Three sailors are on 24-hour shore leave in New York City before being shipped off to war. No, this is not a simple spoof of the 1944 musical “On The Town.” The initial premise is a feint. “No Singing in the Navy” turns into something far more surreal, a satirical musical that’s really a scattershot revue that’s really a contemplation in serviceable tunes and idiosyncratic lyrics of identity, unrequited love, dementia, war and death.
The three sailors (Bailey Lee as Sailor 1, Elliot Sagay as Sailor 2. and Ellen Nikbakht as Sailor 3, making lively Off-Broadway debuts) sing and dance in front of a silver tinsel backdrop, in between the pianist Kyle Adam Blair and a coat rack that holds all their costumes and props. Over the course of the 75 minutes, they rummage through the rack repeatedly to moonlight as their captain (Nikbakht), who forbids his sailors from singing, lusts after them, and sends them off to war and certain death; Mom (Lee) who retrieves her sailor son’s Ducky; a lighthouse lady, 100 women, two tiny ants, and a family of crabs – also a Theater Show. It’s an approach one can call wide-ranging, which is apparently a Milo Cramer specialty (judging from “Minor Character,” which was “Uncle Vanya” presented in six translations simultaneously.)
The heroine crab (Lee) becomes a major character. In “Crab Family Operetta,” she is initially trying to climb out of the barrel, but encounters so much disapproval from her family that she gives up – and then they say: “Are you kidding me? You gotta GO.” The crab gets many subsequent scenes and songs; among them: She meets the sailors, and teaches them how to sing; she marvels at the ocean; then later (spoiler alert) she’s shocked to learn that sailors eat crabs.
The lighthouse lady (Sagay, wearing a very tall lighthouse hat on his head) sings a quiet ballad “Were Does Self-Worth Come From?” while her suitors fight violently with one another.
As the hours count down to their deaths, the sailors go to a casino, and then attend “a the-a-ter show” which is supposed to be about sailors. The sailors actively boo the show, and encourage the audience to do so as well. The star of the show that they’re booing (Nikbakht) sings:
Do I really have a soul?
Or am I too silly?
Am I really gonna die?
Aren’t I too pretty?
— the exact sort of existential questions that the tiny ant and the heroine crab, and the sailors themselves, have also been expressing in song.
No Singing in the Navy
Playwrights Horizons through April 19
Running time: 75 minutes no intermission
Tickets: $53.50 – $93.50
Written by Milo Cramer
Directed by Aysan Celik
Scenic design by Krit Robinson, costume design by Enver Chakartash, lighting design by Masha Tsimring, sound design by Tei Blow, music director and pianist Kyle Adam Blair, production stage manager Kelsey Vivian
Cast: Bailey Lee, Elliot Sagay. Ellen Nikbakht,
