September 4-10, 2003

artpicks

Starlight Express

theater

Rusty never sleeps. Only months after pulling into the station after 18 years on the West End circuit, hauling Starlight Express to the position of second-longest-running musical ever (after Cats) in the process, the cutely oxidizing hero finds himself touring internationally once more, and spruced up with a lick of fresh Andrew Lloyd Webber gloss.

Since its inception in 1984, Starlight has moved through several incarnations of plot -- from its original, through Starlight On Ice and to an updated version in 2000 -- as Rusty the steam engine races bigger competitors, diesel Greaseball and electric-powered Elektra, for the winner's title and the love of Pearl, the observation car. The latest touring version introduces 3-D film segments, as if sitting at the edge of a half-pipe, catching the breeze of passing wire-limbed roller skaters wasn't always hyperrealistic enough. (This is all a touch paradoxical, given that its core message is still that older-fashioned technology can trump the newer.)

This production, which steams into town for the first time in the show's history this week, does boast a new pairing: Lloyd Webber has written certain new songs, including "Whole Lotta Locomotion," for this latest version, with composer David Yazbek, who, having recently won a Tony for his work on The Full Monty, may prove a well-chosen counterweight to Lloyd Webber's full-barreled momentum.

Starlight Express, Sept. 10-14, $25-$85, Broadway at the Academy, The Academy of Music, Broad and Locust sts., 215-893-1955.

—Juliet Fletcher

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