three-hour production disrupt continuity, and some songs just run too long: “A Secretary Is Not a Toy” and “Coffee Break,” about needing coffee, whose routine devolved into zombie movements with something inside of me dies. Timing matters, and this show’s pace needs to keep tempo with Finch’s rapid rise.

As staged here, Act 1 runs more than 90 minutes. And it’s big, with 22 actors. This isn’t the first time that director Karen Paisley has amassed a large cast in the MET space — Pride and Prejudice and The Kentucky Cycle come to mind. But while those were balletically blocked, the setup here feels claustrophobic, and it seemed that cast members were being careful not to step on one another’s toes.

It’s common practice at MET to reconfigure seating and stage to fit a play’s needs, and this production’s containment is clever if crowded (set design by the Paisleys). The offices of the story’s World Wide Wicket Co. — including the elevator doors — use the theater’s entryway, with a set of stairs wrapping around the doorway’s sides to an upper “executive” level.

The animated supporting cast members give this show their all, but their vehicle is unwieldy and runs out of gas in the second act. It remains entertaining in places, especially “I Believe in You,” sung by Newman with the men’s ensemble. (A chirpy “Cinderella, Darling,” on the other hand, lacked enough rehearsal.) But a pivotal scene lost its momentum, and dialogue and lyrics during the performance I saw were often drowned out by the recorded music (or lost to sound gaps).

Yet I found myself humming “The Brotherhood of Man” the following day and thinking about a character’s “bold caution.” This community theater isn’t cautious, and it’s certainly bold.