Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Review - Lysistrata Jones on Broadway

As you may know, the terminally perky little musical Lysistrata Jones closed this past weekend on Broadway after only 30 performances, despite a near-rave from Ben Brantley of the New York Times. The show moved to Broadway in December after a critically lauded run downtown at The Gym at Judson, only to discover that many of the same critics who loved the show Off-Broadway were far less enthusiastic when the show opened on the main stem.

Was it the change in venue that made the difference? Did the show work better in the funky gymnasium atmosphere than it did in the gilt-edged opulence of the Walter Kerr? 

Not for me. This may come off as smug, but I was one of the critics whose opinion didn't change between the two productions. I found the Off Broadway version of Lysistrata Jones inconsistent and unengaging (read my review), and my opinion of the Broadway production remains virtually the same. The only improvement that I noticed was the new logo, which is miles above the hideous, garish, amateurish logo from the downtown production. (Click through to my review to see the OB logo.)

Sure, there were changes to the show, but they were mostly superficial. The set design is far more lavish, and book writer Douglas Carter Beane seems to have updated a few of the glib topical references, but these added nothing to the effectiveness of the piece itself. With the Off-Broadway production, one of my key problems with the piece was that the score didn't match the witty tone of the book. But upon second viewing, the book isn't so much witty as jokey, replete with one-liners but lacking in any larger cohesion or significance.

In his book for Xanadu, Beane deftly maintained the unifying themes of playfulness and self-conscious irony. Here, the characters merely spout interchangeable quips. At one point, one character says, "The best theater is always a movie first. That way the audience doesn't have to worry about being surprised." It's telling that I can recall the line, but I can't for the life of me remember which character said it.

In this sense, Beane's book represents a throwback to about a century ago, when musicals were stuffed with topical references, irrespective of whether they had any relevance to the show. Off Broadway, one of the characters made a quip about Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Perhaps you can recall the name, but can you remember why he would have been topical during the Off Broadway run? No? Well, in its place, we have a line in which the title character taunts her boyfriend about the new uniforms for the cheer-leading squad, which she promises will make the boys "stiffer than Kim Jong-il." Both references are ephemeral, tangential, and indicative of the superficial nature of the humor as a whole. (Some of the jokes are already way past their sell-by date, including one reference to someone receiving Greek lessons from Kitty Dukakis. Really?)

That said, Beane's book is a damn sight more enjoyable than the show's score, by Lewis Flinn. Sure, Beane renders the anti-war message of Aristophanes' original Lysistrata meaningless by changing the motivation for the women withholding sex from their men. In the original, it's to stop an interminable war. Now, it's to get them to break the thirty-year losing streak of the college basketball game. But there are at least a significant number of laughs to be had.

Flinn's songs start on the fun-but-unmemorable side, but they eventually bog the show down as they veer away from the comic sensibility of the book and become increasingly earnest. I only recall laughing once during one of the songs: in "Lay Low," the basketball captain exhorts his teammates to rise to the challenge that their girlfriends have set before them by riding it out. "That's why God invented porn," he sings. Yeah, not brilliant, or particularly original, but it gave me a chuckle.

Worse, Flinn's lyrics are typically either generic or meaningless. During the song "Hold On," Lysistrata's burgeoning new love interest Xander encourages her not to abandon her chosen path: "Hold on. Don't let go. In the morning when the lights are low." Um, why would lights be low in the morning? Why would they be on at all? And, more to the point, what does this have to do with what's going on in the scene at hand? I must admit that the tune to "Hold On" was kind of catchy, and it remained the only song to stick with me beyond the final curtain, but I attribute this more to the bouncy nature of the song's musical hook than to its inherent meaningfulness. 

On the plus side, director/choreographer Dan Knechtges consistently found ways to make the numbers interesting, engaging, even exciting at times. Knechtges has a wonderfully dynamic sense of how to dress a stage, as well as how to find movements that exist within the idiom of the show. Particularly impressive was how he found ways to make the basketball moments seem believable without making them literal. I never got the sense that these were dancers who were trying to act like ball players, but rather that they were ball players who were also really strong dancers. (It would be interesting to see what Knechtges could do with West Side Story. Maybe, for once, we'd actually have some masculine, menacing Jets.)

Also, my heart goes out to the game and fresh-faced cast of Lysistrata Jones. Although I really wasn't a fan of the piece itself, it was great to see talented and energetic performers get a chance to show what they can do. Patti Murin in particularly was sweet and appealing as Lysistrata, as she was Off Broadway. Josh Segarra really seemed to have grown into his role as Mick, Lyssie's boyfriend, bringing a much stronger comedic sensibility and confidence to the role. Hopefully, we'll see these bright young performers, not to mention their equally talented castmates, on the stage again sometime very soon.

Review - Bonnie and Clyde on Broadway

I've heard a lot of apologists for Bonnie & Clyde say that it was surprisingly good. You know, for a Frank Wildhorn show. Well, saying that Bonnie & Clyde is Wildhorn's least awful musical is sort of like saying leukemia is the most survivable form of cancer, or that Mitt Romney is the most electable Republican. They're still bad.

And Bonnie & Clyde is bad. True, the show, which closed on Broadway last week after only 36 performances, represents a vast improvement over such unmitigated dreck as Jekyll & Hyde and Dracula, but Bonnie & Clyde is nonetheless still well within the realm of the awful, and thus a perversely appropriate addition to the Wildhorn oeuvre.

Much like Wonderland, Wilhorn's most recent Broadway disaster, Bonnie & Clyde starts relatively strong. After a brief prologue that illustrates in graphic detail where our story will be heading, we get a dual character number, "This World Will Remember Me," which succinctly sets up the base motivations of both Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow.

But then, book writer Ivan Menchell seems hell-bent on making us feel sympathy for these sociopaths. Now, there's nothing wrong with an antihero in a musical, but for the treatment to be successful, you either need to have a larger, perhaps satirical, point that you're trying to make (as in Chicago) or you need to draw a clear line between understanding and approval (as in Sweeney Todd). In Menchell's book, there's a disturbing tendency to try to justify the horrific actions of Clyde Barrow in particular. While in prison, Clyde is shown at the mercy of menacing guards who take leering pleasure in pimping Clyde out to his fellow inmates. We also see the Ted Hinton character, a rival for Bonnie's affections, cause unprovoked physical harm to Clyde while he's in Hinton's custody. Aw, poor Clyde. It kind of felt like the beginning of "Gladiator" or "Death Wish" or "Robocop," or another of those reprehensible revenge-porn fantasies that try to justify violent acts with, "Well, he started it."

As for Wildhorn's music, well, he certainly has a way with a pleasant melody, but once again he falls victim to the Andrew Lloyd Webber ailment of choosing lyricists who debase rather than ennoble his music. Wildhorn fittingly partners here with lyricist Don Black, a frequent Lloyd Webber collaborator (Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, Song and Dance), and the results are every bit as uninspired as in any of Black's Lloyd Webber shows.

Usually, the point at which Wildhorn loses me is the first bland power ballad, but in Bonnie & Clyde, my departure point was "When I Drive," in which Clyde and his brother Buck regale us about their love of cars. Yup, cars. I suppose this number was meant to show the bond between the brothers, and to establish their desire for material comforts, but for me it was the first in a series of questionable song motivations. Perhaps the most questionable was "Dyin' Ain't So Bad," a real howler of an 11 o'clock number in which Bonnie seems to cast off the strictures of dramatic irony and sings with impassioned resignation as to her inexorable fate.

Another point that the Bonnie & Clyde apologists seemed to harp on is the cast, and here they certainly have a point. As the despicable duo themselves, we have Laura Osnes and Jeremy Jordan, and they were indeed sensational in their respective roles. In the supporting cast, Claybourne Elder and Melissa Van Der Schyff were vivid and memorable in their portrayals of Clyde's brother Buck and his long-suffering wife. But, frankly, I've never been one to say that a show is worth seeing simply because of the cast. To me, that's kind of like saying that the sets and the costumes were cool, even if the show itself was wanting. I hope to see all four performers again very soon, perhaps in a piece more worthy of their talents.

On a final note, I just can't let the opportunity pass to ask one burning question: Who are these people that keep funding these Wildhorn musicals? Beyond the subjective quality of the shows at hand, it really seems that, as investors, they don't seem to be doing much in the way of due diligence. I mean, take a look at Wildhorn's Broadway track record:

Jekyll & Hyde
1543 performances
Closed at a loss

The Scarlet Pimpernel
772 performances
Closed at a loss

The Civil War
61 performances
Closed at a loss

Dracula
157 performances
Closed at a loss

Wonderland
33 performances
Closed at a loss

Bonnie & Clyde
36 performances
Closed at a loss

Talk about your diminishing returns. Now, Bonnie and Clyde reportedly only cost a relatively thrifty $6 million. That's about half of what you'd expect a typical Broadway musical to cost these days. Even so, I would respectfully submit to these fine people that their money would serve a far greater use in the long run if they, I don't know, maybe donated it to the Boston Conservatory. Think of it as an investment in the future of the musical theater. I can virtually guarantee a far more favorable return on your investment.

Review - On a Clear Day You Can See Forever With Harry Connick Jr.

I had been hearing really great things about the revised version of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, which has been kicking around for a few years now in various workshops and readings. In fact, the advance word was so strong, and the sources so reliable, that On a Clear Day was easily one of the Broadway productions this season that I was most eagerly anticipating.

And then I saw the show.

I'm going to give my sources the benefit of the doubt and assume that something has been lost in the translation, but in all honesty, there are certain fundamental flaws with this new version of On a Clear Day that I can only assume must have been part of the show since the revision was conceived. 

Some history: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever has never been much of a hit, despite the popularity of the title song. The original production ran less than a year, and the 1970 movie version is a curiosity at best, notable mostly for the presence of Barbra Streisand in the central role of Daisy Gamble. The main liability of both the stage and movie versions is the wackjob story line by Alan Jay Lerner, which focuses on such offbeat topics as psychoanalysis, telepathy, and reincarnation. According to John Cullum, the star of the original stage version, there's a fairly understandable reason why the show seems like it was written by someone on drugs. Lerner was taking LSD while he was writing it.

But Burton Lane's marvelous score to On a Clear Day, full of jaunty, upbeat numbers (my favorite is "Hurry, It's Lovely Up Here") and soaring ballads (particularly the haunting "Melinda"), has always had its adherents, and rightly so. Apparently the prospect of taking the marvelous Lerner and Lane songs and fashioning a more workable book around them was too much for director Michael Mayer and playwright by Peter Parnell to resist. Their efforts might have amounted to nothing more than an academic exercise had it not been for one man: Harry Connick Jr., who apparently saw enough in Mayer and Parnell's version of the show (or at least the Lerner/Lane score) to sign on for what he no doubt hoped would be a triumphant return to Broadway after the sold-out success of The Pajama Game in 2006.

Connick certainly gets props for returning in such a risky project. As you may have heard, Parnell and Mayer have given Daisy Gamble a gender reassignment: it's now Davey Gamble (an adorable David Turner) who enters the office of Dr. Mark Bruckner (Connick) in the hope of quitting smoking. Davey is a gay man who is having trouble committing to moving in with his boyfriend. Under hypnosis, Davey reverts back to a previous life in which he was Melinda Wells, an up-and-coming World War II big band singer, played here by sensationally talented newcomer Jesse Mueller. Dr. Bruckner finds himself drawn to Melinda, and, well, the plot thickens from there, bringing Dr. Bruckner into a rather dicey love triangle. 

Which is all well and good. I have no problem with outlandish plots or daring subject matter. I do, however, have problems with both Parnell's new book and Mayer's direction of same. Parnell's dialog is often painfully plodding and expository, particularly when it comes to explaining the Freudian underpinnings of the good doctor's obsession. But the most egregious elements for me were the tortured song setups. Most of the songs (which were cherry-picked from the stage version as well as the songs that were added for the movie) seemed to fit nominally within the new scenario, but none of them really embraces it fully. And there were a few songs that seemed wedged in with a crowbar.

For instance, "Wait 'Til We're Sixty Five" in the original story is sung by Warren, a stuffy young man who is old way before his time. The satirical lyric describes how Warren has his finances all planned, and the couple will have it free and easy in their retirement. But when Warren sings the song in the new version, it doesn't make any sense, because the new Warren isn't stuffy. What's more, the song is meant to convey how Warren and Daisy don't belong together, but that's inconsistent with how things develop in the new version. And as for the line "If the children never mature, what the hell the bonds will so we're secure," the show takes place in the 1970s, and the idea of a '70s gay couple assuming that they'll have children is anachronistic. 

And then there's "When I'm Being Born Again," which in the original is sung by a rich Greek businessman who wants to find a way to be reincarnated so he can leave his fortune to himself. In the new version, the song becomes part of some mystical be-in kind of happening that the good doctor is holding with his psychiatry students. The new context renders meaningless the fractured English syntax (for instance, the deliberately awkward phrasing in the title), and makes the references to the character's avarice and materialism ("Don't cross the line! Those toys are mine!") jarringly inappropriate for the scene.  

What's more, Parnell fails to follow his own rules. Early in the show, Dr. Bruckner tells Davey he won't remember anything that happens while he is under hypnosis. But Parnell seems to conveniently forget this dictum in the number "On the S.S. Bernard Cohn," during which Davey regales his friends with the seemingly romantic night that he has just spent with Dr. Bruckner. I suppose it's possible that, just that once, Dr. Bruckner was remiss in his post-hypnotic instructions, but I think it's more likely that this is just lazy writing.

Beyond the plot holes, the main liability for this On a Clear Day is that the pace starts off rather sluggish and never really recovers from that listlessness. The show perks up considerably whenever Turner and Mueller are on stage, which is thankfully a large portion of the show. But whenever the stage belongs to Connick, the pace grinds to a halt. Connick is quite the singer, but he seemed uncomfortable in the role, and I don't recall seeing him smile even once. Act 2 got particularly bogged down in making sure Connick got his full complement of power-ballad moments.

Despite Connick's presence, On a Clear Day has been playing to rather anemic houses, with heavily discounted tickets. According to Michael Riedel of the New York Post, Connick's contract is for 34 weeks, which is about 240 performances. If the show can make it through the notoriously chilly months of January and February, it might have a shot of making it to the end of Connick's contract. But I don't see him extending, nor do I envision anyone stepping in to take his place.

The Worst Musicals of 2011

I like to think that nobody deliberately sets out to write a bad musical. Every composer, lyricist, and librettist who has ever set pen to paper, hands to piano keys, or fingers to computer keyboard has had it in his or her mind to craft something of quality.

But, as I'm fond of telling my students, quality is always the exception. In any art form, there will always be a bell curve of artistic achievement. The factors that contribute to the creation of the works in the top percentiles are just as numerous and ineffable as those that drive the works at the bottom. And there's really no predicting which ideas will lead straight to artistic success, nor which ideas will lead to disappointment.

In my previous post, I listed what I considered to be the Best Musicals of 2011. Now, let's focus on the worst. The following list comprises the disasters, the defeats, the debacles, the downfalls, the drubbings of the year, with comments from me as to why, at least for me, the shows came up short. I think some of you will be surprised by some of the omissions: Bonnie & Clyde, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Lysistrata Jones, Queen of the Mist, The Legend of Julie, Lucky Guy, Silence - The Musical. All are shows that I wrote negative reviews about (or am about to, in the case of Bonnie and Clyde and On a Clear Day), and that could easily have made the list. But I found the following ten musicals, for a variety of reasons, more egregious than any of those. And it's my list, so there.

Click on the initial mention of the title of each show to read my original reviews.

10. Yeast Nation - The follow-up show from Greg Kotis and Mark Hollmann, the creators of Urinetown, had been a long time aborning when it finally made it to NYC under the auspices of the New York Fringe Festival, which, not coincidentally, was where Urinetown received its breakthrough production. Yeast Nation was the runaway hit of the Festival this year, selling out all of its performances before the Festival even got under way, based solely on the Urinetown pedigree. So expectations were high, but unfortunately Yeast Nation most decidedly failed to meet those expectations. The main problem for me was that Kotis and Hollmann didn't seem to have anything to say that they hadn't already said, and in a far more effective way, in Urinetown. Yeast Nation played like an uninspired retread, both in terms of conception and execution. Because of my deep respect for Urinetown, I remain open to the possibility that Kotis and Hollmann might some day create another groundbreaking, smart, and/or entertaining musical. Yeast Nation, alas, seems extremely unlikely to develop in any of those directions.

9. Catch Me if You Can - Another major disappointment with a world-class pedigree. With all the talent involved in Catch Me If You Can, both behind the scenes and on-stage, you'd think we'd get something even half as good as Hairspray, the previous effort of most of the creative staff. No such luck. Despite the presence of composer Marc Shaiman, lyricist Scott Wittman, director Jack O'Brien, choreographer Jerry Mitchell, and librettist Terrence McNally - all Broadway veterans with more than a century of Broadway experience among them - Catch Me If You Can was an irritating and depressing affair. The entire evening suffered from a lack of purpose and focus, leaving high and dry some of Broadway's most experienced and talented performers (including Aaron Tveit, Norbert Leo Butz, Tom Wopat and Kerry Butler). Here's yet another example of the supreme challenge of creating a show around an antihero, in this case convicted swindler and forger Frank Abagnale, Jr. The labored framing device of the 1960s television variety show did nothing to illuminate why we were supposed to care about a man who put other people's lives in danger in search of personal gratification. I'm not saying that it couldn't have worked. It just didn't.

8. Sister Act - It's funny, but a lot of people I talk to love Sister Act. What's also funny is that even when we compare notes and even agree upon the manifold flaws in the show, they still hold steadfastly onto their admiration and enjoyment. Go figure. For me, the score, from composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater, is inoffensive but unmemorable. The book by TV veterans Cheri Steinkellner and Bill Steinkellner, is bland and jokey, despite the efforts of Douglas Carter Beane, who was brought in to punch things up. There are a number genuine jaw-dropping miscalculations in the show, including one involving a trio of hoodlums planning on sexing up some nuns, and another involving a backup chorus of homeless people. Such choices, as well as the general lack of inspiration, must inevitably fall at the feet of director Jerry Zaks. Even the presence of supposed rising star Patina Miller in the Whoopi Goldberg role, and reliable stage pros Victoria Clark and Fred Applegate, failed to lift Sister Act above its uninspired material.

7. Wonderland - Composer Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde) had two productions on Broadway in 2011: Wonderland and Bonnie & Clyde. Both were financial and critical disasters, but, although Bonnie & Clyde had problems aplenty, Wonderland was much, much worse. At the end of act one of Wonderland, I turned to my theater companion and said, "Wow. That wasn't awful." But at the end of act two, I said, "Wow. That was awful." Wonderland was a gross miscalculation on so many levels, but the first half was moderately entertaining. Sure, the character numbers were plodding, and a listen or two to the cast recording reveals that there wasn't nearly as much there there as it seemed during the performance, but there was a fun sense of activity and it seemed as though the show was building toward something promising. And then came act two, which was an utter mess, veering off into the land of bland power ballads and lame deus ex machina. It was great to see Jose Llana and Karen Mason on Broadway, which is where they belong, but I look forward to the day when I see them again in shows more worthy of their talents.

6. Spider-Man 1.0 - You knew this one was coming. Yeah, Spider-Man is an easy target, but it was also genuinely bad, in both of its versions. But they were each bad in different ways, so I'm treating them separately on this list. Leaving aside all of the bad press, the infighting, the injuries, the lawsuits, I'm focusing here on the show itself. I'm listing Spidey 1.0 as slightly less awful than Spidey 2.0 simply because under the ministrations of Julie Taymor, the show may have been utterly incomprehensible and woefully misguided, but it was never boring. That might be because you had to keep on your toes simply to figure out what was going on on-stage. And I will always cherish the jaw-dropping hilarity of "Getting Furious," the now legendary second act number about Spidey's spirit guide (Nemesis? Love interest? Dental hygienist?) Arachne and her obsession with shoes. Yes, shoes. Trust me, if you didn't get to see it, it was an absolute hoot, although it clearly wasn't intended as such.

5. Spider-Man 2.0 - Once Julie Taymor got the boot, "creative consultant" Philip William McKinley and book doctor Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa set about making Spider-Man somewhat comprehensible. They succeeded in that respect, which only served to highlight what was still wrong with the show: that awful score. Bono and The Edge seem to have unfairly singled out Taymor as the main source of the show's troubles, neglecting to notice that they hadn't produced any decent songs. The up-tempo numbers are incomprehensible, and the ballads are beyond tedious. What we're left with is a streamlined and efficient series of circus acts pretending to be a musical. I'd say it was a waste of a Broadway theater, but our main consolation in this respect is that the Ford...er, Hilton...er, Foxwoods Theatre is a useless impersonal barn, and any show that would be likely to take Spider-Man's place would probably be another mindless, overblown, crowd-pleasing, lowest-common-denominator seeking spectacle.

4. Prometheus Bound - There were a lot of advocates for Prometheus Bound when it played the American Repertory Theater. And in truth, what was there on the stage had a lot going for it. My problem with the show was mostly based on what was not on the stage: a plot. Yes, I know, Prometheus Bound followed almost to the letter the Aeschylus play upon which it is based. But when was the last time a great, or even a good musical adhered strictly to its source material? Why adapt something if you have nothing to add? Director Diane Paulus certainly gave the show a lively and dynamic treatment. The cast, including Gavin Creel in the title role and the awe-inspiring Uzo Aduba as Io, was outstanding. But librettist/lyricist Steven Sater (Spring Awakening) didn't really give them anything inspiring to do. Composer Serj Tankian, lead vocalist for System of a Down, provided some hard-driving and even tuneful music. I would respectfully suggest that Sater enroll in the BMI Workshop, or a similar program, if he plans on continuing with musical theater. Maybe he'll get the support and feedback he needs to create more integrated songs and more cohesive libretti.

3. The People in the Picture - Many of the shows on this list have genuinely noble intentions, and none more so than The People in the Picture, presented last spring by the Roundabout Theatre Company. The show focused on the members of a Yiddish theater troupe in Poland during World War II and used their experiences as a lens through which to focus on the plight and treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust. I mean, how much more noble can you get? But, as I said in my review, the only thing that matters is what ends up on the stage, and in that sense The People in the Picture was a terrible mess. The book and lyrics by Iris Rainer Dart (Beaches) were riddled with clichés and schmaltz. The production's only redeeming value was Donna Murphy in the lead role, but the indignities foisted upon her - including a number in which she played a tap-dancing rabbi - were beyond even Ms. Murphy's ability to render effective or entertaining. The show produced a cast recording, but I can't imagine it catching on in regional theaters, except perhaps among the most earnest of Jewish performance ensembles. 

2. The Blue Flower - Regular readers might recall that The Blue Flower was also on my list of the Worst Musicals of 2010. That listing was based on the show's 2010 run at the American Repertory Theater. (Read my original review.) The show then received a production at the Second Stage Theatre (2ST) in New York this past fall, and I list it again here based on revisiting the show at the 2ST. The Blue Flower seemed to change very little between its Cambridge and New York runs, at least not in any way that addressed or fixed what I considered to be the central flaws of the show: an egregious amount of narration and overly oblique lyrics. In fact, I disliked The Blue Flower even more in New York because the production was less visually interesting than the show had been at the ART. Here's another show with noble intentions: showing the effects of the two World Wars on the lives of a group of artists and intellectuals. But what frustrated me most about the show is how librettist/lyricist Jim Bauer seemed to be going out of his way to create a distance between the characters and the audience, turning what could have been a very moving show into a dull, enervating slog. 

1. Baby It's You - The most lazy, cynical, and venal musical I've seen in many a year. Baby It's You has the ignoble distinction of being the absolute nadir of the songbook/jukebox/Boomer-pleasing concoctions. Not so much a musical as a marketing ploy, Baby It's You was a bald-faced attempt on the part of Warner Brothers and Universal Music Group to cash in on the monumental success of Jersey Boys using the songbook of The Shirelles. They might as well have just called it Jersey Girls: that at least would have tipped ticket-buyers off to the derivative and calculated nature of the show. Baby It's You was written and directed by Floyd Mutrux, who performed the same tasks on the marginally more entertaining Million Dollar Quartet. But whereas MDQ had the benefit of a long run in Chicago to work out an kinks in the material, Baby It's You played more like a slapdash, desperate rush job. Playing the central character Florence Greenberg, the stalwart Beth Leavel attempted to rise above the drivel, but as with Donna Murphy In The People in the PIcture, there's only so much even the most talented people can do when surrounded by such drek. 

The Best Musicals of 2011

For Christmas, I treated myself to the Stephen Sondheim's Hat Box, which comprises both volumes of his collected lyrics: Finishing the Hat and Look, I Made a Hat. I'm in the active process of devouring the latter, and was struck by one of Sondheim's sidebars, this one about "Awards and Their Uselessness." Sondheim very cogently and soberly dissects the theater-awards process, a process that he himself is no stranger to, both in terms of being recognized and passed over. Sondheim concludes that the only real uses that artists have for awards are building confidence and, for the prizes that come with a cash sum, livelihood.

As I sat down to put together my annual lists of the best and worst musicals of the year, Sondheim's essay kept coming to mind. Lists are much like awards, in that they artificially create competition among the incomparable. And yet, like awards, we can't seem to get enough of lists. I know that the primary traffic drivers to my site are the numerous lists that I've compiled of The 100 Best Musicals of All Time, The Most Overrated Musicals, The Most Influential People in Musical-Theater History, etc. So forgive me, dear reader, while I pander to our baser instincts and engage in the arbitrary, subjective, and all around unfair process of ranking the best and the worst in musical theater (at least that I had a chance to see) in 2011.

(To read my full reviews, click on the initial mention of the title of each show.)

10. Ten Cents a Dance - A lot of people seem to be over director John Doyle and his actor/musician approach to musical theater. (Some would call it a gimmick. I think of it more as another potential way to approach a show. The charming new musical Once uses actor/musicians, and I haven't heard anyone griping about that. At least not yet.) With Ten Cents a Dance, Doyle found what was perhaps the best use yet of actor/musicians in this revue of songs of Rodgers and Hart, which played this summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Doyle centered the story around a musician (Malcolm Gets) and five women in his life (including Donna McKechnie and Lauren Molina), and the actor/musician device proved an apt and compelling device for illuminating the relationships and creating a strong sense of collaboration, conflict, and catharsis. The show also played at the McCarter Theatre earlier this fall, and I haven't heard about any additional engagements, but I'm hoping to see maybe the Roundabout pick it up for a limited New York run.

9. Show Boat - Even though Show Boat is a universally recognized classic, opportunities to see the show live are relatively few. This is partly because of the imagined set requirements for a show of such sweeping chronological scope, but the good folks at the Goodspeed Opera House found a simple but ingenious way around this - they used the theater auditorium as a proxy for the audience section on the boat itself. This had the double benefit of creating a festive theatrical atmosphere for the show, but also bringing the audience members closer to the action. This allowed for the full emotional sweep of Oscar Hammerstein's compelling book and lyrics and Jerome Kern's glorious score to come to the fore. I had some quibbles with some of the casting and with the director Rob Ruggiero's at times breakneck pacing, but on the whole, this production became a welcome blueprint for more theaters to take on the seemingly onerous task of putting up one of the most important and glorious shows in the musical-theater canon.

8. Company - I wanted to include at least one of the "cinecasts" from the past year, simply because I want to encourage producers to keep them coming. My favorite this year was the filmed version of Stephen Sondheim's Company, which an all-star (or mostly-star) cast performed in a very limited run with the New York Philharmonic. Some thought that, with the ready availability of the DVD from the recent Broadway revival, this broadcast was a tad de trop. But given the opportunity to see Neil Patrick Harris as Bobby, and Patti LuPone as Joanne, I mean come on, folks. In some ways this version of Company surpassed all others that I've seen: Bobby has never been more sympathetic or lively than in the hands of Mr. Harris. And the supporting cast - which included Martha Plimpton, Craig Bierko, Katie Finneran, Jill Paice, Jennifer Laura Thompson, and Aaron Lazar - was simply outstanding. Word on the street has it that we probably won't see a DVD release of this production, but perhaps it might show up on PBS. (Please?)

 7. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying - All the revival love this past awards season seemed to go to Anything Goes, but for my money How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was the best of the last season. (Well, "better." There were only two.) The supposed star of the show was, of course, Daniel Radcliffe, but for me the star was director/choreographer Rob Ashford in a satisfying return to form after the previous season's desultory Promises, Promises. Ashford's ample and athletic choreography really gave the production a central motor, and there were numerous smart directorial touches along the way. Plus, I'll take any opportunity I can get to witness that smart and funny book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert, and to revel in those richly textured Frank Loesser songs. (OK, so maybe not "any opportunity." I still haven't decided if I'm going to take in the show again with either Darren Criss or Nick Jonas. Perhaps if I have an extra show slot during one of my upcoming NYC trips.)

6. Follies - A lot of people were incredulous that I didn't fly down to DC to see this production of Follies at the Kennedy Center. (Anyone who would like to fund any proposed theater trips around the country is welcome to contact me through Paypal or some other money-transfer mechanism.) I think I knew deep down that I would get to see the production on Broadway, and I did. Quite happily. And twice. Follies has one of the best scores ever written (Thank you, Mr. Sondheim), although it is saddled with a book by James Goldman that possesses a few too many overripe passages than I care to enumerate. Nonetheless, the show is a wonderful showcase for a bevy of seasoned performers, and this production has a rich and varied complement of same. Bernadette Peters was the ostensible star here, but for me the production belonged to Jan Maxwell and Danny Burstein, who proved in spades why they're two of the most reliable and frequently cast performers of the past ten years. Follies runs until January 22nd. If you haven't already seen it, I order you to do so. Twice.

 5. Porgy and Bess - As if we didn't already have enough to thank Stephen Sondheim for, we can also tip our hats to the master for bringing much-needed and -deserved attention to the upcoming Porgy and Bess revival. Of course, that wasn't his intention. He was really just fulminating about proposed ("proposed," mind you) changes to the now-classic show by director Diane Paulus and adaptor Suzan-Lori Parks during its tryout run at the American Repertory Theatre. For a while there, it was looking as though Sondheim's letter to the New York Times was going to scuttle any chances of Porgy and Bess reaching New York, but thankfully cooler heads have prevailed, and the show is now in previews at the Richard Rodgers Theater. Which means a much wider audience will have the opportunity to luxuriate in the glorious music of George Gershwin, the rich and resonant voices of Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis in the title roles, and a much more dramatically efficient and compelling version of this heartbreaking story than any I've seen.

4. Candide - Here's another terrific production that, like Ten Cents a Dance, needs to find its way to New York. Of course, director Mary Zimmerman's fresh new take on Candide, which I saw at the Huntington Theatre in Boston, has already been seen in Chicago and Washington, DC. But it's the first version of Candide (and there have been many) that has truly done justice to both Voltaire's scathing book and Leonard Bernstein's sweeping score, and thus merits a sit-down stay in Manhattan, preferably on Broadway. Zimmerman has not only crafted a lively new libretto that takes full advantage of Bernstein's music, she has also put together an innovative production that brings more life, humor, and theatricality to the Candide story than any production I've encountered. Reliable rumor has it that we may indeed see this Candide, and some time very soon.

3. The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World - When I saw The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World at Playwrights Horizons, I genuinely thought it would garner a raft of glowing reviews. It did not. The critical reaction was all over the map, with many of my critical colleagues finding the show grim and depressing. I found it haunting and moving, and the production and the performances have stayed with me, like the persistent throb of a particularly disquieting dream. Writer Joy Gregory, composer/lyricist Gunnar Madsen, and director John Langs took the story of the unsuccessful singing group The Shaggs, an their notoriously awful but somehow mesmerizing recording, Philosophy of the World, and crafted a compelling story of unrealized ambition and quiet desperation. The Shaggs, as far as I know, did not receive a cast recording, which usually means that a show is dead in the water. It's really a shame, since this show would probably play extremely well at some of the more adventurous regional theaters around the country.

2. A Minister's Wife - This might come as a surprise to some of my regular readers. In my initial review of A Minister's Wife, a musical version of George Bernard Shaw's Candida, I expressed disappointment at not being able to enjoy this ambitious and challenging show more than I did. Even when I decided to return and revisit the show, I was still more in admiration of the show than in love with it. But then came the glorious cast recording from our friends at PS Classics which gave me a chance to revel in the richness of Joshua Schmidt's score, and in the intelligence and poetry of Jan Levy Tranen's lyrics. It seems I just can't get enough of A Minster's Wife on my iPod, in particular the thrilling final quintet, "Into the Night." It certainly doesn't hurt that the three central performances (from Mark Kudisch, Bobby Steggert, and newcomer Kate Fry) are so strong and layered. Both A Minster's Wife and the brilliant Adding Machine have solidified Schmidt's position as the most promising new composer that we have. I eagerly await the announcement of his next project. (The MP3 download for Adding Machine is currently available on Amazon for only $4.99. Do yourself a favor and grab it. It's quite challenging, but ultimately rewarding.)

1. The Book of Mormon - Predictable, I know. But deserved. The Book of Mormon is the biggest hit that Broadway has seen in years, perhaps decades. As of this writing, the soonest you could score a pair of seats at regular prices would be August 2012. I'm told that folks camp out overnight for rush tickets. Premium seats go for as high as $477.00, and who knows what you'll pay for tickets from a scalper or a ticket broker. Well, I'm not going to tell you what you should pay to see The Book of Mormon. I'm only going to say that the show deserves the hype. It's one of the most laugh-out-loud evenings I've ever had in the theater. The songs are strong, albeit littered with slant rhyme and mistressed words. And the book is actually smart in addition to being hysterically funny. Here's one of those perfect storms we only occasionally see in musicals, a fortuitous marriage of sensibility and stagecraft. Those zany "South Park" guys Trey Parker and Matt Stone no doubt deserve a good deal of the credit, but there's little question that Broadway veterans Robert Lopez and Casey Nicholaw were crucial in refining that satirical sensibility with a solid sense of practical theatricality. It seems clear that The Book of Mormon will be around for many years to come, even after the two terrific central performers Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad have moved on to other projects.

Coming Next: The Worst Musicals of 2011.

Reviews - Venus in Fur and Private Lives on Broadway

More blogging catch-up today. This post is about two (gasp) non-musicals that I saw recently on Broadway. One of these shows has already closed, but is likely to return later in the season. The other closes this week, about a month sooner than it was supposed to. In short: the one that's coming back deserves to, and the one that's closing early is no great loss.

Let's start with Venus in Fur, the smart, funny, surprising new play by David Ives. My only previous experience with Ives was in his capacity as adaptor for the Encores! series at City Center. Ives has the unenviable job of cutting down the libretti to the classic shows that Encores! presents in concert form, and the result is almost always a show with a book that doesn't fully set up or justify the songs. It's really hard to hold this against him, but it was my only previous exposure to Ives.

I had heard really great things about Venus in Fur based on its 2010 Off-Broadway run at the Classic Stage Company. In particular, I had heard that Nina Arianda gave a star-making performance, and after the show closed, I genuinely regretted not having had a chance to see her in the play. However, when I heard that Arianda would be taking on the Judy Holiday role in last season's revival of Born Yesterday, I went out of my way to make sure I saw that production, and I was oh so glad that I did. (Read my review.)

When I heard that the Manhattan Theatre Club would be presenting Venus in Fur as part of its Broadway season at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, I knew that I would be taking the show in, if only to see Arianda fulfill the promise of her word of mouth, and her terrific turn as Billie Dawn. I'm glad to say I was anything but disappointed. In fact, Arianda is a non-stop delight as Vanda, the enigmatic central character in this thrilling two-hander.

I'm convinced that Arianda is going to be a major star. She has such a strong sense of character, and a wonderfully appealing presence on stage. Performers with this much appeal come along very rarely, and if there's any justice, Arianda will grace the stage for many years to come. (Unless Hollywood snatches her away from us. If so, let's hope that she returns to us regularly, as folks like Hugh Jackman, Patrick Wilson, and Laura Linney continue to do.)

Arianda plays an actress who shows up two hours late to an audition. (Or does she? More on that later.) Arianda plays opposite Hugh Dancy, who is every bit Arianda's match as Thomas, the director/playwright for whom she auditions. Arianda certainly has the flashier role, which she handles with astonishing aplomb, but Dancy's achievement is no less noteworthy. The Thomas character is more subtle, but just as complex as Vanda, and Dancy makes the gradual transition from arrogant master to bewildered slave with deceptive ease.

The most satisfying thing about Ives's deftly crafted play is that you're never really sure, even after the final curtain, who is really who, or what is really transpiring between these characters. Much of the fun of Venus in Fur comes from watching the power dynamic shift over the course of the play, and in speculating as to what's really going on. Ives plants questions in the mind of the viewer, and wisely he never fully answers those questions. But, again, that's part of the fun.

As I mentioned, Venus in Fur prompted me to reconsider David Ives as a writer, but it also gave me new insight on director Walter Bobbie. I had long since written Bobbie off as a has-been, coasting on his success with the Chicago revival. I mean, my dismissal is certainly understandable based on his track record since 1996, when Chicago opened: High Fidelity, White Christmas, Sweet Charity, Footloose. You know what I'm saying here? But, based on Venus in Fur, Bobbie is back in my good books, at least as far as non-musicals are concerned. His direction here is smart, swift, and crackling. It's hard to imagine that Arianda and Dancy would have been able to craft such strong performances without Bobbie's guidance. Will Bobbie find a similar return to form with a musical some time soon? I'll certainly be on the lookout.

The response from critics and audience members alike to Venus in Fur has been sufficiently positive to prompt producers to announce that the play would return later this season for a commercial run. If you didn't get a chance to see Venus in Fur in the fall, do yourself a favor and grab a ticket. (Performances resume February 7th at the Lyceum Theatre.)

In the "no great loss" column, we have the latest Broadway revival of Noël Coward's classic comedy of manners, Private Lives, which plays through the end of this week at the Music Box Theatre. It's funny, but my response to this Private Lives was very similar to the way I reacted to the current Anything Goes: I enjoyed both shows while I was in the theater, but the productions really haven't stayed with me, the way that previous productions of each of these shows have. The 1987 Anything Goes with Patti LuPone was iconic. The current production is merely pleasant.

Likewise, I last saw Private Lives in its 2002 revival with Alan Rickman and Tony winner Lindsay Duncan. Both Rickman and Duncan were masterful as Elyot and Amanda, imbuing the production with both the rapid-fire assuredness that Coward's dialog requires, but also the sort of playful chemistry that brings these potentially insufferable characters to life. (Coincidentally, Rickman is currently appearing across the street from the Music Box in Seminar. Some would call that ironic. They'd be wrong.)

The current production of Private Lives features TV stars Kim Cattrall and Paul Gross. Again, as I sat watching the performance, I found Cattrall to be lively and spirited as Amanda, and Gross as Elyot makes for a handsome and dashing rake. Director Richard Eyre certainly keeps the proceedings going at an entertaining clip.

But.

The show just hasn't stuck with me. I can vividly and easily recall specific elements from both Rickman's and Duncan's performances, nine years after the fact. But Cattrall and Gross, while eminently professional, haven't managed to burn the same indelible impressions. Is the comparison fair? Well, if you're going to sign on for a revival of a show that's only just recently had a revival -- and a really good one at that -- you had better be prepared to offer something that the first show didn't. This Private Lives doesn't.

The producers apparently thought that Cattrall would be a significant draw, based on the popularity of the Sex and the City franchise. Perhaps they even hoped that ticket sales would justify an extension or two beyond the show's announced limited run. For that to happen, the show would have needed to cross over beyond the Coward fans and theater regulars into the tourist trade, and that clearly hasn't happened. As I said, the show is closing this weekend, a little over a month early.

Review - The Blue Flower at the Second Stage Theatre

I'm really late to the game on this one, as The Blue Flower closed at the Second Stage Theatre (2ST) about a month ago, but I'm taking advantage of the semester break to catch up on some of my long-overdue blogging. So here goes.

I always like to give shows a second chance, no matter what my initial reaction may have been. Even if the first time I see I show I absolutely hate it, I like to think that I remain reasonably open-minded upon subsequent viewings. Reasonably, that is. It's rare for me to completely change my mind, but I frequently see something new to appreciate the second time around in even the worst shows.

Not so with The Blue Flower. In fact, I liked the show in New York even less than when I saw it at the American Repertory Theater about a year ago. Of course, I wasn't really a fan of the show in its Cantabridgian incarnation. (Read my original review.) I found it painfully, unforgivably oblique and unengaging. But I at least had a sense of admiration for what the authors were trying to do, and I could see that there was the potential for pathos in the story, even if, as the show was then configured, I didn't feel any actual empathy for the characters.

The Second Stage production, once again under the direction of Will Pomerantz, is much less sharp than his production at the ART. The costumes by Carol Bailey and set by Marsha Ginsberg at the ART were much more visually distinctive and specific, and gave a stronger sense of time and place than those of Ann Hould-Ward (costumes) and Beowulf Boritt (set) at the 2ST. In particular, Boritt's skeletal wooden design looked like an unfinished high-school set.

As for the content of The Blue Flower, my main criticisms of the show remain intact upon second viewing. The story has potential but the treatment is limp. The characters are mere placeholders, approximating human emotion. As writer, composer, and lyricist for The Blue Flower, Jim Bauer seems to have used as his guiding dictum "Tell, don't show." There seems to be a bit more actual dialog in the show than when it was in Cambridge, but there's still an off-putting amount of narration. Events are announced rather than acted out. The fates of the characters are described rather than shown.

What's more, the style of the music in the show seems random, ranging from bland pop to jarringly inappropriate country and western. The show is mostly set during and between the Wars in Germany. Why Bauer seemed to think that taking his inspiration from Shania Twain would serve the piece, I can only speculate.

As a lyricist, Bauer falls victim to those all-too-common lyrical vices: slant rhyme (pairing "yellow" with "hollow") and assonance ("Michelangelo's" and "holes"). I know that many people are far more forgiving than I about these devices, but I remain a purist when it comes to rhyming. Perhaps more damning, Bauer's lyrics are oblique and generic. At the end of act one, the Marie Curie character, after a fairly significant loss, sings about climbing the Eiffel Tower. The lyric starts:

Fire, water, ice
Silence, patience, time
Doorways, windows, eyes
Change, oceans, sighs

I haven't the slightest idea what all that means, nor what it has to do with the Eiffel Tower, and I'm really not much inclined to give it much more thought. In the show's final song, the four central characters join together to sing a song about ships in a harbor:

Angels on the levee
Are waiting for me,
And I'm up in the crow's nest.

A reminder: this show is about three artists and a scientist in Germany between the Wars. And the reason we're ending the show with a song about boats would be...? For me, it was a real "Song of Purple Summer" moment. Spring Awakening fittingly ends with a song that sounds pretty but bears scant relation to the proceedings at hand: I say "fittingly" because much of the rest of the score feels like unintegrated pop tunes. How similarly appropriate that The Blue Flower, which also features songs of questionable relevance, should end with what is perhaps the most peripheral lyric in the show.

I know certain people are crazy about this show, but I'm just not seeing it. Please enlighten me. All I can say is, as I was eagerly exiting the theater, I overheard a few of my fellow patrons speculating as to the meaning of the show's title. "What was the significance of The Blue Flower? Did you get what the Blue Flower was?"

Honestly, I did not.

Review - La Cage aux Folles on Tour in Boston

The fall semester at the Boston Conservatory is over. ("Big breath in. And release.") Now I get a chance to catch up on some much-delayed blogging.

Among the numerous shows in my current blogging backlog is the Boston stop of the national tour of La Cage aux Folles. I was so enamored of Terry Johnson's heartfelt and smart production when it was on Broadway (read my review) that I went back to see it again when Harvey Fierstein took over for Tony Award winner Douglas Hodge (read my revisit review).

I didn't get to see Christopher Sieber as George on Broadway (I saw the George understudy right after Jeffrey Tambor bid the show a hasty adieu, and before Sieber signed on), but I was especially looking forward to seeing the always reliable and downright adorable Mr. Sieber play Albin/Zaza in the tour.

Fortunately, Sieber does not disappoint. Unfortunately, he's saddled with a costar who may just as well have stayed home with his tanning bed. But more on him later.

Christopher Sieber is simply delicious as Albin, wonderfully playful and mischievous, but with a strong sense of nobility when the need arises. As wonderful as he was as Albin, I can also see him bringing a warm sense of stability to playing the part of George. It's really a shame that cloning technology has not progressed to the point at which we could have Sieber play both roles, but alas we are stuck with George Hamilton, who, simply put, has absolutely no business being up on that stage.

I can't say I've followed Hamilton's career very closely, but I can imagine he was quite charming and engaging in his day. His day, it seems, has passed. At 72, Hamilton is leaden and soporific in a role that should be light and suave. You could see that he was trying to be animated (well, as much as his surgically augmented, gravity defying face would allow), but his line readings, when they weren't utterly incomprehensible, were at best wan and mumble-mouthed. 

I know that touring shows can benefit greatly from marquee-value headliners, but is this man really that much of a draw? How long has it been since he was culturally relevant, as opposed to a walking punchline? To me he's sort of like the Gabor sisters: you know he's famous, but you'll be damned if you can recall what for. Whatever reason the producers signed him up, his presence utterly deflates this delicate souffle of a production.

The La Cage tour is currently playing in Chicago, and has upcoming stops in Tampa, Pittsburgh, Houston, and Los Angeles, among many other stops. It's worth taking in for Sieber, without question, and the supporting cast members are professional, if indistinct. And, of course, there's Jerry Herman's witty and tuneful songs, although the orchestra in Boston was noticeably thin and tinny. And I don't usually notice these things. (Do I, Kevin?) So if I'm finding the orchestrations anemic, I can imagine that a real aficionado would be reaching for the iron supplements.