Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Review - Finding Neverland at the American Repertory Theatre

Quick quiz:

1. What musical is the following lyric from? 
2. Which character is singing?
3. What is this character singing about? 

All that matters now
Is where we go from here.
There's an easier way
If we live for today.
The singing in my heart 
Is all that matters.

Well, you can probably tell from the title of this review, as well as the accompanying artwork, that we're talking about the new Broadway-bound musical Finding Neverland. The character singing is named Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, played memorably by Kate Winslet in the 2004 movie of the same name. And the character is singing about...well...I really have no idea. Therein lies one of the major liabilities of Finding Neverland in its current form: You could hear the entire score and still not really understand what was going on in the show.

When the first announcements appeared about Finding Neverland becoming a musical, the composer and lyricist were to be Scott Frankel and Michael Korie, respectively. After multiple readings and productions, Frankel and Korie were suddenly no longer attached. We may never know how the show would have fared with Frankel and Korie, but based on my experience with their previous work (Grey Gardens, Happiness, Far From Heaven), I have to conclude that the show would have been significantly more intelligent, tuneful, integrated, and original than the uninspired concoction that is currently playing at the American Repertory Theatre.

As anyone who's seen the original movie knows, Finding Neverland concerns playwright J.M. Barrie and his relationship with a young widow and her four boys, who inspire him to write his best-known work, Peter Pan. It's a wonderful idea for a musical, and there are brief moments in the current show that hint at the magic that could have been. Most of these come in the form of stagecraft, as at the end of the show when Sylvia makes her most significant transition. Powerful fans emerge in a circle in the center of the stage, which create a whirlwind of golden glitter, a gorgeous moment that brings the stories of the musical and Peter Pan together in a stunning coup de théâtre. 

In between these rare moments of wonder, we must contend with an inferior score and a merely serviceable book. Producer Harvey Weinstein replaced Frankel and Korie with musical-theater neophytes Gary Barlow and Eliot Kennedy (music and lyrics together). Their lack of musical-theater experience shows, partly in the overabundance of slant rhyme, poor scansion, and forced extra syllables, but also in their tin-eared, derivative contemporary musical style. The only decent song in the entire score is "Neverland," although you'd never know it from Jennifer's Hudson's riffando version on the Tony Awards. Add in James Graham's bald-faced dialogue and ham-fisted plot exposition, and we have a musical that would seem more fitting for The Disney Channel than the legitimate Broadway stage.  

Barlow and Kennedy also show their inexperience in their choice of moments to musicalize. The third number in the show, when I saw it in previews, was a rather odd number for J.M. Barrie's wife, called "Rearrange the Furniture," which is pretty much as it says on the box. The number is superficial character work at best, and the character doesn't really warrant a number in the first place. On the other hand, we have a major moment in the second act, when J.M. Barrie brings the entire cast of Peter Pan to recreate the show in the bedroom of an ailing Sylvia, a moment that would seem to cry out for a musical number, but all we get is a stylized retread of Barrie's play. 

Another problem with Finding Neverland is a rather bizarre mismatch of styles. The generic pop score is at odds with the Victorian time frame, which would be fine if not for the rather literal period costumes and sets. We also get a series of jarringly angular and jerky dance sequences from choreographer Mia Michaels, a self-aggrandizing style that disappears about a quarter of the way through the show, never to return. (Michaels' most significant credit would seem to be So You Think You Can Dance. Yeah, that's who I'd hire for a 19th Century period piece.)  

Director Diane Paulus seems to be struggling with how to bring the material to life, and a number of sequences reflect this uncertainty. There's a dinner-party number that's meant to show how the kids, Sylvia, and Barrie occupy one world, while Barrie's wife and Sylvia's mother are in another world entirely. It's a good idea, but as currently staged the number has no focus. There's so much going on, it's hard to know what to pay attention to, an issue exacerbated by a spate of mugging chorus members continually trying to pull focus.

Another number, called "Believe," is meant to be inspirational, with Barrie encouraging the Llewelyn boys to let their creativity take flight, but Paulus fleshes out the number with a rather bizarre admixture of buskers and bees. As I sat watching the show, I kept thinking of Big Fish, another show that wanted to celebrate story-telling and imagination, but wound up demonstrating very little of either. 

One thing that Finding Neverland has in its favor is a stellar cast of first-rate Broadway performers, including Jeremy Jordan as Barrie, Laura Michelle Kelly as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, and Carolee Carmello as Madame du Maurier, Sylvia's mother. They all get their chance to belt their brains out, if that's your idea of great theater, but I had to feel sorry for Carolee for having to deliver the reprise of "All That Matters," generic lyric and all. Also in the cast is Tony winner Michael McGrath as theatrical impresario Charles Frohman, and I swear I could sense McGrath gritting his teeth while trudging through a show that is decidedly beneath his talent. 

On a final note, why is such a manifestly commercial show even playing at the ART to begin with? Other than money, that is? I suppose it's possible to argue that All The Way, The Glass Menagerie, Porgy and Bess, and even Pippin might in some way intersect with the artistic mission of a major nonprofit theater at one of the most prestigious universities in the world. But Finding Neverland? Such a patently mercenary venture feels like filthy lucre, and nothing more. 

Review - The Visit at Williamstown Theatre Festival With Chita Rivera

John Waters writes in one of his books (I think it was Crackpot) that he wishes that someone would discover an unpublished Jean Genet novel. He's read everything extant by Genet, he says, and longs for that special feeling of experiencing something truly great for the first time. 

That's how I felt watching The Visit, the hauntingly satisfying "new" musical with music by John Kander and lyrics by the late Fred Ebb: thrilled to experience something genuinely ambitious and frequently wondrous, and yet sad that most of the genius involved in crafting this stunning show is either gone or in its dotage.  

The Visit was one of four musicals that Kander and Ebb were working on upon Ebb's death in 2004. Two of these shows have subsequently made it to Broadway: Curtains and The Scottsboro Boys. One has yet to see any significant exposure: a musical version of Thorton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, called All About Us. 

And then there's The Visit, which had a well-received run in 2008 at The Signature Theatre in Arlington, VA, although talk of bringing that production to New York never bore fruit, purportedly because of the 2008 recession. Thankfully, The Visit is now enjoying a stunning production, significantly revised and shortened from previous versions, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, playing now through August 17th. 

The musical is based on the eponymous 1956 play The Visit by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and the musical sticks fairly close to its source. The story concerns one Claire Zachanassian, who returns to her hometown after becoming the richest woman in the world. She offers to save the town from its ruinous state, but with one chilling proviso: the town must kill her former lover, Anton Schell, now an indigent shopkeeper with a wife and two children. 

If that conceit seems static -- I mean, once the horrifying condition is revealed, where do you go from there? -- both the play and the musical follow up with an intriguing series of developments and revelations that add layers to the seemingly inert premise. The musical is by turns arresting, poignant, and darkly humorous. It also manages to paint a balanced portrait of horror and justice: Claire is clearly a deeply wronged woman, and yet Anton makes for a penitent and sympathetic foil. When we discover exactly what Anton did to Claire, we almost accept the righteousness of her demands, the justice inherent in her savage proposal. 

I've seen many musicals attempt to balance dark subject matter with a satisfying sense of entertainment and humor, and it's a really difficult task to pull off. (Just ask the authors of Lestat, Bare, Heathers, The People in the Picture, Scandalous, Soul Doctor, etc.) Librettist Terrence McNally finds just the right balance of the edgy and the enjoyable in The Visit, something he was unable to do for Catch Me If You Can.

Composer John Kander matches McNally's balance with a lush and soaring score with numerous complex contrapuntal passages. Kander and Ebb together crafted songs that can easily stand among their classics, including "Love and Love Alone," a triumphant 11 o'clock number for Claire, and "You, You, You," a soaring love duet for Young Claire and Young Anton, who act as mostly silent witnesses throughout the entire show. (Young Anton is played here by golden-voiced Boston Conservatory grad, John Bambery. Full Disclosure: John is a former student of mine, but trust me, the guy's got the pipes. Yowza.) 

The Visit benefits greatly from the sensitive direction of, and stark presentation by, director John Doyle. (And, in case you're wondering: No, the performers are not required to play instruments here.) In concert with scenic designer Scott Pask (who creates a gasp-inducing unit set) and costume designer Ann Hould Ward, Doyle has fashioned a hauntingly expressionistic, black, white, and gray production, punctuated with increasing accents of vibrant yellow, a symbol of the avarice that overcomes the townspeople as they gradually turn against Anton. 

For many people, the big draw of this production will be the first-rate cast, lead by the irreplaceable Chita Rivera, so fluid and sharp, even at age 81. Roger Rees fares considerably less well as Anton: he's more than up to the acting challenge, but his singing voice is sadly lacking in strength and sustain. Also notable are Judy Kuhn, laser-sharp as always as Anton's beleaguered wife, and Jason Danieley, positively heartbreaking as the schoolmaster, and Anton's last remaining ally.  

If The Visit never finds the thematic cohesion of, say, Cabaret or even The Scottsboro Boys, it still has much to reveal about the dark side of human nature and the artistic ambitions of musical theater. I'm not sure The Visit has much of a commercial future, but it would be great to see one of the Broadway nonprofits like the Roundabout or Lincoln Center scoop it up for a limited run. 

Review - The Jungle Book at Boston's Huntington Theatre

The Huntington Theatre Company in Boston announced today that its current production of The Jungle Book is now the highest-grossing production in the company's history, with three weeks still left in the show's twice-extended run.

Yet again, I find myself at odds with public opinion, as I did with the current Broadway productions Pippin and Kinky Boots, neither of which I personally found compelling, but which the general public seems to be devouring voraciously. Likewise, The Jungle Book, based on the 1967 Disney movie, has become a pretty hot ticket in Boston, and I'll be damned if I can see what other people are seeing in this production, which I found eminently resistible, instantly forgettable, and overall kind of a yawn.

I'm sure this is a case of unreasonably high expectations on my part, because I was so genuinely amazed by director Mary Zimmerman's recent reinvention of the musical Candide, which played the Huntington a few seasons back. That production was bursting with inventiveness, and I was sort of hoping that The Jungle Book would reflect a similar sense of innovative stagecraft and dynamic storytelling. No such luck. To be sure, The Jungle Book has many dazzling moments and sequences. What it doesn't have is a compelling story to tell, or even real, heartfelt characterizations, with some notable exceptions. 

Zimmerman also provides the libretto, as she did with her reimagined Candide, but her book here is detrimentally episodic and narratively diffuse. What's more, Zimmerman as director has failed to give the production any sense of momentum. The show simply flows from episode to episode, without fully taking advantage of a number of potentially compelling devices. Whatever narrative tension exists comes from how the man-cub Mowgli wants to stay in the jungle, while his animal friends think he's better off with his own kind. There's also the specter of the tiger who shadows Mowgli throughout the show. But these elements get lost in a series of seemingly random encounters and fail to build, or even coalesce.

Even the two well-known songs from the movie, "Bare Necessities" and "Be Like You," fail to leave a lasting impression because Zimmerman has miscalculated what could make these numbers compelling. The former loses any sense of build because of an enervating series of solos that Zimmerman provides for each of the itinerant musicians who wander through the show. And the latter is simply too loud and too long, trying unsuccessfully to leave a lasting impression by dint of sheer force. There's also an incredibly clumsy tap number, for which someone made the rather quizzical choice of placing taps on the hands of the dancers as well as their feet. In an effort to make use of this awkward device, choreographer Christopher Gattelli saps the number of any residual energy that may have been in the process of building up.

The only marginally memorable aspects of this Jungle Book were the admittedly sumptuous visual design by Daniel Ostling (scenic design) and Mara Blumenfeld (costumes), and two indelible performances from Kevin Carolan as Balloo and the magical Andre de Shields as Akela and King Louie, both of whom veritably shine in their respective moments in the sun. Otherwise, The Jungle Book is a show that I actually need to keep reminding myself that I saw.

Review - Pippin at the A.R.T. in Cambridge, Mass.

In the arts-criticism course that I teach at the Boston Conservatory, one of the DVDs that I've had my students watch almost every semester is Pippin. This isn't because I necessarily like the show, but rather because it's a relatively easy starting point for my students and their developing critical sensibilities. Many of my students are musical-theater majors, and Pippin usually gives them plenty to think about in terms of what's worth praising and what's worth criticizing in a musical production.

And the verdict by consensus from all of those reviews over the years -- and I'm inclined to agree -- is that Pippin is, at least in its initial incarnation, a triumph of style over substance. The show has some really strong and memorable songs ("Corner of the Sky," "Magic to Do"), but it also has some really dull ones ("Extraordinary," "Love Song"). Plus, the book represents this muddled sort of bildungsroman that seems to be about...I don't know, the meaning of life? The meaninglessness of life? The importance of not falling prey to the ministrations of a traveling group of performers and their charismatic leader?

Pippin's original director and choreographer, Bob Fosse, seemed to understand that the show itself was no great shakes, so he set about reshaping it with his own vision, despite the objections of composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz and librettist Roger O. Hirson. Fosse even famously banned Schwartz and Hirson from rehearsals to keep them from meddling. Pippin hasn't been back to Broadway since that original run, possibly because people were afraid to tamper with Fosse's vision, or perhaps thought that the show wouldn't work without the Fosse flair.

Enter Diane Paulus at the American Repertory Theater, a director who has demonstrated repeatedly (see Hair, Porgy and Bess) that she's not intimidated by the iconic status of certain productions or by audience expectations. Paulus starts by getting rid of the commedia dell'arte trappings of the original production. (Although the show includes a very clever nod to Tony Walton and his original logo for the show.) Instead, we have the rather unoriginal device of the circus tent and a band of acrobats to emphasize the notion that this is a tale that the players travel the country with, looking to tempt potential Pippins into their fold. To achieve her own vision of the piece, Paulus has teamed up with Gypsy Snider of the Montreal-based acrobatics troupe Les 7 Doigts de la Main (creators of the much-extended Off-Broadway hit Traces). 

For the most part, I found the acrobatics more of a self-conscious distraction than an additive production value, and the gleeful reaction of the crowd around me the night I saw the show seemed to emphasize this. I mean, we're talking about one number that's meant to depict thousands of people being senselessly slaughtered by the forces of Charlemagne ("Glory"), and people were bursting into spontaneous applause breaks over the admittedly impressive physical feats that were nonetheless upstaging the intent of the number. This was also apparent during "Simple Joys," a song with a lyric that I've never really been able to figure out:

Wouldn't you rather be a left-handed flea
A crab on a slab at the bottom of the sea
Than a man who never learns how to be free
Not 'til he's underground

Yeah, I get that the Leading Player is trying to get Pippin to agree to "star" in the players' nefarious show, but what do fleas and crabs have to do with anything? And the staging here for the number only adds to the confusion, with acrobats bouncing on large green balls, jumping through hoops, doing back-flips, etc. So that's what the simple joys are, huh? Rolling around on all those balls at the gym?    

The choreography for this Pippin is by Chet Walker, working "in the style of" Bob Fosse. Part of me thinks it was a mistake to retain this constant reminder that this production is based on someone else's vision, but to Walker's credit, he manages to put his own imprimatur on many of the numbers, and he's certainly not slavish to Fosse. The opening song, "Magic to Do," for instance, is staged here without the iconic white hands seemingly floating in space. The only segment that's a complete reproduction is the famed "Manson Trio," although the genders are reversed: a female Leading Player (Patina Miller) and two male back-up dancers. Also, I loved how Walker included a loving nod to Fosse in staging the orgy scene with obvious references to the dance from "Take Off With Us" from Fosse's movie "All That Jazz."

The cast here are decidedly mixed, although I must admit that, having watched that DVD of Pippin so many times, I'm a bit spoiled by the intensity and showmanship of Ben Vereen and Chita Rivera. Patina Miller lacked the captivating presence and sinister subtext of Ben Vereen, although she did occasionally find ways to make the part her own. Charlotte d'Amboise as Fastrada was breathless and flat when singing, and her dancing lacked Chita's sharp angularity. Matthew James Thomas as Pippin couldn't seem to hold my attention or inspire my sympathy, although that might be partly because of all the distracting activity in this production. But even when he was alone onstage, his presence was mostly rather bland, although there were some times when his gawkish awkwardness made him almost real.

On the sort-of plus side, we have Terrence Mann as Charlemagne. Mann found lots of small ways to make the part believably pompous and doddering, although his diction was extremely poor during his songs. I don't think I understood a single word of "War Is a Science," and then Paulus makes the mistake of speeding up the final verse to make it a patter song, which only compounded the issue, clouded over the point of the song, and buried Schwartz's erudite lyric.

The two key reasons to see this production are Andrea Martin as Berthe and Rachel Bay Jones as Catherine. Yes, Catherine. How many times do you see Pippin and have Catherine be the one who stands out? Catherine is usually as thankless a role as Hope Harcourt in Anything Goes or Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls, but Jones brings the part a certain goofball charm and a strong sense of vulnerability. One of the highlights of act two was "I Guess I'll Miss the Man," a song that's often a throwaway, or even cut entirely (as it was from the DVD).  

And Andrea Martin is simply a force of nature, in everything she does really, but in particular here. She's the best thing in the whole show, and delivers her one and only song ("No Time at All") with enough focus, clarity, and professionalism to lift the first act out of its doldrums and propel the show toward the newly inserted intermission (after "Morning Glow"). Suddenly, I was transported, but Martin's performance only served to underscore what was missing from the rest of the production: focus and honesty. Thankfully, Rachel Bay Jones served this same function in the second act, but for me it wasn't enough. 

Full disclosure: I seem to be the only person in Christendom who didn't like this production. Most of my friends who have seen Pippin at the A.R.T. were thoroughly charmed, even amazed, and the local reviews have been strong. The show announced that it was transferring to Broadway even before the reviews came out, and the entire run at the A.R.T. is almost completely sold out. What can I say? The show doesn't quite work for me, and never really has, and Diane Paulus's production wasn't able to change my mind.

Review – Fifty*Four*Forever at The Jerry Herman Ring Theatre

Dear Reader: The following is a guest blog posting from one of my most loyal readers, and newest friends, Dr. Geoffrey Greene (@Elder_Greene) from Tampa. Enjoy. -- C.C.

Just where has Tommy Tune been all these years?  He disappeared from Broadway in self-imposed exile following the failure of The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public in 1994 and the abrupt out-of-town closure of the Broadway-bound Busker Alley in 1995. Given his dazzling gifts as performer and director, such exile seems wasteful, if not downright criminal. I’ve long admired Tune’s magic touch - be it the choreographed chairs of Grand Hotel or the Ziegfeldian glitz of The Will Rogers Follies – and hoped for the day he would return to Broadway with a new musical.

And now Tommy Tune is back with a new show, although Fifty*Four*Forever is definitely still under construction. The production I saw featured student actors, ran a scant 70 minutes, and lasted for only a 10-day limited engagement at The University of Miami’s Jerry Herman Ring Theatre. Figuring that even bare-bones Tune is better than no Tune at all, I lept at the opportunity.

The show’s concept sounds like musical-theater gold: a celebration of the riotous party haven that was Studio 54 during its 1970s heyday. There’s ample opportunity for stylized dance in kitschy costumes; a little sex and drugs will add spice; nostalgia should draw an older audience; and who doesn’t secretly relish a titillating glimpse into the lives of the rich and famous? It’s a bit surprising this milieu, to my knowledge, has not been mined for its stage potential before.

Why then, is Fifty*Four*Forever such a bust?

For starters, Tune has chosen to build the entire show around the character of his friend and former NYC neighbor Steve Rubbell, the chief architect and proprietor of Studio 54. In life, Rubbell was an unsavory entrepreneur jailed for tax evasion and released early only for “naming names” of other club owners involved in tax fraud. This kind of dramatic choice lands us squarely in the province of the antihero, an eminent starting point for an ambitious musical drama, but a perilous choice when staging a disco spectacular. For such a choice to work, the creators must have an audience empathize with the character and share his journey. Unfortunately, Fifty*Four, at least as currently configured, never accomplishes this feat, choosing instead to substitute glitz for content and stereotype for individuality.

Bookwriter Mark Saltzman (The Tin Pan Alley Rag) concocts a hackneyed tale of corrupted innocence, a sort of “How did you get there from here, Mr. Shepard?” only without the benefit of a Sondheim score.  The plot is bookended with scenes depicting Rubbell’s trial for tax evasion during which he intones Peter Allen’s “All I Wanted Was The Dream” as his defense. The remainder of the story is told in a lengthy flashback. In broad, swift strokes we are shown Rubbell forming his first dance club, meeting his future collaborators, converting an abandoned theatre into the fabled Studio 54, and throwing a wild opening night debauch populated by the likes of Liza, Liz, and Tru. The Studio is awash in sex, drugs, and gobs of money - literal Hefty bags stuffed with cash and crammed into the club walls.

Naturally, the IRS becomes interested in all this filthy lucre. Enter Agent Brown, a smoldering Cuban shown trysting with his equally sensuous female boss in a mesmerizing dance of seduction…on the stripper pole conveniently located in her office. The “Pole Seduction” is the closest this show comes to an actual Tommy Tune signature moment and it’s a dilly: about as tasteful a pole dance as you’re likely to encounter, but still - a pole dance at the IRS?

Saltzman conjures a love triangle when Agent Brown is dispatched to Studio 54 as an undercover agent intent on obtaining access to Rubbell’s books. Brown intends to use his chiseled looks to seduce Rubbell and gain access, but guess what? They fall in love and consummate their passion in a crude orgy bathed in flashing red lights and fueled by the throbbing strains of “I Love To Love You, Baby.” Despite the hedonism, Rubbell is portrayed as an innocent, blithely unaware of the powers with which he is meddling.

Here’s the problem with this claptrap: I didn’t care a tinker’s cuss about these characters, mere underwritten marionettes spouting platitudes in rhymed couplets. Oh, did I forget to mention that? This is a verse play and everybody speaks in childish nursery rhymes (which might be described as Seussian if they displayed any intellect or wit). A verse play can work handily if your librettist is Molière, but rhymes like “Truman Capote, self-promotey” only reinforce an atmosphere of amateur juvenilia.

Predictably, Agent Brown is reluctant to give up his lover until his jealous boss fires and banishes him, but not before he suddenly and inexplicably betrays Rubbell. At this point I kept thinking how, in the right hands, this moment might have been dramatized in song and we could have identified with a character facing a difficult choice. Instead we were subjected to another disco party sequence set to “How High The Moon” featuring the iconic Man in the Moon wall sculpture that featured prominently on the wall of the Studio dance floor, complete with animated cocaine spoon. Who cares if your lover just betrayed you and you’re about to be arrested?  Life’s a party. Come to the Cabaret…uh, I mean the Studio.

The show, as currently written, is about as welcome as a migraine headache. The characters are unsympathetic and the story lacks dramatic focus. Additionally, the absence of an original score is damaging. Generic disco hits may work wonders in establishing a sense of time and place, but when used to propel dramatic action, they fall tediously flat. The show contains one original song, “Lament for Three Jersey Girls” concerning a trio of schlubs forever denied access to Studio (music by Jeffrey Saver, lyrics by Stephen Cole), which is funny, theatrical, and highly effective. Why not an entire score like this?

According to a recent article in The New York Times, Tommy Tune hopes to someday mount Fifty*Four*Forever at the real Studio 54 in New York. He even invited producers to the Miami run hoping to generate interest. If the show is to have a Broadway life, however, a major overhaul is in order. The current production is simply not worthy of Mr. Tune’s talent and does nothing to enhance his legacy as one of the great Broadway showmen.

Review - Prometheus Bound at the A.R.T.

Pardon me if I start with a wee digression here, but I happen to be personally acquainted with a couple of the cast members of the new musical Prometheus Bound, which is currently running at the Zero Arrow Theater, the secondary venue for the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass.

One of those cast members came up to me after Prometheus Bound to see if I liked it. I didn't. "Well," this person said to another audience member, "This isn't really his kind of music." I didn't say anything at the time, but I took considerable exception to such a pat dismissal of my reaction to the show. I suppose the comment is understandable: this person was simply reflecting an unfortunate tendency that some people have of validating their own views by discrediting someone else's. (Cough, cough...Republican Party...cough, cough...)

But I will say that the remark got me thinking. As a critic and a teacher of musical theater, I think it's important that I constantly question my motives in liking or not liking a particular piece or production. I like to think that I'm not too hidebound by tradition to accept new forms of storytelling, and that artistic quality ultimately transcends idiom.

Well, maybe I am, and maybe it doesn't, but whatever the cause, I was left unmoved and rather irritated by Prometheus Bound. Director Diane Paulus goes to Herculean lengths to imbue the piece with a sense of forward motion, but she's hampered by the work itself, an atmospheric but facile exploration of tyranny, with supposedly rife yet unexplored modern resonance. The show is based, of course, on the Greek tragedy Prometheus Bound, the story of a god who has been punished by Zeus for bringing fire to, and preventing the destruction of, the human race.

Various signs and fliers throughout the auditorium heralded the partnership that the folks at the ART had struck with Amnesty International for this production, in the hopes of bringing attention and aid to the victims of various forms of modern-day tyranny throughout the world. A laudable effort, to be sure, and one with a clarity of message that the show itself lacks.

[SPOILER ALERT: I basically reveal the entire plot below. Not that there's much to reveal...]

Librettist Steven Sater (Spring Awakening) adheres fairly closely to the framework of the original play, and therein lies part of the problem. Not a lot really happens in the play, or the musical. Zeus essentially has Prometheus chained to a rock, and for the rest of the current show's 75 minutes, characters visit upon poor Prometheus and either sympathize with his plight or taunt him in his misery. The end. No development, no resolution. Oh, at one point, Prometheus starts discussing a prophecy that concerns Zeus bringing about his own undoing. Zeus will apparently be having a child by a mortal woman named Io and one of the child's descendants will grow up to set Prometheus free. But just when this tantalizing plot complication seems to arise, the show abruptly ends.

I realize that these would seem to be elements inherent in the original play, but I seem to recall that whatever joys are to be found in the original work lie in the language through which Aeschylus (or whoever actually wrote it) brings Prometheus & Company to life. Sater's libretto doesn't quite replicate that feat. The spoken dialog here comprises a lot of plodding speechifying and ham-handed exposition. And then the lyrics only ever seem to talk *about* what's going on rather than actually add anything to the story.

When I could actually understand the lyrics, that is. And trust me, I'm not complaining about the decibel level here. I had my earplugs at the ready but found that, for the most part, I didn't need them. And, for what it's worth, I actually liked the music, which had a compelling drive and a surprising lyricism. (The composer here is one Serj Tankian, the lead vocalist for the awkwardly named rock group System of a Down.) The real problem was that the song lyrics got lost in the acoustics of the auditorium, the density of the rock orchestrations, and to plain old poor diction. But even when I could understand the lyrics, it turned out they really didn't tell me much anyway.

I must admit that, thanks to Diane Paulus, Prometheus Bound was a heck of a lot more dynamic than you'd expect from a show about a man tied to a rock for all eternity. Paulus finds numerous ways to liberate Prometheus, albeit temporarily, from his perch, giving the show both visual and emotional variety. Paulus is abetted handily by a razor-sharp cast, headed by an astonishingly nimble Gavin Creel, in terms of his vocal, physical, and emotional contortions throughout the course of the show. Matching Creel, if not in stage time, then most assuredly in intensity was Uzo Aduba as Io, who commanded my attention the second she entered the playing area, and scarcely gave me chance or motive to look elsewhere for the duration. A truly remarkable performer.

I think Steven Sater is a talented man, with fantastic intentions, and excellent taste in source material. I just wish his songs progressed the plot. Granted, I'm only familiar with Spring Awakening and Prometheus Bound, but from where I sit, Sater's songs are either stop-and-sing internal monologues or obliquely defiant anthems. I'd like to make a deal with Mr. Sater. I'll pledge to continue to question my own preconceptions when it comes to new forms of musical theater if he'll make an effort to write songs that are more integrated and dramatically compelling. I think that's more than fair.

Paradise Found - A Lost Cause?

Sometimes I marvel at the human capacity for self-delusion. In a recent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, storied theater director Harold Prince spoke about his recent production of Paradise Found at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London. And some of Prince's comments really got me scratching my head. Most of them in fact.

As you may know, Paradise Found was by all accounts an unmitigated disaster. Granted I didn't see it, but we're not talking mixed reviews here, but outright hostile pans. The fabulous West End Whingers were unrestrained in their disdain. "We're still a wee bit shell-shocked, to be honest..." The delightful SarahB at Adventures in the Endless Pursuit of Entertainment wondered at the end whether it was just an "elaborate joke."

Well, according to Prince, the problems with the production stemmed from the fact that the theater and the cast were too small:

The material is great. But it should be big...Now I have to do it somewhere where there's a large chorus. We had wonderful actors...but everyone was doubling and tripling...That's not what the material demands...I'm meeting with the authors the week after next, and we’re going to aim for it.

Again, I didn't see the show, but none of the reviews that I read said that the venue or the cast size were at fault. No, most of them seemed to focus on the material itself, which one reviewer called "[A] pastiche Arabian Nights fable of unbelievable coarseness and vulgarity."

I know that some creators refuse to read reviews, but I can't imagine that Prince was completely insulated from the critical drubbing that Paradise Found received. But I was simply floored by his contention that the show just needed to be bigger. No, Hal. Great shows work in small paces and with small casts. John Doyle's recent productions of your Sweeney Todd and Company certainly come to mind. The idea that all you really need to do is throw some more money at Paradise Found for the project to work is ludicrous.

Of course, this is probably an academic discussion, because Prince is highly unlikely to find investors clueless enough to open their purse strings for a full-scale production of Paradise Found. Yes, this is the man who made millions on Phantom of the Opera. But he's also the man who gave us Lovemusik. And Roza. And Grind. And A Doll's Life. And Bounce.

You get the point.

Review - American Idiot at the St. Jimmy...er...St. James Theatre

I realize that this review is a little late to the party, but I encountered a bit of a perfect storm of work over the few weeks since American Idiot opened at the St. James Theatre in New York. The final flurry of Broadway show openings happened to coincide the the end of the semester here at the Boston Conservatory, and I had quite a few final exams to correct and whatnot. Plus, I got a last-minute assignment to write the liner notes for an upcoming cast-recording release. Watch this space for more news on that front.

In a way, it's a good thing that some time has passed since American Idiot opened, as it has helped me put the show into perspective, particularly with respect to the relative merits of all the new musicals this season. As I've said here previously, it's been a pretty lean season, at least with respect to the actual quality of the new musicals on Broadway. Unfortunately, American Idiot isn't much of an exception, at least in my estimation.

During the out-of-town tryout of American Idiot at the Berkley Repertory Theatre, the advanced word was that there wasn't much of a book to the show. Faced with this feedback, director/co-librettist Michael Mayer and Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong decided to cut back on what little dialog there was. (Um...what?) Apparently, their goal was to focus the show more on the songs. (Um...OK...) The result is an expressionistic rock concert, which is admittedly stunning, both visually and auditorily. I was particularly impressed with Steven Hoggett's idiomatic dance and movement. But what it all amounts to is a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

I must say, I found the score to American Idiot surprisingly tuneful. "Surprising" because I'm really not all that well versed in current popular music. I hadn't been overly familiar with the band Green Day prior to seeing the show, although I'm sure I've heard a few of those songs somewhere in my travels. But I had never heard the full album America Idiot, upon which the show is based. I had been worried that the music might turn me off, as the music to Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson did. But overall, I found the score to American Idiot pleasant and energetic.

[SPOILERS BELOW]

As for the plot of the show, yeah, not so much. It's not that the story isn't clear; it's that it's not very interesting. There are too few developments in each of the stories. The show centers around three restless teenagers: Johnny (John Gallagher Jr.), Tunny (Stark Sands), and Will (Michael Esper). Across the ninety-five intermission-less minutes of the show, each character only really deals with one plot development. Johnny gets hooked on drugs and alienates Whatshername, the girl he met along the way. Will gets Heather pregnant, but winds up rather inexplicably driving her away. Tunny goes to war, loses a leg, but manages to meet an "Extraordinary Girl." And that's it. So, basically, what we have here is Come Fly Away set to a rock score, although I will say that American Idiot is considerably better than Twyla Tharp's exercise in tedium that's currently running at the Marquis.

The cast is strong, as are their singing voices. I was particularly impressed with the dynamic Tony Vincent as St. Jimmy (Johnny's drug-induced muse, and the reason for the bad pun in the title of this post) and the electric Rebecca Naomi Jones, woefully underused here as Whatshername. But the Tony nominating committee seemed to have a definitive hair across its ass when it came to American Idiot, as not a single cast member garnered a nomination. The show got a nod for Best Musical, but the only other nominations it received were in scenic and lighting design. Despite the show's relatively poor showing with the Tonys, the show may nonetheless prove to be a hit. It has seen fairly steady grosses of about $700,000 a week, with an average ticket climbing from $50 to about $80. 

So, hey, Tonys be damned, huh?

GRADE: B (A visual and auditory assault, but ultimately lacking in impact or meaning)

Review - Million Dollar Quartet at the Nederlander

Lately, I've been sort of struck by the phrase "not my cup of tea." I've often thought of the phrase as sort of lazy. When people use it, what they really seem to be saying is that they didn't like something, but they don't want to actually do the work to formulate and justify a coherent, supportable opinion.

Then I saw Million Dollar Quartet, which opened last night at the Nederlander Theatre. And I can honestly say that it just wasn't my cup of tea. However, I shall endeavor to provide defensible support for my admittedly personal reaction.

As you may know, Million Dollar Quartet revolves around a mythical night in 1956 when Elvis Presley (played here by Eddie Clendening), Johnny Cash (Lance Guest), Jerry Lee Lewis (Levi Kreis), and Carl Perkins (Rob Lyons) got together for a jam session at Sun Records, the business home of music impresario Sam Phillips (Hunter Foster).

The show met with quite the bell curve of critical response, ranging from a few raves to a few pans to a swell of mixed reactions in between. It's likely that your own reaction to the show will depend on your personal connection to these men and their music. The show is certainly professionally staged and performed, and the crowd was frickin' eating it up. But I think I would have been a lot more engaged if I were in any way a fan of the members of the titular quartet, which I decidedly am not.

Fortunately, the show comprises more than just the jam session itself, otherwise I would have found it unbearably tedious. There's certainly a goodly amount of music, and the four central performers (who also play their own instruments, and quite well, I might add), do a bang-up job of capturing the essence of their respective characters, at least insofar as I'm familiar with these men and their work. But on the whole the show left me with the impression that it was a very professional Vegas tribute show.

Librettists Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux try to imbue the evening with a decent amount of dramatic tension: Will Sam Phillips sell Sun records to RCA? Will Johnny Cash sign a three-year extension on his contract with Sun? Will Phillips make the leap to RCA to work again with Elvis Presley, whose contract he sold to RCA in order to remain in business? Will upstart Jerry Lee Lewis ever get a chance to record his own songs, or will he continue to play backup for other artists? Will Carl Perkins vent his anger at Elvis for "stealing" Perkins' signature hit, "Blue Suede Shoes"?

Here's the thing, though: I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. And I don't care.

Million Dollar Quartet doesn't really add anything new to the musical-theater form. In fact, it seems to borrow numerous elements from other shows. The show's final moment seems cadged from the act 1 finale of Sunday in the Park With George. The libretto makes liberal use of lazy narration, much like Jersey Boys. And the show even ends with a mini-concert, a la recent productions of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Grease.

That said, the show is certainly well presented. Director Eric Schaeffer keeps everything moving apace. There's nothing stilted, awkward, or even remotely amateurish about the show. The show's flashback structure is effective, if repetitious. There is some rather clunky exposition, particularly regarding Jerry Lee Lewis' familial connection to Jimmy Swaggart as well as Sam Phillips' then-budding working relationship with Roy Orbison. On the whole, if you're not a fan of these particular iconic performers, there's really no larger reason to see the show. At least not from where I sat.

GRADE: C+ (For fans only. Or for those who can't get tickets to Jersey Boys.)

Review - The Addams Family at the Lunt-Fontanne

I had heard not-so-great things about the new musical version of The Addams Family from my Chicago blogger peeps, as well as from numerous students and readers. The main complaints seemed to be that the show didn't have much of a plot (and what plot it had seemed borrowed from La Cage aux Folles), that Andrew Lippa's score was bland and unmemorable, and that the show's story was focused too much on irrelevant characters.

When I saw The Addams Family in previews in mid March, the only fix the creative staff seemed to have made was in redirecting the focus of the show to shine firmly on the family. Otherwise, the show represented a reasonably funny but ultimately pointless and undistinguished night of musical theater.

The opening curtain met with a thunderous ovation from the faithful in attendance, mostly because the creators had made the wise choice to fork over the bucks to for the rights to the insidious and iconic theme for the TV show. But there were also considerable plaudits for the show's stars, Nathan Lane as Gomez, and Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia. If only the show itself had been worthy of their admitted collective talents.

It's certainly no secret that the show's directors of credit -- the idiosyncratic Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (Shockheaded Peter) -- were unceremoniously shunted aside after the show's less-than-spectacular Chicago tryout. Reportedly, Nathan Lane demanded, and got, his old pal Jerry Zaks to come in and punch things up a bit. The main contribution of the "directors" seems to be the show's design concept, which features a modular set of staircases, which are fun to watch the cast move but ultimately distracting.

The show also features an ingenious mobile curtain setup that almost seems like a character itself, and provides some visual focus to the scenes as well as physical coverage for set changes. There's also a rather elaborate visual setup for a second-act number in which Uncle Fester (the always wonderful Kevin Chamberlin) proclaims his amorous attachment to the moon. But designers as directors? Have we learned nothing from Julie Taymor? Much like The Lion King, The Addams Family comprises some interesting visual elements, but not much in the way of dramatic cohesion.

The book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (Jersey Boys) features some fairly frequent laughs, and some of the jokes are quite sharp and topical. But it's not clear how much of that may have been the work of, or at the urging of, uncredited director Zaks. The result is a bunch of decent one liners connected by a contrived plot lacking any engaging or believable drama, and saddled with forced complications and pat resolutions. In brief, the Addams daughter Wednesday comes home and announces that she's going to be married, and that Gomez and Morticia had better be on their best behavior when the future in-laws come to visit. Needless to say, havoc ensues. ("The best of times is now. What's left of summer but a faded rose...") 

What's more, the story represents an unconvincing morass of forced subplots and lame narrative conceits. Bebe Neuwirth is saddled with what is probably the least interesting and justifiable narrative thread. During the entire show, she frets about growing older. And that's just about it. Bebe gets a couple of would-be showstoppers, including a tango with Gomez, but they weren't working when I saw the show in previews. Otherwise, she just frets. I'm not a huge Bebe Neuwirth fan (I've heard too many stories about how she treats her cast members and production staff), but there's no question she's a talented woman who deserves better than what she gets in this show.

As for narrative conceits, at the start of the show Uncle Fester raises the Addams ancestors from the dead, only to tell them that they can't return to the grave until love triumphs. Really? In a musical about the Addams Family? Cuz, other than the fact that dead people are involved, that seems about as far from an Addams Family conceit as you'd be likely to devise. Plus, it's just not very interesting or compelling.

Besides its flat, jokey book, The Addams Family is saddled with decidedly undistinguished songs from Andrew Lippa, who wrote the Off-Broadway The Wild Party and a few new songs for the revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown. The Addams Family score features one lackluster, stop-and-sing, solo character song after another and not nearly enough ensemble work. The procession grows wearisome, indeed. The one fun tuneful number, "Full Disclosure," comes at the end of Act 1, by which time I had sort of given up anticipating anything of real distinction musically. Choreographer Sergio Trujillo seems to work overtime to give the show some life, but his style here is more MTV than Charles Addams.

As I said, there's considerable merriment to be had at the Lunt-Fontanne, particularly in the performance of Nathan Lane as Gomez, but also from the always hysterical Jackie Hoffman as Grandmama. The show seems to be selling like gangbusters so far, with weekly grosses well above $1 million. But will that continue after the reviews come out? Does this show have enough of a built-in audience, based on its stars and its source material, to make it review-proof?

GRADE: C- (Essentially, this season's Shrek. Strong performers and lotsa larfs, but forgettable score and forced gaiety.)

American Idiot Will Play the St. James

Even in this economy, most Broadway theaters don't remain vacant for very long. (That's either a testament to the reinvigorated status of the Broadway musical, or the sheer idiocy on the part of producers and investors. Perhaps both.) The current revival of Finian's Rainbow will play its last performance on January 17th, but the venerable St. James Theater has already signed on its next tenant: America Idiot, the new rock musical based on the eponymous recording by the popular band Green Day. The show is scheduled to begin previews on March 24th and open on April 20th.

American Idiot features a number of Spring Awakening alumni, including producer Tom Hulce and director Michael Mayer, and during its recent two-month run at Berkeley Repertory Theater, it starred Tony-Award winner John Gallagher Jr. Mayer is collaborating with iconic Green Day front man Billie Joe Armstrong on the show's book. Although the Berkeley run sold out, and the run was extended twice, the reviews were rather mixed.

The Sacramento Bee deemed American Idiot "worthy," but said that, while the characters "do eventually grow, the production's weakness lies in their lack of compelling development." Robert Hurwitt of The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the show "doesn't deliver much in the way of character or story" but said that it "packs plenty of excitement and entertainment into a remarkably theatrical rock concert." Leslie Katz of the San Francisco Examiner concurred that the book for the show "remains thin," but Karen D'Souza of the San Jose Mercury News called the show as "compelling as it is abstract," adding that the show reflected "the grungy spirit of punk while also plucking at the heartstrings."

So the consensus seems to be that there are the makings of a pretty powerful show here, but the book and characterizations could both use some fleshing out. Will Mayer and Armstrong be making any significant changes to the show before it hits New York? We shall see. In the meantime, anyone interested in getting a sense of how the show will sound can download the cut "21 Guns," recorded by the Berkley Rep cast and available on Amazon and iTunes.

Ragtime Revival to Close Sunday

That's the thing about rumors. Sometimes, they're actually true.

Word came over the weekend that the financially ailing Broadway revival of Ragtime will close this coming Sunday. At that point, the show will have played 57 regular performances and 28 previews, and will very likely lose its entire $8-million investment.

Michael Riedel of the New York Post had reported earlier this month that such an announcement was imminent, but the show's producers asserted that, although closure had been discussed, there were no concrete plans to do so. As if to prove the show's viability, there was even a weekend-long TV blitz from December 18th to the 21st, during which Ragtime cast members appeared on both local and national TV shows. In addition, cast member Bobby Steggert announced on Twitter that rumors of the show's closure were unfounded, which prompted an article in the New York Times about how the Internet rumor mill was doing Ragtime wrong. 

Alas, the publicity efforts were too little too late, and over the weekend, Ragtime cast members heard that the show would indeed be closing on January 3rd, as had been rumored. On Monday, the producers issued the official closing announcement to the press.

So, what happened? The show's reviews were certainly strong, if not unqualified raves. Ragtime has long been a sentimental favorite with the "in" theater crowd, but as the [title of show] folks learned, that's not enough to keep a show running. Did the show simply come back to Broadway too soon? It's never too soon to bring a show back if there's a genuine audience for it. (e.g. Les Miserables, A Chorus Line, Grease.) Was Ragtime poorly marketed? Well, as I've said, the show's logo is washed-out and indistinct, but although good logos can certainly help a show establish a public presence, it's unlikely that a visual identity can make or break a show by itself.

Perhaps Ragtime simply got lost amid the blockbusters. There's been a growing tendency among casual theater goers to patronize only the biggest hits (e.g. Billy Elliot, Wicked, Jersey Boys). Although there may be room on Broadway right now for smaller shows to find a way to survive (e.g. Next To Normal, Rock of Ages), even a scaled-down Ragtime had a cast of 34 and some 30 people in the orchestra. Perhaps Ragtime is simply too big to ever succeed on Broadway.

Or maybe -- just maybe -- this Ragtime failed because the word of mouth just wasn't there. Sure, there are plenty of musical queens and theater mavens who've been talking the show up big time on Twitter and Facebook and the [shudder] theater chat rooms. But big shows rise and fall based on the pass-along "wow" factor. Maybe this production just wasn't getting the all-important man/woman on the street to go home and say, "Hey, you really gotta see this." As I said in my review, I'm a huge Flaherty and Ahrens fan, and an ardent admirer of Ragtime as a show. But I wasn't really blown away by this particular production. There seemed to be something missing, a lack of an emotional center. There was no questioning the talent on stage, but for me there just wasn't anything outstanding about the production itself.

The current production notwithstanding, Ragtime remains, in my humble estimation, a musical for the ages. It has a strong book and an amazing score, and I've been very gratified by how it has caught on in the provinces, despite the need for a large number of African Americans in the cast. (African Americans haven't always been interested in musical theater, although thankfully that seems to be changing.) If you have a chance to see the show before it closes, I recommend taking it in. But I remain quite confident that this isn't the last we've seen of Ragtime.

ADDENDUM: The producers of Ragtime have announced that the show will play an extra week of performances, and will now close on January 10th. At that point, the show will have played 65 regular performances. Could this be the start of a trend? Or will the week amount to little more than a dead-cat bounce? I just got a ticket to see the show again on Friday, January 8th. Stay tuned for my re-review.

Stephen Sondheim at Sanders Theater - Part 2

Last week, I posted some of my notes from A Life in the Theater - An Evening With Stephen Sondheim, a conversation between Stephen Sondheim and Frank Rich at Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Mass. There was so much good stuff, I decided to break my notes up into two different posts. In my first set of notes, I included Sondheim's observations about some of his earlier shows, including Follies, Company, and A Little Night Music. Here, musical theater's greatest living practitioner discusses some of his later shows, as well as one of his first.  

Sweeney Todd
- Sondheim said that, in general, he's not really a fan of movie versions of stage musicals, and that most definitely includes A Little Night Music and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Because they weren't conceived for film, they don't tend to work well in that medium.
- The film version of Sweeney Todd, he said, was a notable exception, because director Tim Burton completely re-conceived the piece for film. Burton cut all the chorus songs -- what Sondheim refers to as "peasants on the green" pieces -- and retained the songs that came from the emotional life of the characters. The cast actually rehearsed "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," but didn't make it into film, because it's really a theatrical piece.
- Rich asked Sondheim why he thought Sweeney Todd has become such an admired and accepted work, given the (ahem) distasteful subject matter. Sondheim said it was because the musical is based on the Christopher Bond version of the Sweeney Todd legend. Previous versions portrayed Todd and Mrs. Lovett as merely greedy, bumping off customers in order to steal their money, and cooking them into pies to hide the evidence. Bond added the revenge plot, the Count of Monte Cristo tale of the wronged man seeking justice, and the tragedy that unfolds. "Bond made the story human," said Sondheim. "That's what makes the story sing."
- Sondheim said that although he loves working on plot-less musicals (Company, Follies, Assassins), he also loves shows with solid plots. That's why Sweeney and A Little Night Music work so well, he said, because they have very strong stories upon which the music hangs.
- One of the most difficult numbers to write for Sweeney Todd was "Epiphany," the point in the show when Sweeney decides to take his vengeance out on all of humanity, rather than simply the people who done him wrong. But mass murder is an awfully hard thing to justify dramatically. Sondheim says that "Epiphany" was actually based on "Soliloquy" from Carousel, a song that Sondheim says "changed the face of musical theater." Obviously, the two songs are entirely different in terms of tone and intent, but they both set out to justify major, life-altering decisions on the parts of the characters singing them. The key to making "Epiphany" work, said Sondheim, was in having Sweeney break the fourth wall and threaten the audience, which made the threat more credible.
- Sondheim said that there really isn't any moral to the story of Sweeney Todd. "It's really just meant to be a horror movie," he said. "We just wanted to scare people."
- Sweeney Todd did reasonably well on Broadway (although the production closed at a financial loss), but the show positively flopped in Britain. The show played the famed Theatre Royal Drury Lane, and was basically a recreation of the Broadway production, and it folded within a month. Sondheim says it was probably because Sweeney Todd is just a silly folk tale in Britain, a ruse to scare children into going to bed, lest Sweeney Todd come and get them in the night. As playwright John Guare put it to Sondheim, "Imagine someone coming to America with a serious musical based on 'I Love Lucy.'"

Gypsy
- Sondheim compared "Epiphany" from Sweeney Todd to "Rose's Turn" from Gypsy. "I love to write nervous breakdowns," he said, then added wryly, "I understand them so well."
- Apparently, Gypsy director/choreographer Jerome Robbins had originally intended "Rose's Turn" to be a ballet. In an early version of the show, there were three different actresses playing June and Louise at various ages, and at the end of the show, all six of them were going to come out for a kaleidoscopic ballet portraying Rose's breakdown. But Robbins turned to Sondheim one day in rehearsal and said, "I don't have time to stage it. Go write a song."
- Robbins and Sondheim went to the rooftop theater above the New Amsterdam, the place where Ziegfeld used to hold his Midnight Frolic revues, and talked for hours about what the song should say. Robbins played the part of Rose, and began to ad lib, dipping and swaying across the stage, a la Mama Rose in Gypsy Rose Lee mode. Sondheim took his notes to composer Jule Styne and the two of them filled out the song into the tour de force that we know today.
- Oscar Hammerstein didn't live long enough to see Sondheim write both music and lyrics for a show, but he did get to see both West Side Story and Gypsy, and was impressed. Hammerstein approached Sondheim after seeing Gypsy, and said that there were three problems. First, the doorknob in the kitchen scene wasn't working. Second, "You'll Never Get Away From Me" shouldn't end with dialog, but rather with the end of the song.
- And third, "Rose's Turn" was ending in such a way that robbed the audience of an applause break for Ethel Merman. Instead, it was ending by having the character slowly lose focus, and trail off into confusion. You have to let them give Ethel a hand, Hammerstein said. Because the audience wasn't able to acknowledge Merman, they were uneasy and unable to focus on the following scene, the pivotal one in which Louise and Rose have their final resolution, and the mother/daughter roles reverse. But that's not true to the emotion of the scene, said Sondheim. There's a difference between real truth and theatrical truth, said Hammerstein. Some things that are false emotionally are right for the stage. So they added the now-iconic "For me!" at the end of the number, gave Ethel her applause, and suddenly the audience was paying attention for the final two pages of the show.
- Rich asked Sondheim whether Hammerstein might have been put off by the subject matter of some of Sondheim's shows. Sondheim said that he would like to believe that Oscar would be proud of all of his shows, because, although he and Hammerstein have different tastes in subject matter, the shows are all in keeping with Hammerstein's artistic principles. People wrongly think of Hammerstein as old-fashioned and sentimental, but he really never was, and neither are his shows. He was a man of very strong artistic ambition and opinions and was very articulate about voicing those opinions.

Sunday in the Park With George
- Working with James Lapine changed Sondheim's creative life in a number of significant ways. Sondheim had never worked Off-Broadway before; he had usually written shows for out-of-town tryouts or opened them cold on Broadway. But with Sunday, for the first time, he had the luxury of developing a show in a not-for-profit setting, and he says it made for a much more relaxing experience, even if the production was in fact only a few geographic blocks from Broadway.
- Sondheim wrote the song "Finishing the Hat" to express what he called "the joy of trancing out." "When you're creating," he said, "the world is going by while you're making your own world." Of course, at the end of the song, the character Georges has no one to share his creation with except the dog, which expresses one of the key themes of the show: the sacrifices that an artist makes.

Into the Woods
- After Sunday in the Park With George, Sondheim and librettist/director James Lapine were looking for a quick way to make some money. They briefly toyed with the idea of creating a musical that was based on a TV special, featuring such iconic TV characters as Ralph Kramden, Lucy Ricardo, and Mary Richards. They even contacted TV producer Norman Lear to see if he might be interested in collaborating. But they eventually decided to focus on fairy tale characters instead.

General notes
- Sondheim also talked about various productions that he's heard of in which people change certain aspects of his shows, including an all-male version of Company, another in which Bobby shot himself at the end, and a version of Merrily We Roll Along that did the show "backwards" (i.e. "forwards").
- Sondheim is currently working on a two-volume, annotated edition of all of his lyrics throughout his career. The books will include historical background and essays about each show. The first volume, titled Finishing the Hat, appropriately enough, is scheduled to come out in late 2010 with second to follow in 2011.

Stephen Sondheim at Sanders Theater - Part 1

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending A Life in the Theater - An Evening With Stephen Sondheim, which took place at the lovely Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Mass. The event comprised a conversation, of sorts, between Stephen Sondheim, looking rather spry for his 79 years, and Frank Rich, the man formerly known as the "butcher of Broadway" during his stint as chief drama critic for the New York Times. 

In truth, Rich needn't have showed up. His questions were rather on the soft-ball side, and didn't really go much beyond "And then you wrote Follies. What was that like?" Pretty much anyone with even a passing knowledge of musical theater could have performed the same function. Sure, there was a certain added value to his presence, given his now legendary review of Follies for the Harvard Crimson, and other such overlaps, including his presence at the final DC performance of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. But on the whole, the added value to Rich's presence was minimal.

Sondheim talked about a lot of stuff that we've heard before, but it was certainly a delight to hear it from the horse's mouth, as it were. What follows is a show-by-show breakdown of some of the stories and recollections that Sondheim related to a rapt audience of about 1,100 admirers. There was so much great stuff to relate that I'm going to be breaking it up into two separate posts.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
- This was definitely one of the more oft-told tales of the evening, but Sondheim related a few details that I found compelling. Famously, Forum was flopping in DC. The final out-of-town performance had 50 members sparsely scattered throughout a 1,700-seat theater. Jerome Robbins had come in to help doctor the show, and said the opening number, "Love Is in the Air," wasn't working. The song was charming, but Forum isn't. It's a low comedy. Enter "Comedy Tonight."
- Sondheim says that this certainly made sense to him, given what had learned from his apprenticeship with Oscar Hammerstein, who told him that the opening number is the most important part of a musical: it needs to tell the audience what to expect in terms of style and substance. "Comedy Tonight" went into the show in Broadway previews, and the rest, as they say...

Company
- The original closing number to Company was called "Happily Ever After," which was eventually replaced by "Marry Me a Little" and ultimately "Being Alive." It's often said that "Happily" was cut because it was too much of a downer, but Sondheim said it was actually cut because it made the ending too bitter.
- "Side By Side" was originally supposed to be the 11 o'clock number, but Sondheim's agent suggested moving it to the opening of act 2 to give the audience a sort of progress report on Bobby. In its current place, the song really livens up the rest of the act.
- Most of the characters in Company were based on real people in librettist George Furth's life, while the part of Joanne was written specifically for Elaine Stritch. Sondheim was working on a number for her called "Crinoline," which was about memory and living in both the present and the past. (This, of course, would later become the theme for Follies.) Furth said, "No, that's not Elaine." Furth was out drinking very late one night with Stritch, in a bar on 3rd Avenue that was about to close. Stritch persuaded the bartender to keep bar open for her. "Honey," she said, "just give me a bottle of vodka and a floor plan." That's Elaine. 

Follies
- During the show's tryout in Boston, the opening sequence to Follies was somewhat abstract and featured shrill, dissonant music and slowly moving ghosts, and the audience just wasn't getting it. Sondheim spoke of the responsibility that creators have to their audience. "It's OK if they don't like it, but if they don't understand it, that's something you have to fix," he said.
- Sondheim thought the original opening would have been truer to the theme of the piece, but he worked with choreographer/co-director Michael Bennett to devise a new opening. "The audience is your collaborator," he said. "It's not about pandering. You can be subtle or indirect, but you're not allowed to baffle." 

A Little Night Music
- After such an expensive "flop" (his word, meaning Follies), Sondheim and Harold Prince wanted to make something that was a crowd-pleaser. Sondheim joked that he may indeed have a bit of a dark streak, but at the time a friend advised him to use Night Music as a chance to "show off." The friend exhorted him to "make it delightful, just a lighthearted operetta."
- The show was based on the 1955 Ingmar Bergman film, "Smiles of a Summer Night." While Night Music was running, Bergman contacted Sondheim about collaborating on a movie version of Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow. Bergman visited Sondheim the day after Bergman first saw A Little Night Music on Broadway. Sondheim asked him what he thought. Bergman said, "My dear boy, my movie and your musical share a story and nothing else. But we all eat from the same cake." Strangely enough, Bergman related that Victoria Mallory, who played the part of Ann, looked just like the woman Bergman had based the part on. "As for that Hermione Gingold, she does tend to fuck the audience, doesn't she?"
- Speaking of Hermione Gingold, when she auditioned for Night Music, Sondheim and Prince were worried that she might be too campy for the role, but she actually read extremely well. On her way out of the audition room, she told Sondheim and Prince, "I notice the character is 74 years old. So am I." (Later they found out she was actually 75.) Gingold also had noticed that at the end of the show, Madame Armfeldt dies, and the stage direction indicated that she slumps over and her wig falls off. Gingold took off her own wig, revealing that she was completely bald.
- Rich asked Sondheim if he knew whether Ingmar Bergman had seen the film version of A Little Night Music. "It may be what killed him," he said.
- Of course, Elizabeth Taylor played the part of Desiree in the movie version. Sondheim said that, to make her appear to sing on key, they had to cut and paste individual notes from multiple audio takes. And this was before digital editing.
- Taylor shared a trailer with co-star Diana Rigg. One day, Rigg asked Taylor if she knew that day's date. Taylor didn't, but started looking around for a newspaper. She found one, but said, "Oh, never mind. This is yesterday's paper."

COMING SOON: Sondheim's recollections on Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods, and Gypsy, including the revelation that "Rose's Turn" was originally supposed to be...a ballet?

Catch Me If You Can and First Wives Club in Tryouts

Two rather high-profile musicals are currently in the middle of their out-of-town tryout runs. First, there's Catch Me If You Can, which is in previews at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theater. (The show's opening was tragically delayed by the murder of Norbert Leo Butz's sister Teresa. I'm sure all of our thoughts are with Norbert during this terrible time.) Quite a bit further south, we have The First Wives Club at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego.

Variety recently ran a piece talking about the pros and cons of billing a tryout production as "Broadway-bound," citing both Catch and First Wives as examples. The producers of First Wives Club are of the opinion that the "Broadway-bound" moniker gives a boost to ticket sales, and in fact the show has extended its San Diego run until the end of August. However, the folks involved with Catch Me If You Can have been very careful to call the Seattle run a "world premier," possibly to hedge their bets in case the show needs work.

Well, according to Michael Riedel of the New York Post, Catch Me If You Can would seem more likely to be bound for Broadway, whereas First Wives Club could well be dead in the water. The critical response to First Wives was, in Riedel's words, "harsh," and even worse was the word of mouth among potential investors. The show is pleasing the California crowds, but the producers are scrambling to fund a move to New York.

Meanwhile, the advance word on Catch is relatively positive, although the show is apparently in need of some polish. Catch is scheduled to open tonight (8/6/09), and I've found no indication that the delayed previews have changed this, so the reviews will likely appear tomorrow.

Here's a promotional clip from the show, featuring Aaron Tveit (in the Leonardo DiCaprio role) performing the number "Live in Living Color." Um...gee, I hope the show is better than that clip. Much better. The song itself is unimpressive, with a decent tune but generic lyrics that tell me nothing about this character. And Jerry Mitchell's choreography here is atrocious, like something from a bad community production. Perhaps it's supposed to be bad, kind of like the garish costumes? Who knows. Yeah, it's not entirely fair to judge the show solely from this clip, but there's not much here that impresses me.

Then again, if I had only seen one number from Hairspray -- say, one of the forgettable numbers, like "It Takes Two" or "Without Love" -- I probably wouldn't have been all that stoked either. But the way "Live in Living Color" was shot would seem to indicate that this clip was meant for press distribution, so this was the number that someone somewhere chose to best represent the show. But there's no questioning the talent of the team behind Catch Me If You Can. (Book: Terrence McNally, Music and lyrics: Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman, Direction: Jack O'Brien.) Count these gentlemen out at your peril. So I remain hopeful that they'll be able to pull the show into shape before its likely Broadway bow.

Vanities to Play Second Stage

It seems that the musical Vanities will in fact play New York later this year, although not on Broadway, at least not yet. The show was originally supposed to play the Lyceum Theater, but the chancy economic environment forced the producers to reconsider.

Now comes news that the show will find a berth at New York's Second Stage, an Off-Broadway nonprofit theater company. Vanities will close out 2ST's current season, taking the place of  Douglas Carter Beane's recently postponed play, Mr. and Mrs. Fitch.

The show will apparently retain its creative team from its recent run at the Pasadena Playhouse: Judith Ivey will continue as director and Dan Knechtges (Xanadu, Spelling Bee) will provide the musical staging. The cast will likely comprise  Lauren Kennedy, Sarah Stiles, and Anneliese Van Der Pol, as it did in Pasadena. Vanities has a book by Jack Heifner, who wrote the 1976 play upon which the musical is based, and music and lyrics by David Kirshenbaum (Summer of '42).

Previews for the show will begin June 30th toward a July 16th opening. The show will have performances through August 9th. If that run is successful, will a Broadway run follow? I would imagine that's what the producers are hoping for, and the 2ST run represents a relatively safe way of testing the New York waters. Heck, it worked for both The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Next to Normal.

Speaking of Next to Normal (er, excuse me, next to normal), the reviews for that show, which came out today, were pretty darned positive. Regular readers will recall that I have a checkered history with this show and its librettist, Brian Yorkey. Well, I'm going to be seeing the show again next week. Never let it be said that I won't give a show a second chance. But if Yorkey's apparent message -- which seemed to be a repudiation of psychiatry -- remains intact, I certainly reserve the right to speak out against it, as I did when I saw the show last year.

Catch Me If You Can Set for Seattle

Ah, stardom is so fleeting. Now that the BGMC concerts are over, I no longer get to feel pretty, at least not in song form. But now I get to catch up on some blogging posts I've been meaning to write.

The long-gestating musical Catch Me If You Can finally seems to be coming to term. The show, based on the 2002 Stephen Spielberg movie of the same name, will have its world premiere in Seattle this coming summer.

The creative staff comprises many of the same people from Hairspray, including director Jack O'Brien (once he's finished with the apparently disastrous Impressionism), and choreographer Jerry Mitchell (back where he belongs after an arguably unfortunate stint as director for Legally Blonde). Also on board are Hairspray composer and lyricist Marc Shaiman and Scot Whitman. One new member of the creative staff is Terrence McNally on book. (Thomas Meehan and Mark O'Donnell were apparently too busy with Cry-Baby. An unfortunate choice, in retrospect.)

The cast boasts some of the best performers that Broadway has to offer, including Norbert Leo Butz in the Tom Hanks role, and Aaron Tveit in the Leonardo diCaprio role. The cast will also feature Kerry Butler, Linda Hart, and Tom Wopat. So, the production has all the feel of a Broadway-bound musical, although no official Broadway opening has been announced.

Memphis Musical Coming to Broadway in Fall

You gotta admire some people's optimism. Despite the fact that the only musicals that are staying open on Broadway right now seem to be the pre-branded hits and long-running blockbusters (and some of them are even struggling along themselves), there are still intrepid souls who dare to risk the move to Broadway.

Witness the long-aborning musical Memphis, which recently announced a planned move to Broadway in the fall of 2009 at a theater TBA. The show has had numerous tryout runs, including a world-premiere engagement at the North Shore Music Theater and most recently a run at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theater. Apparently the latter engagement went so well that the producers feel confident in shepherding the show to New York, despite an admittedly chilly economic climate. (Heck, there are recent weeks when even Wicked and Jersey Boys aren't selling out.)

Memphis sports a book by Joe DiPietro (I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, All Shook Up). Thankfully, this is not a jukebox music, but rather one with an original score by Bon Jovi's David Bryan. DiPietro and Bryan share duty on the lyrics. The pair are also collaborating on the new musical version of The Toxic Avenger, which opens Off Broadway next month.

Director Christopher Ashley (Xanadu) and choreographer Sergio Trujillo (Jersey Boys) will repeat their roles for the show's Broadway bow. Casting has yet to be announced, but recent versions of the show have starred Chad Kimball (Into the Woods, Lennon, Good Vibrations) and Montego Glover (The Color Purple). 

Subtitled "The Birth of Rock and Roll," Memphis tells the fictionalized story of a young, white radio disc jockey growing up in Memphis in the '50s. He becomes an on-air champion of African-American music, and falls in love with a black female singer, with "dramatic consequences," according to press material. That certainly sounds a lot more interesting that the show's title, but then the similarly named Chicago certainly seems to have done well for itself.

Addams Family Musical Will Hit Broadway in 2010

We've been hearing a lot lately about the upcoming musical version of The Addams Family, with a score by Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party, john & jen, new songs for the revival of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown) and a book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice (Jersey Boys).

Well, now The Addams Family appears to be on track for a Broadway bow in April 2010, after an out-of-town tryout in Chicago from November to January.

A recent workshop of the show featured Nathan Lane as Gomez, Bebe Neuwirth as Morticia, and Kevin Chamberlin as Uncle Fester, although there's no word yet on whether they'll repeat those roles on Broadway.

The buzz about the workshop was quite positive, particularly for the book and the performances. Apparently the story for the musical is not based on the movies or the TV show, but rather inspired by the original Charles Addams New Yorker cartoons. (And, no, they won't be using the famed da-da-da-dum-snap-snap hook from the TV show theme song.)

Direction and design for the show will come from the eclectic pair Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch (Shockheaded Peter), so we're likely in for a show that's, at the very least, interesting to look at.

My take: Well, I try to see everything, so it really doesn't matter if I say that I'm going to see it. But I think audiences will be attracted to the cast, if Lane and Neuwirth do indeed sign on for the Broadway run. The brand-recognition factor should attract a sizable crowd, but I don't get the sense that it will prove to be a critic-proof, guaranteed hit. The show will only have legs if it can generate positive word of mouth, something that, for instance, Shrek has so far been able to do, and The Addams Family as a very similar, pre-packaged, brand-driven feel to it.

Dirty Dancing: Dead on Stage

The Playbill for the national tour of Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage, now playing at Boston's Opera House, has a number of telling omissions. There's no mention anywhere of a librettist, a composer, or a lyricist. And why? Because not a single shred of creativity or original thought went into mounting this lazy, venal, and cynical enterprise. Even the guy who sings "I Had the Time of My Life" sounds exactly like Bill Medley on the original recording.

Say what you want about the stage versions of Footloose and Saturday Night Fever. The creators at least made the effort to integrate the songs into those shows and put them in the mouths of the main characters. But with Dirty Dancing, we have groundskeepers and chambermaids walking through the scenes singing the songs that many of us know, and some of us even love. (Though not I.) Baby and Johnny never sing a note.

Is this even a musical? Well, I happen to be of the opinion that, if the people who created a show call it a musical, then it's a musical. So Contact is a musical. Movin' Out is a musical. But note that the title of the show at hand is Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage, and not Dirty Dancing: The Musical. It's like an admission of guilt on the part of the creators here. "Basically, we didn't even try."

But let's for the moment accede that Dirty Dancing is, indeed, a musical. The question is: is it any good? Is it entertaining? Does it tell a compelling story about characters whom we care about, and engage us with humor and pathos along the way?

No.

There's certainly a lot of action on stage, but there's really no focus. The wall-to-wall dance blends into an undifferentiated morass. For example, in one scene, Johnny and his dance partner demonstrate the mambo to the resort guests. Then, in the next scene, they're supposed to be letting their hair down and performing the titular "dirty dancing" in the staff quarters. But choreographer Kate Champion hasn't managed to find a way to make these two styles look different.

The whole production suffers from the same bland, uniform indifference. It also suffers from an over-reliance on numerous antiquated theatrical techniques: blackouts, crossovers, scenes-in-one, and irrelevant dance to cover set changes.

The regular Johnny Castle was out sick for this performance, so we got standby Easton Smith. To put it bluntly, except for his dancing, which is decent, Smith has no business on a professional stage. His acting is as flat as his hairstyle. He makes Patrick Swayze seem almost lifelike by comparison. Apparently the producers placed dancing first among their criteria for the role, but Smith doesn't have the acting chops to make Johnny sympathetic or credible.

There were a few bright spots in the cast, including Amanda Leigh Cobb (The Coast of Utopia) as Baby. Cobb is simply a terrific actress, very natural and endearing. Not surprising, since she boasts an MFA from Yale Drama, no less. (Oh, the indignity.) The scene in which Baby apologizes to and confronts her father almost made this turkey worth seeing. And then there was the always reliable Kaitlin Hopkins (Bat Boy, The Great American Trailer Park Musical) as the mom, bringing humor and warmth to an admittedly minor role.

Apparently there was an orchestra hiding somewhere backstage, but I can't imagine why they even bothered. Much of the time, they were just playing recordings from the movie soundtrack anyway, for instance during "Hungry Eyes." (Pedantic aside: the lyric "I feel the magic between you and I..." is painfully ungrammatical. "Between" is a preposition, which makes "I" the object of the preposition, making the use of "me" imperative, which I can show you by drawing a very simple chart...)

It's a really a shame that this production is such a dog, because there just might be a decent musical at the heart of Dirty Dancing. Typically, movie adaptations at least add something that you couldn't get from simply renting the movie. This one doesn't. Even so, apparently the producers have every intention of taking this one to Broadway, possibly at the Neil Simon, recently vacated by the long-running Hairspray. 

God help us all.