So the show’s stated purpose raises the level of difficulty for the four performers.
Hackett,
Basile, Meeks and DeCosta have to do more than sing the old songs and
tell some jokes. They have to re-create the old magic.
The four performers give the show the feel of four old friends who worked very hard at play.
The
show features many of the routines that Frank, Dino, Sammy and Joey
Bishop did in the old days at the Sands. Meeks and Basile did the Lone
Ranger and Tonto routine. This is the kind of routine that could have
been offensive back in the day. It wasn’t because the four men were such
good friends that such antics never seemed condescending.
The
“Rat Pack Show” is at its best when the four performers are on stage
together pulling gags, singing in four-part harmony and giving the
audience a feel of what it must have been like to be in Las Vegas in the
early 1960s.
Of course, that is not the premise of the show. The
show’s story line has the four men returning to Earth to do one more
show in present-day America.
That means public figures and news stories such as the Penn State scandal get a mention.
Some
in the audience gasped at the mention of Jerry Sandusky’s name, but
Hackett — understanding that football is pretty big in South Bend —
quipped that he knew the audience would get that joke.
The show
features several noteworthy individual moments. Hackett got the crowd
laughing with his standup comedy routine in which he bantered with the
audience and managed to turn a persistent hum from the sound system — a
bug that clearly annoyed him — into a fodder for his routine.
Basile enticed the crowd to sing along during his performances of “That’s Amore.”
Meeks and DeCosta gave stellar renditions of “What Kind of Fool am I” and “For Once in My Life.”
The
show also includes a duet of an original ballad, “Wasn’t I a Good
Time,” with DeCosta joining Lisa Dawn Miller, who portrayed Ava Gardner.
Fans
heard most of the songs that they wanted to hear. If you suspended
disbelief enough, you might have thought you were in Vegas at the Sands.
That’s until the show ended, and you realized you were in South Bend in the snow.
Staff writer Howard Dukes:
hdukes@sbtinfo.com
574-235-6369
