Reviews

IRVING – The slogan of the backstage musical is, "Let's put on a show!" Look Homeward Honky Tonk Angel creates a new twist: The show isn't a play, musical or otherwise. It's a country music concert.

NAN COULTER/Special Contributor

Jim Green and Jaclyn North in Lyric Stage's production of Look Homeward Honky Tonk Angel in the Dupree Theater

A reunion concert, in fact. An aging country music star takes the stage with his ex-wife 20 years after their divorce.

Lyric Stage gave Look Homeward Honky Tonk Angel its world premiere on Saturday with a performance that couldn't get much better, especially in the vocal department. The songs are by Larry Gatlin – some old hits and six fresh numbers. If you think that the oldies are likely to be the goodies, think again. The new tunes are some of the best written for a musical in years.

The problem with a musical tends to be the book. The libretto by Anthony Dodge and Marcia Milgrom Dodge does present some issues. It's silly, it's obvious, it's corny – and those are its good qualities. The real obstacle is that it just feels too easy to present so many old hits in a concert format during the second act. We're so used to the idea that a song must push the story along that we're suspicious of one that doesn't have to.

Ms. Dodge, also the director, has a secret weapon at her disposal. Julie Johnson, Dallas' number one musical theater star and a fine country singer to boot, isn't going to let a show flounder. The book gives her the latest entrance of any prima donna this side of Puccini's Turandot: She doesn't appear until right before the first act curtain. Thereafter, she drives the show as if she were Earnhardts senior and junior rolled up into one.

Mr. Gatlin has written some superb new numbers that feature her. The sassy "Take a Number" sizzles like a prime Porterhouse.

Not that she's the only star in the show. Young Jaclyn North dominates the first act with a dynamite voice and a presence at once sweet and sultry. Her love interest, Joshua Doss, has had a passle of parts hereabouts over the last two years, but this is his best work yet. The only complaint you can make about Catherine Carpenter Cox is that she doesn't have enough to do.

Ms. Johnson's opposite number, Jim Green, has been playing leads at smaller theaters around town forever. Here he looks completely comfortable, whether hamming things up energetically or looking relaxed and on top of things. You believe him completely as he takes the spotlight over and over in the second act.

Look Homeward Honky Tonk Angel probably wouldn't seem so good if its performers weren't so great. But with so many fine singers singing so many good songs, nobody's likely to complain.

• Through Oct. 20 at Irving Arts Center's Dupree Theater, 3333 N. MacArthur Blvd., Irving. Runs 150 min. $15 to $29. 972-252-2787; www.lyricstage.org.

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