Review: "Yank!" Sings of Gay Soldiers in Love

Bobby Steggert and Ivan Hernandez in the Off-Broadway premiere of YANK!
(Photos credit: Carol Rosegg)

You know, they just don't make musicals like Yank! anymore.

And that's a real shame, because Yank!, now in previews at the York theater, succeeds on just about every level that a musical can.

The show opens with a present day San Franciscan kid finding a journal in an old junk shop, and upon reading it is sucked into the world of which it speaks: the life of an innocent young World War II private named Stu. We see the army through Stu's eyes, and in the grand tradition of old-school musicals like South Pacific, boot camp is the perfect place for a bunch of green soldiers to burst into cleverly choreographed song and dance.

And that's really what's so refreshing about Yank!. In an era of ironic, self-aware musicals, where much of the comedy seems to stem from characters knowing they're in a musical and winking about it to the audience, Stu and his fellow young soldiers are blissfully unaware that they're singing and stepping in time.

How many new musicals have you seen in the past decade that have the audacity to include not one, but two exuberant tap numbers? Or that delight in such Rodgers-and-Hammerstein-esque lyrics as “Your squad is your squad is your squad?” And yet for all of its homage to the musicals of yesterday and World War II movies, the show never for a moment feels dated.

This is due to a number of factors, not the least of which that Stu is played with polished perfection by Bobby Steggert, a fresh-faced and boyish actor with a thoroughly modern appeal. He’s also a true triple-threat: when the first tap number begins, he sits and watches as gay serviceman Artie (a fantastic Jeffrey Denmanm, also serving as choreographer) clicks away. I fully expected him to stay seated, but was astonished when he joined in and matched Denman tap for tap.

Stu quickly meets the other fellows in his division, who, true to the genre, are a blend of nicknames and ethnicities, but of course none of them are black, for we learn quickly that African Americans are kept in their own division. This fact is stated simply and without judgment, but we as the audience understand, it’s just one more facet of how the U.S. government has always discriminated against the very people who give their lives to defend it.

(L to r) Tally Sessions, David Perlman, Andrew Durand, Bobby Steggert,
Ivan Hernandez, Christopher Ruth and Zak Edwards

To a man, Stu’s army brothers are wonderfully played, with Tally Sessions and Andrew Durand, as the love-hate buddies Czechowski and Tennessee, the stand-outs. All of the actors are fearless in their performances, which include dropping trou (with their backs to the audience) as they head into the communal showers, a place that terrifies Stu, who is just coming into his sexuality.