Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Musical Numbers at the 2007 Tony Awards

I love the Tony Awards. (You're shocked, I know.) But it's not really the awards themselves that get me all worked up. Like all awards, the Tonys are arbitrary, politicized, and downright unfair. In other words, they're marketing. I'm certainly not knocking marketing: I edit a magazine about the subject.

But for me, the actual winners are of secondary concern. The Tony broadcast has always meant one thing, as far as I'm concerned: getting to see -- and to save for posterity -- the musical numbers from the nominated shows. Over the years, I've recorded, or secured recordings of, all the musical numbers from the Tony broadcasts since 1980, and I have selected numbers from broadcasts going back as far as 1967. (What me, bragging? Maybe just a bit.)

So each year I eagerly await to hear which musical numbers the respective casts will perform. Not all of this year's selection have been announced, but here's what's in the offing so far:

The producers of Grey Gardens have predictably decided to showcase the [insert effusive adjective here] Christine Ebersole in her hysterical second-act opener, "The Revolutionary Costume for Today." I was hoping for the Act I opening number, "Five Fifteen," mostly because the former is readily available on YouTube, but I'll take the delightful Miss Ebersole in whatever manifestation I can get her.

The cast of Spring Awakening, the Duncan Sheik/Steven Sater musical, will perform a medley from the show. I HATE HATE HATE when producers do this: rather than showcasing one number, they create what amounts to a commercial for the show. Even more reason for me to root for Grey Gardens as Best Musical. No word yet on what Curtains and Mary Poppins will perform.

As for the revivals, the [insert yet another effusive adjective here] Audra McDonald will perform "Raunchy" from 110 in the Shade, without question my least favorite number from the show, but it does showcase Audra at her playful best. But with such a magnificent score to choose from, why oh why did they have to go with this middling, semi-effective character piece?

The entire cast of the hit revival of A Chorus Line will perform "One," presumably the finale version, as opposed to the surreal Cassie/Zach standoff version. When the cast performed this number on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day telecast, they inexplicably performed in their "street" attire rather than the gold finale duds, perhaps because it was raining, and the wardrobe department didn't want to deal with wet lamé. One presumes Radio City is more lamé-friendly.

Raul Esparza will perform "Being Alive" from Company, which will give the Best-Actor nominee a chance to show why he's the odds-on favorite to win. However, there won't be a number from the best-revival nominated, but otherwise nod-less, The Apple Tree. I was hoping they'd get Kristen Chenoweth to perform "What Makes Me Love Him," but either the Tony-broadcast producers decided not to let anyone from the show perform because it has already closed, or perhaps the nomination-less Chenoweth refused. 

In a bald-faced bid for ratings, the producers have also asked "American Idol" winner Fantasia, who got some great reviews after taking over for Tony winner LaChanze in The Color Purple, to perform on the Tony broadcast. Hey, if showcasing an Idol idol does for the TV show's rating what it typically does for my blog traffic, it might not be such a bad idea. 

Memorial Day

Momma, hey momma, come lookin' for me
I'm here in the meadow by the red maple tree
Momma, hey momma, look sharp, here I be
Hey, hey, momma look sharp

Them soldiers, they fired.
Oh ma, did we run
But then we turned round
And the battle begun
Then I went under, oh ma, am I done?
Hey, hey, momma look sharp

My eyes are wide open, my face to the sky
Is that you I'm hearin' in the tall grass nearby?
Momma come find me before I do die
Hey, hey, momma look sharp

I'll close your eyes, my Billy
Them eyes that cannot see
And I'll bury you, my Billy
Beneath the maple tree
And never again will you whisper to me
Hey, hey, momma look sharp

- From 1776

On this Memorial Day let us all pause to consider the primary contribution of the Bush administration: they've given us 3,455 more dead soldiers to remember.

Linda Eder and the Boston Gay Men's Chorus

OK, enough about the Tonys, already. Here's something about me. Well, me and 150 of my closest friends.

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, the venerable Boston Gay Men's Chorus will welcome a very special guest, Broadway performer and cabaret star Linda Eder. This one-performance-only event will take place Friday, June 8th, 2007 at Boston's recently renovated Opera House.

The chorus will start with a selection of favorites from the group's history, including (of course) showtunes by George Gershwin and Harold Arlen. Then, we will welcome Ms. Eder to the stage for a rousing second half, including her solo set, after which the chorus will accompany her on three of her biggest hits: "Anthem" from Chess, "Don't Rain on My Parade" from Funny Girl, and "I Am What I Am" from La Cage aux Folles.

The orchestra section of the house is practically sold out, but great tickets are still available in the mezzanine and the balcony.

So, you're coming, aren't you? Of course, you're coming. I mean, why wouldn't you be coming? There's the BGMC and there's Linda Eder.

What more could you possibly want in life?

In the Heights: Coming to Broadway

Evidently the Off Broadway musical In the Heights will close in July.

But that's not necessarily bad news. The show will apparently undergo some revisions prior to making its Broadway bow. So far, the producers haven't announced a specific date or venue.

The show has recently garnered a number of awards, including the Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics Circle awards for best Off Broadway musical, and a Drama Desk for best choreography. So perhaps the producers feel the time and the momentum are right to make the move uptown.

In the Heights will be yet another in a line of successful musicals to start Off Broadway and make the Broadway transfer. But what's sort of disappeared is the hit Off Broadway musical that stays Off Broadway, like The Fantasticks, Little Shop of Horrors, or more recently Altar Boyz. They tend either to close (Evil Dead, Gutenberg, Adrift in Macao) or move to Broadway (Grey Gardens, Spring Awakening, Avenue Q, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee).

While it's certainly good news that smaller shows have found a profitable home on Broadway, it's disconcerting to note that they have a harder time making it beyond the Rialto. It's ironic, given that an Off Broadway run is typically less expensive because of different union contracts, resulting in lower expenses. But a Broadway run generates a higher profile for the show, greater ticket-sale potential, and ultimately greater and faster profitability.

Hey, as long as these musicals are running somewhere, right? But it makes me wonder how many terrific shows we're missing out there, shows that would have previously found a berth Off Broadway, but can't anymore because they aren't perceived to have Broadway potential.

Tony Broadcast: Which Numbers?

I don't know about you, but I've already started to speculate which musical numbers the nominated shows will perform on the upcoming Tony Awards broadcast. I have my predictions, of course, and my recommendations.

Grey Gardens - I'm hoping that the cast will perform the opening number, "Five Fifteen," to emphasize the relatively upbeat nature of the first act. The show could use some publicity, and an up-tempo number like this one might put more people in the seats. I have a feeling that they'll probably go with "The Revolutionary Costume for Today" to give Christine Ebersole a chance to really shine.

Spring Awakening - Most likely, we'll see "The Bitch of Living," a kick-ass number, although it doesn't feature any of the  female cast members.

Curtains - It would be great if they went with Debra Monk's second-act showstopper "It's a Business," but that won't give David Hyde Pierce a chance to shine, so they may decide to go with "A Tough Act to Follow" which features Pierce and the lovely Jill Paice.

Mary Poppins - Who cares? But I bet they do "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," which frankly was one of the only moments in the show when I was actually paying attention.

As for the musical revivals:

110 in the Shade - Something with Audra, of course. Maybe "A Man and a Woman" or "Is it Really Me?" Perhaps the former, because Christopher Innvar got better notices than Steven Kazee.

The Apple Tree: Since the show has closed, they'll likely go with a solo, such as "What Makes Me Love Him?" This would throw the un-nominated Kristen Chenoweth a well-deserved bone.

Company - Look for a virtuoso Raul Esparza moment, probably "Being Alive," or perhaps "Marry Me a Little."

A Chorus Line - Since Charlotte D'Amboise is the only cast member up for an award, I'd say "The Music and the Mirror" is a distinct possibility, either that or the "One" finale.

As for what we definitely won't be seeing, apparently the TV producers originally extended invitations for LoveMusik and Legally Blonde to perform numbers, but have since rescinded those offers. According to Michael Reidel of The New York Post, the TV producers were looking for ways to shore up the show's ratings, especially since it's positioned opposite the "Sopranos" season finale.

Oh, please. The Tonys has never been a ratings bonanza, and will likely never be, unless for some reason musicals return to their rightful place at the center of the American entertainment scene.

Wouldn't that be great?

Tony Fallout Begins

As typically happens after the Tony Award nominations come out, slighted shows -- and some not-so-slighted shows -- begin posting closing notices. So far, the only announced casualties are the straight plays Coram Boy and Journey's End, but we don't really care about plays, do we dear reader?

But there is the definite possibility that a musical is about to shutter. The producers of this season's financially successful How the Grinch Stole Christmas recently announced that the show will return next season at the St. James Theater, the most recent tenant of which was The Producers. That's quite interesting, since the theater's next occupant was supposed to be Young Frankenstein. Does this mean that Young Frankenstein will play the Hilton Theater, after The Pirate Queen folds?

Very very likely.

I was talking to a friend of a Pirate Queen cast member last night, and when this guy recently saw the show, he went backstage to talk with his friend, who said the cast were actually glad they didn't get any Tony Award nominations, as opposed to just one or two, because that would have seemed like the Tony committee was just tossing them a bone.

Now that's some big-time whistling in the dark, huh?

Speaking of Young Frankenstein, rumor has it that the highly anticipated show may star Tony winner Roger Bart as well as Wicked original cast member Christopher Fitzgerald as Dr. Frankenstein and Igor, respectively, although there hasn't been any formal cast announcement.

As for positive Tony fallout, the glorious revival of 110 in the Shade has extended two weeks (despite a supposedly "strictly limited engagement"), possibly as a result of being this season's musical revival with the largest number of Tony nominations. But it could just be because Audra McDonald kicks major amounts of ass as Lizzy Curry, or as anything she cares to play, for that matter.

I love me some Audra.

Happy Liza Doolittle Day!

ELIZA
One day I'll be famous!
I'll be proper and prim!
Go to Saint James so often I will call it Saint Jim.
One evening the King will say,
"Oh Liza, old thing,
I want all of England your praises to sing."

KING
"Next week, on the twentieth of May,
I proclaim Liza Doolittle Day!
All the people will celebrate the glory of you,
And whatever you wish and want
I gladly will do."

ELIZA
"Thanks a lot, King," says I, in a manner well bred. But all I want is 'enry 'iggins 'ead!"

From "Just You Wait," My Fair Lady

Happy Liza Doolittle Day, everyone!

Grey Gardens in London and on Tour

The producers of Grey Gardens recently announced that the show will play London next season with the luminous Christine Ebersole recreating her award-winning role. It makes me wonder whether the show will survive on Broadway without her, although there is talk of casting a replacement.

But it's entirely possible that the show will have run its course by that time, freeing Ebersole up to take Grey Gardens across the pond after her contract expires in October 2007. No word yet on whether the wonderful Mary Louise Wilson with join her in the West End production.

The producers also announced that a U.S. tour is in the works for sometime soon. It's not clear yet whether Ebersole with take part in the tour or go straight to London. Something tells me that the tour will be somewhat limited in scope, playing cities that will presumably be more friendly to a  musical with this tone (wistful and nostalgic) and subject matter (the tragedy of unfulfilled ambition).

Then again, perhaps I'm simply being elitist in this assumption. (What, me? An East Coast snob? Perish the very thought.) The tour for The Light in the Piazza played Columbus, Cleveland, Raleigh, and Des Moines, though I'm not sure how well the show performed financially on those stops.

In any case, if Grey Gardens comes to your town, see it. 'Nuff said.

Tony Nomination Totals

As part of my continuing Tony Award coverage, here are the nomination totals for this year's musicals, both original shows and revivals, along with my take on what should and shouldn't have happened:

11 - Spring Awakening: This is a terrific show, but it's been dominating all the headlines simply because it got one more nomination than Grey Gardens. It's a shame the terrific Lea Michele wasn't nominated for best actress, but she had some formidable competition.

10 - Grey Gardens: The only real reason my beloved Grey Gardens didn't tie with Spring Awakening for total nominations was that it really has no choreography to speak of.

8 - Curtains: The wonderful Jason Danieley really deserved a nod for best supporting actor.

7 - Mary Poppins: Please, don't get me started. The show got a best musical nom, but it was ignored in the best book and best score categories. (Those nods went to Legally Blonde instead, which didn't get a best musical nod.) This sort of bodes ill for the odds of Mary Poppins snagging best musical.

7 - Legally Blonde: Sure, it got 7 nominations, but it failed to get the one that really counts: best musical.

5 - 110 in the Shade: This lovely production deserved more nominations, particularly for sets and choreography. There wasn't much of either, but that's what made them so effective.

4 - LoveMusik:  Despite the show's 12 Drama Desk nominations, it only received 4 Tony noms, in acting and orchestrations. Which is as it should be. Harold Prince and Alfred Uhry were justifiably ignored as director and librettist.

3 - Company: The big surprise is that Barbara Walsh wasn't nominated for best supporting actress. I was disappointed by her performance, but for a while the momentum seemed to be in her favor.

2 - A Chorus Line: Only scored two noms, for best musical revival and for Charlotte D'Amboise for best supporting actress, both of which it will probably lose. Not that that will matter. This blockbuster revival will likely keep running strong even if it's shut out.

1 - The Apple Tree: Just one nomination (best musical revival), which is a bit embarrassing and surprising. One might have expected Kristen Chenoweth, or even Marc Kudish to pick up a nomination.

1 - High Fidelity: It's remarkable this show got anything at all, but the one nomination it did receive was for best set, which was absolutely hideous.

1 - Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me: And the nomination goes to...Brooks Ashmanskas? Yeah, he was terrific, but that's gotta smart for Marty, although he did win for Little Me.  

And then there were the following shows, which were completely shut out:

• Les Miserables - as if anybody cares, or is the slightest bit surprised
• The Pirate Queen - Not even a nod for Stephanie J. Block, one of the only reasons to see this bloated mess. Look for a closing notice soon at the Hilton.
• The Times They Are A-Changin' - Oh, yeah. Did that open this season, too? Take that, Twyla.

2007 Tony Nominations

The Tony nominations are out. And all is well with the world.

This is my second favorite day of the year, the first of course being the first Sunday in June: the Tony broadcast itself. There's way too much to digest for one day, so I'm going to space my observations out over the course of the week.

We'll start with the most important category: best musical. The nominees are Curtains, Grey Gardens, Mary Poppins, and Spring Awakening. As is often the case with award nominations, what's most interesting is which shows didn't receive a nomination. In this case, the most significant slighted shows are Legally Blonde and LoveMusik. In my opinion, neither show deserved a nomination, but then again neither did Mary Poppins.

The big loser here is Legally Blonde. LoveMusik is a limited run, non-profit-sponsored show, so it wasn't going to hang around much longer anyway. But, according to Michael Riedel of the New York Post, the producers of Legally Blonde were really hoping for a best musical nomination so they could court the "road vote," which basically means they could lobby the regional theater promoters for their votes because Legally Blonde would presumably have the best chance of making money on the road.

So much for that.

As for the shows that did garner a nomination, the clear standouts are Grey Gardens and Spring Awakening. But there's a real danger that these two shows will split the quality vote, leaving Mary Poppins a chance to squeak by with a populist win. Much as I enjoyed Curtains, I see it as having a remote shot at best, but then again maybe there are enough Tony voters out there who loathed Mary Poppins as much as I did.

So it's a genuinely wide-open race. When was the last time we had four genuinely viable contenders for best musical?

Spring Awakening Amasses Awards

Awards season is now in full force. The big winner so far has been Spring Awakening, which has won the New York Drama Critics Circle award, the Lucille Lortel award, and most recently the Outer Critics Circle award for best musical.

A worthy show, and an admirable set of achievements, but this is not necessarily an accurate predictor of the Tonys, since Grey Gardens wasn't eligible for any of those awards, having premiered off Broadway last season.  The Tony nominations come out tomorrow. Watch this space for my take on the results.

It looks as though Spring Awakening and Grey Gardens will be the two main contenders for the best musical Tony, although Mary Poppins is a definite possibility, given its incredible (and I mean that word literally) reviews. Curtains will likely round out the four nominees, although Legally Blonde and LoveMusik remain outside (and IMHO unworthy) possibilities.

The other musicals that opened this season, but really don't stand much of a chance of snagging a best musical nom, are Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me, Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Times They Are A'Changing, High Fidelity, and The Pirate Queen.

And speaking of The Pirate Queen, it's is still limping along at the Hilton Theater, its capacity hovering at less than three fourths of that enormous house, and its average ticket price coming in at a meager $60 or so, which means most of the show's tickets are selling at about a 50% discount. It will be interesting to see what happens to The Pirate Queen after tomorrow's Tony announcements.

Rumor has it that Susan Stroman and Mel Brooks were recently touring the Hilton, scouting it as a possible venue for the upcoming Young Frankenstein. And, get this, it was during a Pirate Queen rehearsal, with all the actors on stage while Stroman and Brooks toured the house. Can you imagine how the actors felt witnessing firsthand the descent of the vultures?

Now that's tacky.

Ben Brantley and I Agree: Film at Eleven

Ben Brantley and I agreed on both Legally Blonde and 110 in the Shade.

I'm frightened, Auntie Em, I'm frightened.

Brantley and I were in almost complete accord on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the above productions. I found Legally Blonde blunt and shrill, as did he. And he thought the performances were the best thing in the Roundabout revival of 110 in the Shade, which opened last night at Studio 54. He positively, and justifiably, gushed about the divine Audra McDonald. He also found Steve Kazee as Starbuck underwhelming, while he characterized Christopher Innvar's performance as File as "smoldering."

What's more, we came very close to agreeing on the merits of LoveMusik, which Brantley found "tedious" and "unmissable." Nice as it is to have my views validated by so august a news outlet as the New York Times, I'm a little uncomfortable with being consistently in the same camp as Brantley. 

Hmm...maybe Brantley's not such a bad critic after all. Because the true mark of someone's professional quality is to what extent that person reinforces one's personal views and prejudices.

Right?

Cabaret Revival. Again.

OK, here's something new: a revival of a revival.

The Roundabout Theater recently announced that it plans to bring back its critically acclaimed, and financially successful, re-staging of the Kander & Ebb classic Cabaret. The production will again star Tony-Award-winner Alan Cumming. The show will apparently occupy Studio 54 after the Roundabout presents the recent London revival of Sunday in the Park with George.

The Roundabout must be in financial trouble, and looking for a return of its cash cow. Evidently, recent Roundabout offerings haven't been selling very well, particularly its non-musical offerings such as Heartbreak House and Prelude to a Kiss.

Recent history has shown that bringing back recently departed blockbuster shows can indeed be lucrative. (e.g. Les Miserables, 42nd Street, A Chorus Line) And it's hard to fault the Roundabout for wanting a steady revenue stream.

But here's an idea: How about trying to find another cash cow instead? The idea of dusting off a tried-and-true favorite is certainly tempting, but artistically bankrupt. Yeah, this is a tough time for non-profits. But the role of the non-profit in today's theatrical mix is to craft the artistically adventurous, albeit financially viable, offerings that the for-profit producers won't take a chance on. 

Someone might counter that a steady revenue stream would make such offbeat shows as The Apple Tree or 110 in the Shade possible by relieving some of the financial pressure from the organization. Well, that sort of lets the Roundabout's development department off the hook. Fund raising is a vital part of the life of any non-profit, and perhaps instead of bringing back Cabaret the folks at the Roundabout need to shake a few more hands, paste on a few more fake smiles, and raise some money the old-fashioned way: begging for it.  

Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life

I love me some Chita.

I remember seeing Chita Rivera in the recent Broadway revival of Nine. During the Folies Bergere number, Chita did a turn and ended up with her leg up on Antonio Banderas's shoulder. I turned to my friend Sarah Kimball and said, "She's 70." Well, that was four years ago, and the redoubtable Chita Rivera just keeps going. (No Energizer Bunny jokes, please.)

It's really too bad that the vehicle crafted especially to showcase her talents and her life isn't worthy of either. Chita Rivera: The Dancer's Life, which recently wound up a week's run in Boston, is more of an extremely well-staged Vegas act than a full-fledged Broadway show, full of soft-edged nostalgia and vague reminiscence. 

Still, this is frickin' Chita Rivera, so it feels churlish to carp. But my beloved Chita seems to have lost something of her preternatural ebullience. Yeah, she's 74. But even as recently as 2003 in Nine, she seemed downright irrepressible. I guess it's unreasonable to expect a theatrical legend not to succumb to the ravages of time.

Even so, I'll take a creaky and breathless Chita over nearly any performer half her age. She still has that undeniable spark, that ineffable star quality that few can match. I kept reminding myself that she's older than either of my parents, and Nettie and Ernie would be thrilled to be able to move half as fluidly as Ms. Chita.

But back to the show itself, only sporadically does Graciela Danielle's staging rise above the ordinary. The second act homage to Chita's great choreographers (Jack Cole, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, etc.) was quite effective and entertaining, if not nearly as inspired as the work of the men it recounted. (Well, most of the men. I'm going to need to respectfully disagree with my beloved Chita about Peter Gennaro. I always found his work pointlessly complicated and overly focused on fancy footwork at the expense of artistic clarity.)

The book by Terrence McNally was surprisingly pedestrian, and seemed content to provide a straightforward chronicle rather than a coherent thesis. Yeah, it's not a masters thesis, but couldn't we have found something in between: entertainment with depth. That's McNally's stock in trade. The only inspired touch in act 1 was having Chita perform "Nowadays" with an empty follow spot to stand in for Gwen Verdon. (Of whom, BTW, Chita does a kick-ass impersonation.)

Worth seeing? Without question. Performers like Chita don't come around very often, and anyone who cares about the Broadway stage should take every opportunity to witness a legend like Chita in person.

Drowsy Chaperone: New Cast Members

As I mentioned a few days back, I had some time to kill before meeting friends for dinner and taking in LoveMusik on Sunday night, so I grabbed a ticket at TKTS for a matinee performance of The Drowsy Chaperone. As I've reported numerous times on this blog, I'm a huge fan of the show, and I figured I could see how the new cast members are doing now that Sutton Foster, Bob Martin, Edward Hibbert, and Georgia Engel have left the cast.

I'll start with the best news, which is that John Glover makes for a very different but also very effective Main in Chair. Bob Martin wrote the part for himself, so it's no small feat taking over for him. Glover is, of course, a Tony-Award-winning actor in his own right, and he gives the character a very personal spin. He's not quite as jittery or as wry as Martin, but he's warmer and more sympathetic. Glover doesn't get nearly as many laughs as Martin, mostly because he's playing for character, not for one-liners. So, two divergent performances, but each compelling in their own way.

Alas, the same cannot be said for the remaining replacements. I was intrigued when I heard that Joanne Worley would be taking over for Engel as Mrs. Tottendale. You really couldn't get two more dissimilar comic actresses. Worley even sports an entirely new costume: instead of Engel's Bavarian-wedding-cake dress, Worley wears a fringe-bedecked variation on a flapper gown. Worley wisely avoids much of her "Laugh-In" shtick, but she seems very lost and uncomfortable in the part. She certainly hasn't yet found a way to make it funny.

The same can be said for the new Underling, Peter Bartlett, who is nowhere near as sharp or droll as Edward Hibbert was. (Hibbert is now mugging his way through Curtains at the Hirshfeld.) I'm not saying these performers should ape the original actors, but it would be great if they could find their own ways to bring out the humor in these characters.

It saddens me to report that the wildly talented Janine LaManna was a major disappointment as Janet Van De Graaff. LaManna was one of the best things in the heartbreakingly imperfect Seussical, and was, I felt, robbed of a Tony nomination for her hysterical and touching turn as Gertrude McFuzz. She looked distracted and distant in Drowsy Chaperone, as if she were the understudy who only really learned the part that afternoon.

Again, I wasn't looking for a Sutton Foster impersonation, just something of the undeniable spark she brought to Seussical. Perhaps LaManna will loosen up and start to have more fun as she becomes more comfortable in the role. But since she's only playing the part until July 29th -- after which Mara Davi, currently appearing as Maggie in the hit revival of A Chorus Line, will take on the role -- this would probably need to happen soon.

LoveMusik: Clumsy and Amateurish

Bad theater makes me angry. I think it's about missed opportunities and wasted talent. There's a ton of wasted talent at the Biltmore Theater in the Manhattan Theater Club's new production, LoveMusik. And the entire enterprise reeks of missed opportunity.

What a huge disappointment. All I could think at the end of the show was: This is Hal Prince? Of course, no director, not even the legendary Prince, is infallible. Years ago, I had the misfortune of sitting through Prince's atrocious Roza.

The idea for LoveMusik is inspired: use Kurt Weill's glorious music to illuminate the long and tempestuous love affair between Weill and his sometimes wife, Lotte Lenya. But the execution in LoveMusik is sorely lacking in originality. There's very little poetry in Alfred Uhry's book: the drama is artificial, the situations contrived, the dialog banal.

Hal Prince evinces none of his trademark brilliance in staging this torpid affair. There's no concept in evidence, except for one number in the second act, "The Illusion Wedding Show," which is meant to be a magazine article come to life. The man who helped invent the concept show seems to have forgotten how to put one together.

Throughout the show, Prince falls back on two timeworn theatrical devices: the blackout and the supertitle. This is ironic, given that Prince was one of the people who brought a more cinematic approach to the musical theater, creating scenes that flowed seamlessly from one to the next, eliminating the need for blackouts. And supertitles? (e.g. "Berlin, 1928" or "Bertolt Brecht's California Bungalo") C'mon. That's just plain lazy writing. The scenes themselves should evoke the time and place.

All that said, the leading performances were convincing, at times brilliant. Michael Cerveris and Donna Murphy completely embody their characters, respectively Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya. So much so that, after the first number, I turned to my friend Michael Weingart and said, "That's not Michael Cerveris, is it?" Yes, he said. "Well, is that Donna Murphy?" Yes, again. In my defense, we were sitting in the balcony, but the fact that these two well known performers were at first unrecognizable to me is a tribute to their skill.

What could have been the most interesting musical of the season has turned out to be one of the worst.

110 in the Shade: Stirring and Undervalued

The first show I saw this past weekend was the Roundabout Theater Company's revival of 110 in the Shade. For me, this production was a non-stop joy, a stirring rendition of a magnificent, and unjustly obscure, show. 

What a lovely, moving, and compelling work. Why hasn't 110 in the Shade become a more frequently performed and revered part of the musical theater canon? It's every bit as good as more than half the shows that get trotted out over and over. I hope this revival renews interest in the show, because it's a natural for regional, community, and even high school productions. The set and cast requirements are modest, but can be scaled up if need be.

But as for this particular production, director Lonny Price has coaxed very credible performances from the mostly extraordinary cast. The lustrous Audra McDonald was sensational as Lizzie, giving a moving and nuanced performance. She delivered a suitably kick-ass rendition of "Old Maid," and a playful version of "Ranchy." (I must admit this was never my favorite song from the show. I much prefer the cut number "Flibberdigibbet.") The legendary John Cullum joined McDonald in giving the show its emotional center.

Christopher Innvar gave a suitably mannered and quirky interpretation to the character File. Innvar is an imposing and strong-voiced performer, but he brought a telling restraint to File, which made the moment when the character actually blossoms significantly more powerful.

The one major disappointment in the cast was Steve Kazee as Starbuck. When he didn't blow me away in act one, I ascribed it to the fact that he didn't have all that much to do. But then in Act 2, he again didn't quite convey the larger-than-life quality that Starbuck requires. It seemed obvious that he was trying to do so, though, which of course is the most certain way of preventing it from happening. Plus he kept flatting on his high notes.

Overall, Lonny Price's precise and economical direction kept the show moving at a brisk pace. Dan Knechtges' choreography was sparse, and appropriately so. The characters dance only when necessary, which made the few occasions of dance all the more effective.

[As an aside, I'm sure all my readers join me in sending heartfelt condolences to Audra McDonald on the sudden passing of her father in a plane crash this past weekend. Stanley McDonald Jr. was 62.]