Holmes”Just Another Man’ not legitimate theater

You can enjoy this song-and-dance fest if you’re looking for some fine voices, disciplined bodies and easy pop. But woe the unfortunates in search of an accomplished musical.

Book writers Holmes, Fayne, and Larry Moss tell the story of singer Rei Coles by using two dramatic framing devices, which is two too many. Coles’ life events are presented as if they were part of a Vegas floor show, and an anesthesia-induced vision (a conceit borrowed, unimaginatively, from the 1979 film “All That Jazz”).

The amazing thing about Coles’ life is that he seems to have lived every cliche out of every showbiz bio. He’s shallow and empty, until he gets to perform. That’s when, as his big final number tells us, “Every hope of spring/ Is alive each time I sing.” You can feel Barry Manilow weeping in the wings.

The script tackles a slew of predictable events without slowing down to delve beneath the surface. While the writers and director Moss keep hitting us over the head with obvious themes, some intriguing motifs (such as Coles’ having to fight his father’s artistic voice to find his own) are underexplored.

You would expect this semi-autobiographical show to provide some unique insights about, for example, racial prejudice and difficult father-son relationships, because you assume the writer has something personal to say about his own experiences. But “Just Another Man” is so generic that you feel as if someone who’s never lived any of this is trying to fake it.

While Holmes is a justifiably celebrated talent — his effortless stage manner and chummy persona amplify a dramatic, no-nonsense sensitive singing instrument — his presence here feels like an intrusion. He does a lot of commenting on the action, and when he’s called upon to play his younger self, he doesn’t have the acting chops to pull it off.

The 2-hour-and-15-minute show (with intermission) could improve immeasurably with extensive cuts. It takes several numbers before we get a song that establishes the world of this particular musical, and that’s several numbers too many. The show wanders with songs that feel as if they were part of earlier themes that got axed. (Someone needs to decide what this show is about.) And if the producers would just cut the plot repetitions — such as an entire scene in which a girlfriend’s mother insults Coles — a good half-hour could be saved on dialogue alone.

But even a banal script can’t hold back this marvelous 12-member cast and seven-member band. Tina Walsh is a charming, slightly neurotic opera singer. Earl Turner seems to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders as Coles’ troubled father, Eddie. Reva Rice proves a formidable singing and acting presence as Roz, Coles’ Bible-thumping wife. And Tezz Yancey, as Rei and Roz’s son, has the dancing, singing and acting talents of a pro. But it’s that look in his eye — that magical something that says, “Watch me” — that makes him impossible to not notice.

I kept wishing the production would drop its pretense of a book and let the athletic choreography (by Tyce Diorio), the singing talent and the expert technical values stand on their own. “Just Another Man” shows no evidence of being a legitimate theater piece. These simple, cotton-candy musical numbers are trying so hard to be gut-busting important that it’s as if Tom Jones suddenly thought himself Nietzsche. Is showbiz really worth all this angst?

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.