Workshop production can carry a tune

'The Cardigans' opens tonight at Little Theatre.

By JOE GEREN

for The Hawk Eye

If it can't be sung, it's not worth singing.

That's the motto of The Cardigans, a mythical, squeaky–clean, pop group of the 1950s. The quartet makes its Burlington debut Friday night at Players Workshop.

"The Cardigans — Those Swingin' Singin' Guys From Alpha Mu Phi Pi" is a 90–minute musical revue created by Rick Lewis. It's a male sequel to Lewis's "The Taffetas," which featured four singing sisters making their television debut.

"The Cardigans," directed by Robbin Poling and Jeanette McWhorter (music) plays Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Little Theatre on Grove Street. It returns Sept. 28 through Oct. 1.

Not to be confused with the Swedish band of the same name, the mythical Cardigans are four fraternity brothers who just graduated from college in Wooster, Ohio. They were discovered on "Arthur Gerber's Talent Time" and have recorded an album titled "Wooster In My Heart." As the curtain rises, they're on their first live tour. It's the first time they've ever performed more than 12 miles away from Wooster.

Gerhardt Lachnitt, Corey Cox, Tim Noll and Steve Poling make a solid quartet as Chuck, Frankie, Johnny and Buddy. They reminisce about their college days and their childhoods. They are all sons of Protestant ministers. They talk about their ex–girlfriends, and how they lost them.

"I forgot her name just once," Steve Poling laments. He soon sings "Tammy" to her, in her absentia, and he nails it.

Set in a nightclub with a bar upstage right, the music begins with the obscure classic "Oop Shoop" (Shirley Gunter and The Queens, 1954, later covered by Tommy Sands). The melodies get more recognizable.

You'll hear "Love Is A Many Splendored Thing," "Running Bear," "Mack the Knife," and "Three Coins In A Fountain." Noll sings "Unchained Melody" and hits the high note.

Many of the popular songs won't sound the way you may have heard them on AM radio or 45 rpm wax. Lewis provides his own arrangements. Although it's billed as a '50s revue, the creator fudged on his closing song. "Sherry" was a No. 1 hit for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons in 1962.

Lachnitt provides Valli's falsetto in "Sherry."

There is a fifth man who has few lines and never sings, at least not that we can hear. Eric Smith is the bartender and is constantly busy, but not distracting. He introduces the singers at the beginning of each act, then returns to the bar.

As the quartet sings "Beep Beep," a song about a Cadillac trying and failing to outrun a Nash Rambler, Smith uses a round tray as a steering wheel and honks its center for the "beep, beep." He and band members Jim Wiseman (bass), Dave Scott (percussion) and Julie Brockert (piano) wear Santa caps as the quartet sings a medley of pop–rock Christmas tunes.

There are four "patrons" at tables on stage. Three of them have not rehearsed. One is "Sherry," played this week by Sue Bell and next week by Libba Flores. The others are Players Workshop volunteers or their family members.

Robbin Poling believes this is the first time Players Workshop has used unrehearsed actors on stage. At Wednesday's dress rehearsal, the unrehearsed actors talked to each other and reacted to the quartet. They performed just like it is in real life in a real night club.

There's another first. All four Cardigans wear cordless microphones.

"We have 18 songs," Poling said. "I didn't want to strain their voices. I've been pleased so far."

Poling said she wanted to do a small–cast musical, not a cast of 50 like workshop veteran Kent Lewis likes to do.

"I'm stepping out of my realm," Poling said. Since she's always preferred male singers, she selected "The Cardigans" over its female predecessor "The Taffetas."

Poling's new realm suits her.

If you want to hear the hopeful, innocent sounds of the 1950s, plus Frankie Valli a la Gerhardt Lachnitt, don't miss "The Cardigans."