Back in the day – that would be 1961 – Frank (Guys and Dolls) Loesser won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Its send-up of venal corporate behaviour struck a chord with an audience just emerging from the 1950s.

The important critics were beyond ecstatic, praising everything to the skies and taking the greatest delight in what they saw as the musical’s wit and humour.

That was then. Director and choreographer Cameron Mitchell’s new production of How to Succeed feels trapped in what is now a distant, irrecoverable past, unable to access what made it so exciting.

Max McDonald, Zachary Webster, Kaeng Chan, Kye Hall and Taye Grant in How to Succeed in Business … Photo © John McRae

The dark arts of vaulting ambition, sexism and nepotism embedded in the plot cry out for a contemporary perspective. Mitchell sticks with the 1960s, neatly evoked in Christine Mutton’s costume designs and Dominic Foffani’s set.

How to Succeed charts the career of J. Pierrepont Finch (Jake Speer) as he plots his way from window cleaner to boardroom supremo at the World Wide Wicket Company. He is armed only with a self-help book, Machiavellian tactics, unshakeable belief in himself and luck. It’s all ladders and no snakes as this pushy, self-satisfied chancer shoves everyone out of his way.

No one is exempt from Finch’s manipulations, including his love-interest Rosemary (sweet-voiced Georgia Laga’aia), who unaccountably yearns for Finch and sings Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm with not a scintilla of irony or resignation.

Bud Frump (Max Macdonald), who owes his job to family connections, is easily outwitted by Finch, as is World Wide Wicket CEO J.B. Biggley (Simon Burke). Blonde bimbo Hedy LaRue (Lucy Lalor) is co-opted and on it goes, stereotype after stereotype in a big cast of 15 playing his or her part.

Stacey Thomsett and company in How to Succeed in Business … Photo © John McRae

All were kept busy with vigorous choreography by Mitchell garnished with plenty of reminders of Bob Fosse, who created most of the musical’s original dances. A touch of Fosse is always welcome but the sweet spot was the moment of joy for nepo baby Frump when he truly believed he had at last bested Finch.

The cartoony outlines that had defined him so far were gone. Macdonald’s Frump danced with elation and there was a sense of freedom otherwise missing from a show that was mostly performed in broad, often effortful strokes.

The hectic book, written by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, is interwoven with rather too many songs in what we might call one of Loesser’s lesser scores, played rather too loudly on opening night by a four-piece band.

Surplus to requirements is the number Paris Original in which the women are made to look superficial. Cutting that would have given the costume department a break too. Cinderella, darling is an apparently heartfelt ode to marrying the boss. Presumably A Secretary is Not a Toy at one time had some impact but now comes across as irredeemably icky.

It was a long night.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying plays at Hayes Theatre Co, Potts Point, Sydney until 28 September.