Fun, but a little out of tune

After seeing Things That Go Ding! I can safely say Skylight Music Theater is incredibly lucky to have someone as talented as Michael “Ding” Lorenz on the team.

Things That Go Ding! is the latest attempt to get Lorenz an audience, and the second by this name. The original was a shorter, free cabaret piece in the 2009-10 season. Lorenz has also played in the pit for a staggering 104 shows with the Skylight since 1972.

The 10 numbers in Ding! cover every imaginable percussion need. The stage is stocked full of bells, xylophones, chimes, marimbas, celestas, gongs, drums and a great number of things I can’t name. It’s like Toys ‘R Us for drummers.

Pianist Jamie Johns and director, singer and lead funnyman Ray Jivoff flank Lorenz. The three know their stuff. From piece to piece, they work and joke together like cogs in a machine.

Humor’s a critical part of Ding! — perhaps a part that needs more emphasis. In the musical numbers — including a tribute to Spike Jones, “The Man Who Murdered Music”; “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise,” performed by Jivoff in a sombrero/bonnet with rubber chicken accompaniment; and Lorenz’s infamous version of the “Habanera” from Carmen on tuned taxi horns (with a glorious augmentation I won’t spoil) — and the banter in between, Lorenz, Johns and Jivoff have fun trying to make one another laugh. Their fun is our fun.

It’s not all fun and games though. Ding!, more than anything, is an opportunity to see and hear a master at work. Lorenz excels no matter what instrument he’s playing, a fact summed up best in Caisa!, his unaccompanied performance of the titular steel hand drum with wind chimes. The instrument, a UFO-like mushroom of metal, seems silly. But when he starts playing, the pentatonic scales and constant rhythm are hypnotic in their simplicity.

So what’s not to like? The pacing, for one. As great as Lorenz, Johns and Jivoff are, the evening does wear on. Less patter, or even a cut or two, would make the show more audience-friendly.

The structure is also a hindrance. The first act works well, ending with an homage to Mister Rogers (played pitch-perfect by Jivoff) that segues into the “Habanera.” Act 2 opens with what should be the show’s finale: a bombastic number that requires Lorenz to pull back a curtain and reveal himself whirling about within a second mad scientist’s lab of percussion. But he never returns to that second level, and nothing else in the show bowls us over to quite that degree.

And while you don’t have to be a musicologist to appreciate the show—almost everything is entertaining and recognizable, even if you can’t quite remember the name—it’s certainly better if you do. I got the basics, but I know just enough about classical music to know that a lot of jokes flew over my head.

Things That Go Ding! works, but it could work better. If one taxi horn is a little off, you don’t scrap the whole rack. You fix and fine-tune.

Skylight Music Theatre’s production of Things That Go Ding! runs through May 6 at the Broadway Theatre Center. Tickets are $35.50 and can be purchased online or at (414) 291-7800.