Someplace at the pressure out to the Marriott Theatre Wednesday afternoon for the Faustian 1955 musical comedy “Damn Yankees,” the devilish determine of Jerry Lewis popped into the middle lane of my awareness, reminding me of his unforgettable 1994 traveling efficiency as Mr. Applegate, aka Beelzebub himself.

If reminiscence serves, Lewis, who floated diabolically across the Shubert Theatre, made his first look in some of the field seats. He delivered possibly 10% of the traces penned for the position by way of George Abbott and Douglass Wallop. The remains was once, neatly, let’s name it improvisation in a excursion additionally remarkable for a way the gamers of the Washington Senators disrobed at each and every alternative in an aim to juice up the complaints for the good thing about the field place of business.

Not anything of such as happens on the Marriott Theatre, which additionally produced this rarely-seen identify again in 2002. That was once some other manufacturing I have in mind, starring the Broadway actor Sean Allen Krill as Joe Hardy, the more youthful model of Joe Boyd, the person who sells his soul to the satan to deliver to grow to be younger once more and a superb hitter for the Senators. Paula Scrofano performed the unswerving spouse he leaves in the back of.

However this zesty untouched 2023 manufacturing, directed by way of James Vásquez, has an great crackle of the bat, some lively, fresh-facing choreography from Tyler Hanes and, but extra importantly, a couple of musically adroit supremacy performances that remind us, because the well-known tune is going, of the abiding musical fact that “all you really need is heart.”

That paintings comes from Andrew Alstat, a performer I’ve no longer viewed paintings prior to however a whopping skill, and from the extremely skilled Danielle Dalli, who shook the very heavens, or no less than the ones drowsing of their resort rooms, because the Mom Abbess in extreme time’s Marriott manufacturing of “The Sound of Music.”

Superior musicals steadily word of honour some model of immortality, or no less than insist that dying simply is transformation. So it is going right here. Joe (the, ahem, used model is richly performed by way of Ron E. Rains) spends his days shouting on the Senators to get up up and beat the detested Yankees. Applegate (Sean Fortunato) presentations as much as serve him his want and construct him a tender heavy-hitter eternally, however dramatic stress flows from Joe’s savvy negotiation of an leaving clause that comes into impact at the while of the Senators’ extreme sport of the season. Actually, Joe misses his spouse. However Applegate brings within the vampish “home wrecker” Lola (Michelle Aravena), a “woman from Chicago” who the satan hopes will seduce Joe into by no means going house, being as no matter Lola desires, Lola will get.

Amid all the ones mid-Nineteen Fifties shenanigans, you get one in all Broadway’s superb jazzy ratings from Richard Alder and Jerry Ross, a tune suite from which many vocalists peeled off requirements: “Heart,” “Goodbye Old Girl” and, after all, “Lola,” a bunch lined such a lot of occasions over such a lot of years, few even commit it to memory got here from this display. The musical course from Ryan T. Nelson has the moss pizzazz of any contemporary display on the Marriott, in part because of the singular orchestrations, after all, but additionally the appropriate spirit of a laugh.

I most commonly loved Fortunato and the dancing of Aravena, in addition to Erica Stephan, who performs the sports activities reporter who tries to rumble Joe’s sport, however the ones parts of the display are the toughest to drag off in this day and age for a wide variety of causes and no longer all of the gags land. This manufacturing properly roots itself on the true affection felt between two small-town, middle-aged other people, penned to be stand-ins for the Nineteen Fifties Broadway target audience, after all.

Each Alstat and Dalli are simply nice-looking on this display and also you in point of fact pluck for his or her marriage, which is the important thing to a valuable “Damn Yankees” in any season.

The most commonly used staff at my matinee pulled a minute nearer in combination. Play games ball.

Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Assessment: “Damn Yankees” (3 stars)

When: Thru June 4

The place: Marriott Theatre, 10 Marriott Power, Lincolnshire

Operating year: 2 hours, 20 mins

Tickets: $55-$65 at 847-634-0200 and www.marriotttheatre.com