"The way the book merrily hopscotches from cliché to cliché can still raise smiles. But 'Dames' ultimately founders on our familiarity, not with the genre it plays with like a cat’s toy, but with the long history, since its creation, of similar simulations of old-school entertainments. Even housed in Broadway’s smallest theater, this miniature musical, with a cast you could fit in a dinghy, seems just a little, well, at sea."
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"It lands like a harmless piece of wet fluff. The first 20 minutes of wide-eyed antics are cute; then your mind starts to wander. 'Dames at Sea's' mild pastiche is passable but passé—imagine a revival, half a century from now, of a Fringe show about the ’80s—and it’s presented with tongue so far in cheek that it can’t say much at all."
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"Instead of sticking close to the presentational style of Busby Berkeley spectaculars, 'Dames' literally belittled itself, making do with a cast of six and an orchestra of three on a stage barely big enough to contain Bernadette Peters. It would seem to be a category error to bring material so conceived to Broadway, and the production that just opened at the Helen Hayes, much as you root for it, fails to argue otherwise."
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"What’s not to like? Nothing whatsoever—but there isn’t enough to love about 'Dames at Sea,' which may have seemed sufficiently witty a half-century ago but has long since been outclassed by the encyclopedically knowing musical-comedy spoofery of 'The Drowsy Chaperone.' Compared with that big-brain homage, 'Dames' isn’t much more clever than a college show, and its parodies steer too close to their models to be other than mildly amusing."
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"‘Dames At Sea’ is a lot of fun and a tribute to the city’s inexhaustible pool of inexhaustible talent, if not actual stars…Broadway today is awash in nostalgia in the form of revivals, reboots and parodies, all done on a far larger scale and offering considerably more bang, or tap, for the buck. And good as they are, the dancers never let us forget just how hard they’re working to please us."
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"'Dames at Sea' is a mid-1960s musical trifle that works overtime to be cheeky good fun. Thanks to a cast with twinkle-toes and polished pipes, it succeeds — for a while. Before long, though, monotony sets in and won’t go away. Even top-notch tap-dancing can get repetitive...'Dames' doesn’t make a big splash or sink. It treads water."
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"The new leading lady of 'Dames at Sea' is no Bernadette Peters. There’s nothing wrong with this revival that Peters, who played the role of Ruby in the original, couldn’t fix. But musical theater stars of her caliber don’t grow on trees, and although newcomer Eloise Kropp is a power tapper par excellence, she hasn’t the saucy charm of a Broadway Baby like Ruby — or the magnetic appeal of a star like Peters."
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"'Dames at Sea' reinvents one of those big-screen spectacles as a shrunken stage musical — a baby Busby Berkeley if you will — with an appealing cast of six that makes its featherweight pleasures infectious...A sweet candy morsel serving unapologetically empty calories."
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