Dogfight

Slow Burn Theatre Company continues their season with the musical "Dogfight" by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul in the Abdo New River Room at the Broward Center.

"Dogfight" concerns a group of marines on leave right after basic training in November of 1963. The gentlemen in question decide to hold a "Dogfight" where they purposely ask the ugliest girl they can find to go to a dance with them. The marine with the ugliest date wins the prize money. That's the premise. Of course, Marine Eddie Birdlace begins to fall for plain Rose Fenny over the course of the show. You can't have a musical without a love story.

Unfortunately, "Dogfight" isn't a great musical. It has some great songs, but the book by Peter Duchan is abysmal and you never really like any of the characters. The most redeeming characters, that of Rose and the prostitute Marcy, are so blandly written that they can't elevate the show except when they are singing.

Slow Burn was fighting an uphill battle with this script from day one and, even though they did mostly everything right, the best that can be said was that this battle was a draw.

In the lead role of Eddie Birdlace, Alexander Zenoz gave a fine performance. Zenoz is young and handsome and has a fine singing voice. Unfortunately his character is an unlikable schmuck who has a tendency to be maudlin. The role of Rose Fenny was written for Broadway singer Lindsay Mendez. Mendez has a unique and powerful voice and material written for her doesn't always do well with other singers.

For Slow Burn's current production this role is taken on by Hannah Benitez, who is almost too pretty to play the role of ugly duckling. Benitez gives a good performance but had moments of being noticeably out of tune during some of her solo numbers. On the other hand during the title song, which is a duet with the character of Marcy, Benitez's harmonies were strong and clear.

Alexa Baray sang the role of Marcy and was one of the strongest performers on stage. Even ugly makeup and a dental implant cannot hide Baray's inherent beauty and vocally she was, perhaps, the strongest performer on the stage. Her belt voice is clear, strong and high and she was a pleasure to listen to.

In the supporting roles of Boland and Bernstein, Christian Vandepas and Mike Westrich gave fine, if somewhat unmemorable, performances. The fault lies with the material, not the actors.

The same can be said of Sabrina Lynn Gore who played the role of Rose's mother. Gore, Westrich and Vandepas were all underutilized in this production. Casting them in these smaller roles is a bit like putting Patti LuPone in the chorus line. It's fun to watch but you want to see them do more.

Ben Sandomir give a fine performance as the lounge singer and Kaitlyn O'Neill, Cameron Jordan, and Brian Varela rounded out the rest of the cast nicely in supporting roles.

At the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with "Dogfight" other than the show itself. The songs by themselves are great, I highly recommend the cast album. However once you put them on stage surrounded by less than stellar dialogue and having them sung by less than likable characters, they lose something. Slow Burn did everything right with this production -- they just chose the wrong show.

"Dogfight" runs through Dec. 6 at Aventura Arts & Cultural Center, 3385 NE 188th St., Aventura, FL 33180. For information or tickets, call 305-466-8002 or visit www.aventuracenter.org