Annie Get Your Gun, Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace. Fifty years after its premiere, the slightest ditty in Irving Berlin’s heartwarming musical outweighs all the easy-listening pop-pap-poop of a Jekyll & Hyde.
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Yes, the gun-crazy plot carries a sexist moral: sharpshooter Annie Oakley must settle for being second best if she’s to win the love of rival shootist Frank Butler. But the inexhaustibly exciting “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and the instantly happy “I Got the Sun in the Morning” still seem perfect fusions of tart lyrics and effortless melody. Besides, in “An Old-Fashioned Wedding,” added in 1966, scrappy Annie promises Frank “to love, honor–but not obey.” Even Berlin could learn. Ray Frewen’s pleasing revival is a bit streamlined. Though the first-act finale “Indian Ceremonial” is included (and treated with refreshing seriousness), the less-than-sensitive “I’m an Indian Too” is cut, along with some second stanzas and the salacious lyrics to “Doin’ What Comes Natur’lly.”
