Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Review - Yank at the York Theatre Company

I had been hearing some terrific word of mouth about the new musical Yank, which is currently playing its first fully staged engagement at the York Theatre Company. But when I saw some of the online promotional videos, I sensed a bit too much earnestness for my taste, and wondered whether the show would set my teeth on edge.

Well, there's always a danger in seeing things out of context, and I'm happy to report that, in context, almost all of Yank is a delight. The brothers David Zellnik (book and lyrics) and Joseph Zellnik (music) have been working on Yank since 2005, reshaping it in various workshop productions. The effort seems to have paid off, as the brothers Zellnik have crafted what could be, with a few nips and tucks, a world-class show. Director Igor Goldin has certainly had a hand in making the piece as strong as it is, including numerous smart, funny, and moving staging choices.

But chief among the show's assets are leading men Bobby Steggert and Ivan Hernandez, who bring the story of two World War II soldiers, who happen to fall in love, to vivid and palpable life. Steggert has been a personal favorite since I was captivated by his unassuming yet sympathetic presence in the recent revival of 110 in the Shade. Subsequent appearances in The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island, or, The Friends of Doctor Rushower and the dearly departed Ragtime have solidified his place as a very talented and promising young actor. Hernandez was one of the best parts of the underrated Romantic Poetry, and he brings the same strong voice, square jaw, and natural presence to his work in Yank. Steggert and Hernandez work especially well together: their sexually charged courtship scenes have great intensity, and a palpable sense of both apprehension and desire.

The musical idiom and physical presentation of Yank represent an homage of sorts to the music and movies at the time of World War II. The style is conventional, but deliberately so, featuring schmaltzy swells of romantic music and even the occasional off-stage chorus. Populating the stage are a number of Army-movie stock characters: the tough-talking redneck (played by Boston Conservatory alum Andrew Durand), the thickly accented Italian, and the glasses-wearing book-reading nerd from Boston (also played by a BoCo alum, Christopher Ruth). On hand to warble the numerous '40s-style radio love ballads is Nancy Anderson, excelling in a part written especially to suit her numerous talents. 

Possibly the most and least remarkable feature of Yank is its gay love story. "Most" because it sets out specifically to explore a gay romance, but "least" in the sense that, for much of the show, the fact that both of the lovers are men is irrelevant. Of course, this is the 1940s, and eventually the show has to deal with the incredible odds that this love affair is up against. The show gets a tad preachy toward the end, but Yank isn't really a message musical, although it is progressive in its own retro way. The show got me thinking about its place in the progression of gays in musicals, and for me, despite its conventionality, Yank really seemed to be something new. We've had many musicals with and about gays to be sure, but I can't think of another mainstream show in which we witness the process of the characters falling in love. (If I'm somehow forgetting a show, no doubt my readers will disabuse me. Or just abuse me.)

The show also makes effective and meaningful use of dance. In one number, Jeffry Denman's tap choreography becomes a metaphor for showing Steggert's gay neophyte the ropes both in terms of surviving being gay in the army as well as getting in a little frisky R&R. There's also a dream ballet late in the second act, which must have seemed like a great idea on paper. I mean, this is the '40s, after all, when the dream ballet was de rigueur. Unfortunately, the placement and tone of the sequence don't work. The ballet is played straight, so to speak, and is devoid of irony. It might perhaps have worked in act 1 as a campy fantasy sequence, but in its current placement it merely slows the show down.

Yank needs a bit of work, act 2 in particular, in which some of the characters' actions don't feel properly motivated. For instance when Tennessee, the resident redneck, catches the two lovers in flagrante delicto, it's not quite clear why the homophobic Tennessee wouldn't just rat these guys out. There's a number called "Your Squad Is Your Squad" that tries to provide some dramatic justification, but it wasn't quite working for me. But whatever minor flaws it may have would seem eminently fixable. On the whole, Yank is a stirring and enjoyable show, representing a very promising debut for the brothers Zellnik.

Review - Ernest in Love at the Irish Rep

In my junior year in college, I heard that a classmate was going to be directing Ernest in Love, a musical version of The Importance of Being Earnest, the comic masterwork by Oscar Wilde. I had never heard of the show, nor indeed had I ever seen or read the original play, but a lot of my friends were auditioning, so I signed up. It wound up being my favorite theatrical experience of my college career, and the show has since occupied a special place in my heart.

So I was thrilled to hear that Irish Repertory Theatre would be mounting a production of Ernest in Love, which opened in December and has since been extended through February 14th. I had never seen the show, only appeared in it, and was hoping to see if it would hold up against my fond recollections.

Not quite. I still found much to admire and enjoy in the show's score, with music and lyrics by Anne Croswell and Lee Pockriss, respectively. But, despite my affection for Ernest, it wasn't quite working for me. I had to wonder: Was it the piece itself that was flawed? Were the performances not quite hitting their Wildean mark? Or had director Charlotte Moore somehow failed to bring all the pieces together to fully evoke the arch and rarefied world of Oscar Wilde?

I think it was a combination of all three. Some have questioned the necessity of turning The Importance of Being Earnest into a musical to begin with. It's an interesting question to ponder: Are there some works, plays in particular, that shouldn't be tampered with? For instance, Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones spent years trying turn Our Town into the musical Grover's Corners. Some said, why bother? The play's just fine the way it is. Well, if you take that reasoning too far, you can talk yourself out of writing any musical adaptation at all. Just because the source material works, does that necessarily mean it could never work as a musical? It's far too facile to say, "Oh, they never should have even tried." No one thought Pygmalion would make a good musical. Rodgers and Hammerstein tried for a year before giving up. Then Lerner and Loewe found a way to make it work, and the result was My Fair Lady.

So, I think Ernest in Love could have worked. In fact, it almost does. The main problem is that many of the numbers are stop-and-sing, and aren't necessary to the progression of the plot. This throws off the pacing of Wilde's farcical goings-on, stopping the show dead when we want it to move forward. In the best musical adaptations, if you remove the songs, the show wouldn't make sense. Too few of the songs in Ernest in Love are crucial to understanding the plot, except perhaps "A Handbag is Not a Proper Mother." In fact, the Irish Rep production does remove two songs from the show -- the opening "Come Raise Your Cup," and the four-character round "Eternal Devotion" -- with very little damage to the narrative. That's poor integration.

As for the production itself, the main liability was the otherwise talented Noah Racey, who is miscast here as Jack Worthing. Racey is known primarily as a dancer, and a fine one at that. He was one of the best things on stage in Curtains, and an absolute pleasure to watch. But his style was wrong for Worthing: too much purposeless movement and not enough solidity. As a sort of compensation, director Moore has added extended dance breaks for Racey, which really didn't work on the small Irish Rep stage, and served to emphasize that Racey wasn't the right choice for the role. 

Fortunately, most of the rest of the cast is terrific, particularly the marvelous Beth Fowler, who is simply sensational as Lady Bracknell. Fowler lends an air of class to everything she does, and Ernest in Love is no exception. Also quite strong were Annika Boras as a laser-sharp Gwendolyn, Ian Holcomb as a charmingly louche Algernon, and Katie Fabel as a quirky, borderline maniacal, Cecily. Once the show got fully underway, all the main characters introduced, and the focus pulled away from Racey, the production settled more firmly into the world of Wilde, and the fun began to flow.

NOTE: New Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations require bloggers to disclose when they accept anything of material value related to their blog posts. I received complimentary press tickets to this performance of Ernest in Love.

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.

Ernest in Love at the Irish Repertory Theater

I apologize, dear reader, for my extended absence from blogging. I've recently added staged readings to my musical-theater history course at the Boston Conservatory, and for the past week or so I've been busy putting on Little Johnny Jones, the first of what I hope to be a regular series of historically significant but underperformed musicals. The show went extremely well (thank you for asking), and now I can return my attention to you, dear reader.

There's certainly plenty of developments to address on the musical front, what with shows posting closing notices left and right, and quite a few others rumored to be closing soon as well. And I'm also planning a series of posts with my choices for the best and worst musicals of the first decade of the 2000s. Look for more on show closings and end-of-the-decade lists in the days to come.

But first, I wanted to talk about a recent press release that I got from the Irish Repertory Theatre. I've been getting a lot of press invites and news releases lately, so much so that I almost deleted this particular email without reading it. But then I caught the name of the show in question in the subject line: Ernest in Love. And my heart swooned a little. 

I've always had a very soft place in my heart for Ernest in Love, which is a musical version of Oscar Wilde's comic masterwork, The Importance of Being Earnest. First off, my first name is actually Ernest. I go by middle name, Chris, because my father goes by Ernest, and so did my grandfather, and since he was living with the family at the time of my birth, that was a few too many Ernies for my mother to contend with. So I've always been known as Chris. But I also did Ernest in Love in college, with a cast and crew that comprised many of my best friends from college, a significant number of whom remain close and dear friends to this day. (Ricky, Mikey, and Kerry: I adore you one and all.) 

But sentimental attachments aside, Ernest in Love is also a damn fine little show, at least in my possibly revisionist recollections, with a rousing and tuneful score by Anne Croswell (music) and Lee Pockriss (lyrics). The show had a very short run Off Broadway in 1960, but received a cast recording that, until it was recently released on CD, was one of the most valuable and collectible cast recordings on LP. The recording is unfortunately hampered by some rather weak male singing voices, but the females are an unqualified delight. It's one of those scores that I return to again and again, and never fails to put a smile on my face.

The folks at the Irish Rep have certainly brought in some talented Broadway ringers for the cast, including Noah Racey as Jack Worthing and Beth Fowler as Lady Bracknell. But will the production do justice to my (impossibly?) fond memories of the show? Or am I simply glorifying Ernest in Love in hindsight? Watch for my review in early January.

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.

Review - Girl Crazy at Encores

As I was waiting to be shown to my seat at Girl Crazy, the first of the Encores concerts at City Center this season, I overheard a conversation behind me.

Man: "Oh, look at all the empty seats up in the balcony."
Woman: "That's because this show isn't very popular. They really should do more popular shows."

Well, in the first place, this was 10 minutes before showtime, and by the time the curtain rose, there were in fact very few empty seats. But, more important, this interchange seemed to miss the whole point of the Encores series, at least in concept: to showcase musicals that haven't been seen in a while, or have somehow fallen out of the public consciousness.

Now, granted, that hasn't always been the case with every single Encores show: Gypsy, On the Town, and Damn Yankees can hardly be called obscure. But we certainly have Encores to thank for dusting off such fascinating, albeit flawed, gems as Music in the Air, Juno, and Girl Crazy.

Each year, when I discuss George Gershwin in my musical-theater history course at the Boston Conservatory, I challenge my students to name the shows that various Gershwin standards came from. "Someone to Watch Over Me"? "Fascinatin' Rhythm"? "The Man I Love"? (See the answers at the end of this post.) The point is, in the 1920s, songs weren't really written to fit within the context of the shows; they were meant to be hits. It wasn't until Show Boat that people really started to think about integrated scores. The Gershwins started to create more dramatically cohesive songs starting with Strike Up the Band and Of Thee I Sing, and as a result, we don't really remember as many of the numbers from those two shows. Because they were written more for dramatic purposes, the songs are consequently harder to perform out of context.

Girl Crazy most definitely belongs in the pre-Show Boat category of Gershwin works. The show itself is rather unremarkable, except in that it gave rise to a handful of simply wonderful songs: "But Not for Me," "I Got Rhythm," and "Embraceable You." The plot surrounding those songs is sweet but insubstantial. For me, the best parts of the show were the overture, the entr'acte, and the exit music, wherein we get to focus exclusively on George Gershwin's playful, haunting, and just plain amazing music.

Most of the songs in the show have scant set up, although frequently with Encores that's more a function of the script adaptation than a reflection of the quality of the show itself. Even so, Girl Crazy would seem to have more than its share of numbers with questionable relevance or necessity, such as "Sam and Delilah" and "Barbary Coast," the latter including a tap section that added little to the already minimal meaning of the song. It was certainly nice to hear a Gershwin score intact, with just a scattered standard here or there, as opposed to a retrofitted lineup of guaranteed blockbusters, a la My One and Only or Crazy for You. Of course, the flip-side of that pleasure is I had to sit through such forgettable songs as "The Lonesome Cowboy Won't Be Lonesome Now" and "When It's Cactus Time in Arizona." Yeesh.

I will admit that some of the one-liners, particularly those poking fun at New York City, were fairly amusing, including the following interchange: 

Woman: "Are these the sorts of clothes that smart New York girls are buying these days?"
Man: "Smart New York girls don't buy their own clothes."

As for the cast, Wayne Knight as the fish-out-of-water New York cabbie pretty much stole the show, although to be frank, there wasn't much to steal, and the front door was wide open, as it were. Ana Gasteyer had the unenviable task of belting out a bunch of numbers that made Ethel Merman a star. The best that can be said about the otherwise talented Gasteyer's performance here is that she was loud and could hold the long notes as long as need be. Other than that she was rather mechanical, and her hair and costumes were regrettable, to say the least. 

The capable Mark Kudisch was wasted here on a cardboard role. His one big number, the once and would-be showstopper "Treat Me Rough," was undermined by awkward staging and pointless business. (The ukelele? Why?) In the leading male role, Chris Diamantopoulos was pert and energetic, but somewhat forgettable. But the impression that Diamantopoulos made was downright indelible compared to that of his leading lady Becki Newton. I guess Newton stars on "Ugly Betty" or something, which is probably the only reason she got this gig. It certainly wasn't her stage presence.

Oh, and a final note to Actors' Equity: Can we once and for all lose the ruse of having the Encores performers carry scripts throughout the show? Not one performer here ever looked at the script in his or her hands. Yeah, I know, the rule is there because the actors are working for a special concert rate, but at this point it merely looks silly.

MINI GERSHWIN QUIZ:
=> "Someone to Watch Over Me," Oh, Kay!
=> "Fascinatin' Rhythm," Lady Be Good
=> "The Man I Love." Trick question. The song never made it into a stage show, at least not in George Gershwin's lifetime, but it was cut from three different shows, including Strike Up the Band. By the time the Gershwin brothers found a place for the song, it had already become a hit, and they didn't want to be accused of interpolating.

Boston Theater - A 2009-2010 Season Preview

 
[Dear Reader: What follows is an article that I wrote for artscope, a local arts magazine here in Boston. It's a preview of some Boston-area productions that I'm looking forward to seeing, and it runs in the current issue of artscope. I reprint it here, with the kind permission of the folks at artscope, and encourage you to read the rest of the issue online, or by picking up an issue at a newsstand and reading it the old-fashioned way. --CC]

Forgive me, reader, if I tend to focus on musicals: I willingly accede that there’s a vast array of interesting theater out there to behold, it’s just that I personally don’t happen to be much interested in a show if it doesn’t include lyrics and a musical score. I could blame it on my current gig as a teacher of musical theater at the Boston Conservatory of Music, but the truth is, I’ve suffered from musical myopia my entire life. That said, there are some genuinely interesting, if not downright compelling, musical offerings coming from local Boston theater companies this season.

My personal favorite is Adding Machine, which is receiving its Boston premier from the Speakeasy Stage in March 2010. Based on the seminal Elmer Rice play, Adding Machine is an uncompromising work that relates the story of one Mr. Zero, who after 25 years of service at his menial job, is replace by the titular adding machine. The ramifications of this act, as well as Mr. Zero’s desperate response to it, take the viewer on a stylized trip through the afterlife, confounding expectations at every turn. What starts out as a paean to the faceless underdog becomes nothing less than a call to action on the part of drones everywhere. Certainly not to everyone’s taste, Adding Machine is nonetheless one of the best musicals to emerge in decades.

Also very intriguing is the Huntington Theater’s upcoming holiday production A Civil War Christmas. Not content to offer yet another production of A Christmas Carol, the Huntington has instead chosen to stage an original work, albeit with a score consisting of holiday standards. What makes this work so intriguing is its author: Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive), whose presence single-handedly garners the production must-see status. As the play’s title implies, the production is set during the 1800s, and incorporates a variety of stories, including those of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, an escaped slave, and a rebel soldier. The show runs through December 13th at the Huntington’s main-stage theater.

In the quasi-revival department, we have Hot Mikado from the New Repertory Theatre in Watertown. The folks at the New Rep have long established themselves as a major local theatrical force, but it’s only been relatively recently that they’ve really made a name for themselves in musicals, through acclaimed local productions of such shows as Ragtime and Dessa Rose. The idea of updating the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera certainly isn’t new: in 1939 there were two jazzed-up versions of The Mikado (called Swing Mikado and Hot Mikado) playing across the street from each other on Broadway. The New Rep version is a more recent adaptation by playwright David H. Bell, one that has played London a number of times and seen a number of additional international productions as well. Hot Mikado runs at the New Rep in May 2010.

I must admit that there is one non-musical that is definitely on my local radar: the national tour of Tracy Letts’ Tony- and Pulitzer-Prize-winning play August: Osage County. To call the Weston family of Letts’s play merely dysfunctional would be a gross understatement. The laundry list of scandal that plagues the Westons would put any daytime drama to shame. And yet Letts’s play, while tragic, is also howlingly funny. The tour cast is led by the brilliant Estelle Parsons, who brings more than 50 years of stage experience to what may well be her finest performance yet. August: Osage County plays Boston’s Colonial Theater in May 2010.

 – Christopher Caggiano  

The Rocky Horror Show at the Boston Conservatory

As my regular readers will know, I teach at the Boston Conservatory of Music. In addition to indoctrinating young impressionable minds into the world of musical theater, I also serve as the faculty adviser for the BoCo's Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS organization.

This talented and energetic crew has a full slate of upcoming events to raise money for BC/EFA, and this weekend we're putting on our flagship event, The Rocky Horror Show. It's a completely re-imagined production from last year's effort, and features a fresh cast of amazingly talented young performers.

Performances run from tonight to Saturday night. There are two performances this evening, October 29th, at 8:30 and 10:30, as well as Friday, October 30th at 9:30 and 12 midnight, and Saturday, October 31st at 9:30 and 12 midnight. Last year's houses were all full to bursting, and tickets for this weekend's performances are going fast, so contact the box office (617-912-9222) if you're hoping to see the show. Tickets are $10, but tonight's 10:30 performance is pay-what-you-can, if you're feeling a bit strapped.

If you need any extra incentive to see the show, I, your humble blogger, with be appearing as the narrator for the show tonight at 10:30, and at both performances tomorrow night. The cast has been working on some killer callbacks to shout at me (no doubt as expiation of my nefarious sins as an instructor), so if you've ever wanted to me put soundly in my place, there's no better opportunity.

Hope to see you there.

Ordinary Days at the Roundabout Underground

As a lifelong fan of musical theater, I support any and all efforts to cultivate new artistic voices within the form. So, when the I heard that the Roundabout Theater would be including the new tuner Ordinary Days as part of its Roundabout Underground series, my interest was piqued.

Ordinary Days has words and music by one Adam Gwon, and let me just say that, although I had significant problems with the show itself, there seemed to be enough quality writing present to make me want to keep an eye on his future work. As for Ordinary Days, well, it plays more like someone's graduate thesis, a promising inaugural effort that nonetheless probably doesn't hold much promise for future development.

Ordinary Days starts off as one of those precious little Off-Broadway musicals, complete with arpeggiated piano accompaniment and the innocuous intent of putting a face on quirky-yet-lovable contemporary New Yorkers. The show begins rather statically with four soliloquies, one to introduce each character. The result is pleasant enough at first, but you'd be hard-pressed to call it innovative or edgy. Of course, not every musical needs to push the boundaries of the form, but Ordinary Days veers all too quickly into the land of undifferentiated and self-consciously introspective ballads, and eventually becomes painfully earnest, falling back on contrived circumstance and artificial emotion.

To be fair, there's some very interesting and amusing character work here, complete with ambitious contextual comedic numbers, particularly those involving Jared Gertner and the delightful Kate Wetherhead. Gertner plays the requisite free spirit who teaches Wetherhead's tightly wound grad student how to stop and smell the roses. There's some genuine humor and emotional honesty is some of Gwon's work for this pair, and Gertner and Wetherhead momentarily shine throughout the show.

SPOILER ALERT: In order to fully explicate my views on this show, it's necessary that I reveal a major plot point below. If you're planning on seeing the show, you may want to read the rest of this review subsequently.

The real trouble lies in the treatment of the show's romantic couple, played here by Hunter Foster and Lisa Brescia. Foster is saddled with the most egregiously bland ballads of the how-can-I-tell-her-that-I-love-her variety, while Brescia has the thankless task of providing subtext to a character for whom Gwon hasn't really provided enough back story. As we'll see, that turns out to be deliberate on Gwon's part, but it doesn't make Brescia's job any easier. It's difficult at first to determine the source of the sturm und drang for this couple. Then it turns out that Gwon has a cheap, manipulative card up his sleeve. He's been holding back on purpose, and the result is irritating, if not downright offensive. 

Brescia's character, Claire, is having difficulty committing to budding relationship with Warren, played by Foster. [NOTE: An observant reader correctly informs me that Foster plays a character named Jason, and not Warren. Warren is the name of the other male character in the show. EIKILFM regrets the error.] Throughout the show, Gwon has hinted that there's something awry, but there's something very unsatisfying in the way he continually hints at Claire's ambivalence. Then, toward the end of the show, Gwon reveals all. On the way to a dinner party, Warren has blurted out a marriage proposal to Claire, causing her to run away from him. A few numbers later, Claire leaves a message on Warren's voice-mail confessing as to why she bolted. The song starts with Claire describing a previous romance, which led to a brief but idyllic marriage. Everything was apparently bliss...until the plane struck the first tower.

Really? Really? That's your explanation for why Claire can't commit? Because she lost her first husband on 9/11? In the first place, that's not very credible psychologically. Is she afraid that she'll lose her next husband in a similar once-in-a-millennium occurrence? But second, it's completely inconsistent with the tone of the rest of the show. Nothing in the style of preceding 70 minutes would indicate that such a turn of events would arise from the narrative, and the result is jarring and unsatisfying.

As I said, there was enough in Gwon's work here to pique my interest in his future projects. But Ordinary Days, although it contains moments of genuine pleasure and wit, is ultimately an ordinary show with some extraordinary elements. And not in a good way.

Bye Bye Birdie at the Roundabout Theater

Something is broken at the Roundabout Theater. I'm not just referring to its current production of Bye Bye Birdie, although it is indeed atrocious. No, I'm talking about the organization's show-development process. For the most part, they pick decent shows, choose talented performers to star in them, and get experienced pros to helm the productions. And yet somehow they consistently turn out dreck.

Bye Bye Birdie is, of course, an enervating case in point. How do you make this many truly talented people look this uncomfortable? The primary culprit here is director/choreographer Robert Longbottom, who doesn't seem to have had any idea about how to bring this show to life. I know that many will disagree with me here, but in my estimation, Bye Bye Birdie as a show doesn't really work; it's a charming but creaky period piece that requires a sure-handed director (Gower Champion, anyone?) to make the fragments whole. 

Longbottom is apparently not that director. Nobody on stage in this production seemed to have any idea what character they were playing, or even what decade they were supposed to be in. Perhaps Longbottom spent too much time on the choreography and not enough on scene and character work. That would be ironic, since the dance here is ineffectual at best, distracting at worst. Particularly amateurish in execution were "Put on a Happy Face" and "Rosie," which featured pointlessly complicated and meaningless stage business that did nothing but fill stage time. Many of the numbers have no focus, including the confusingly muffled "A Healthy, Normal American Boy," which featured so much diffuse action, it was hard to tell what to pay attention to.  

Again, it's really hard to fault the talented cast of Birdie for the production's failings. We've been hearing for weeks about how Gina Gershon wasn't really working out as Rosie. And, indeed, she was pretty awful. But Gershon was terrific in the recent revival of Boeing-Boeing, so again I blame Longbottom for casting her in the first place, then setting her adrift. Gershon's singing voice isn't awful: she mostly stays on pitch. Mostly. But she did tend to compensate for her lack of vocal power by egregiously scooping her notes. ("ooooo-When ooooo-will he find out...") And although she's not that bad a dancer, it does seem as though her every move has been painstakingly dictated, which removes any possible joy or spontaneity from her dance segments, rendering them joyless and mechanical.

The rest of the cast doesn't fare much better. John Stamos is miscast and ineffectual as Albert Peterson. He tries gamely, but ultimately he wears the part like an ill-fitting suit, all forced gawkiness and angular limbs, creating what is essentially a pale Dick van Dyke impersonation. The marvelously talented Bill Irwin is unfortunately nothing less than an embarrassment as Mr. MacAfee. Faced with a clear lack of direction, Irwin falls back on his clowning shtick, and he really could have used someone who could tell him, "Uh, Bill, that's really not working here." At first I thought he was playing one of the lizards from Edward Albee's Seascape, but then his performance morphed into Violet Weston from August: Osage County, all slurred speech and spastic tics. It brought a certain irony to the "Kids" lyric "Who can understanding anything they say?" 

Newcomer Nolan Gerard Funk as Conrad Birdie is clearly a Zac Efron wannabe, although you'd really think he'd want to aim a bit higher than that. He's not awful during the group numbers, since all he really had to do was repeat the same mechanized movements. But when he got to sing alone during "A Lot of Livin' to Do," it was clear he lacked the requisite spark for the role.

At numerous times throughout the show, the gentleman sitting next to me was snoring audibly. At one point, his companion asked, rather loudly, "Do you want to go home?" I get the feeling that she was vocalizing what many of us in the audience were already thinking. The torpid, lifeless nature of this sorry production gave an unintentional resonance to the "Rosie" lyric that Albert sings at the end of the show, "I could watch a daisy for hours, and all I'd feel was several hours older."

Indeed.

The Donkey Show - Welcome to the New A.R.T.

Regular readers will likely recall my recent interview with Diane Paulus, the new artistic director of the American Repertory Theater, as well as the director of the current Broadway revival of Hair. In that interview, I was struck by Paulus's impulses to expand the boundaries of theater, to empower theater audiences, and to bring the venerable-but-staid A.R.T. into a new phase of theatrical exploration.

The Donkey Show certainly accomplishes all three of those admirable goals, although apparently not everyone is pleased with that fact. In tracking down the artwork that accompanies this post, I came across a number of dismissive reviews of the show on ArtsBoston. It seems that some people consider The Donkey Show to be a cheap marketing ploy, an attempt to lure in crowds with promises of licentiousness. Well, what's wrong with marketing? Furthermore, what's wrong with licentiousness, or at least the portrayal of same? Paulus was brought in to shake things up, and that's exactly what she's done.

The Donkey Show certainly won't be to everyone's taste, but it's not titillation for its own sake. It's a rather thorough re-imagining of A Midsummer Night's Dream, with the action moved from Shakespeare's sylvan forest to a 1970's-era disco. You don't need to be familiar with the original play to enjoy the show here, but it couldn't hurt to give Wikipedia a look-see before you embark across the Charles. It will make certain production devices a lot more clear and more enjoyable in the process.

The production begins with 30 to 40 minutes of good, old-fashioned disco dancing, with the cast mingling among the crowd on the dance floor. The action emerges almost imperceptibly from the harmless bacchanal. Most of the main characters in the show involve double casting, and part of the infectious fun of the show is identifying who is playing whom. I have to admit, when all was revealed at the end, I found myself a bit surprised at who was beneath which disguise.

The show's staging takes full advantage of the auditorium at the A.R.T.'s new Zero Arrow Theater (renamed Club Oberon for the run of the show). The show isn't so much in-the-round as all-around, with the action weaving through the dance-floor crowd, ascending and descending various staircases, hanging from the rafters, etc. In fact, the least utilized space is the actual stage. All this creates an atmospheric, experiential, fourth-wall-be-damned kind of vibe that invites full audience engagement.  (Don't worry: the cast doesn't force anyone to participate. If you like, you can purchase a a seat at one of the booths or tables that overlook the dance floor.)

I, for one, am greatly looking forward to the remainder of Paulus's current season, which includes Sleep No More, another experiential theatrical event, which is based on on Macbeth, and Best of Both Worlds, a gospel-infused celebration of The Winter's Tale. 

No this isn't the old A.R.T. And hoo-frickin'-ray for that.

Diane Paulus and the Human Brain

Sorry for my extended absence from the blogosphere. This week has been a bit of a perfect storm. It's the first week of school at the Boston Conservatory, and I just started teaching a new course on the neuropsychology of music.

Seriously. This may surprise some of my readers, but I actually have a degree in psychology. Despite the hyperbolic title of my blog, there has been the occasional thought that has entered my head that wasn't in some way connected to music theater. Emphasis on "occasional."

The course is essentially about the way that the brain processes music. We start off with some gross anatomy (hence, the Human Brain Coloring Book image to the left), then segue into discussion of brain pathologies and imaging studies, and how they illuminate the neural pathways involved in experiencing and creating music. One of the texts in the course is Oliver Sacks' marvelous book Musicophilia, which features a series of compelling and often heartbreaking case studies of people with a variety of brain malfunctions, from dementia to stroke to Williams syndrome, and the amazing ways that music can either bring relief or torment to people with these conditions. I can't recommend the book highly enough.

But, anyway, back to musical theater. I did want to bring my readers' attention to the artscope article that I wrote about Diane Paulus, the new artistic director at the American Repertory Theater, and the director of the current hit Broadway revival of Hair. I posted outtakes from the interview here a few weeks back, as well as a preview of the A.R.T.'s upcoming season. The article just came out in the September/October issue of artscope, but it isn't available online yet, so here's a PDF of the article:

Download Artscope 22_PDF_Caggiano. 

I'll be attending a press performance of The Donkey Show tomorrow night. Look for my review here sometime early next week. And after that, I promise I'll find something to post about besides Paulus and the A.R.T. That is, until I go to see Sleep No More and Best of Both Worlds.

iSondheim with Barbara Cook?

We've been hearing off and on about a new revue of Stephen Sondheim's work with the unbearably precious name iSondheim. The show is being compiled and directed by James Lapine, longtime Sondheim collaborator.

The show was originally supposed to run at Atlanta's Alliance Theater this past April and May, but that production was canceled because of the projected production costs and the weak economy. As the awful title implies, iSondheim was to have included a great deal of technology -- multimedia, video, projections, etc. -- featuring interviews with Sondheim himself, intermingled with live performances of songs from Sondheim's career. But the production requirements apparently made the show untenable for a regional, non-profit run in the middle of a recession. 

More recently, there's been chatter on the Rialto about a New York run for iSondheim, under the auspices of the Roundabout Theater, and starring none other than the glorious Barbara Cook, who would be making her first appearance in a non-concert, non-benefit Broadway show in nearly forty frickin' years. The show would also feature two additional singers, yet to be cast. The wonderful Liz Callaway was supposed to have starred in the Alliance run. Wouldn't it be great to see her treading the boards again? Perhaps with her equally marvelous sister, Ann Hampton Callaway?

However, iSondheim seems to have hit a bit of a snag, according to Michael Riedel's column today in the New York Post. Apparently, Mr. Sondheim himself isn't happy with the revenue percentage that the Roundabout wants from any future touring company of the show. Something tells me Steve is going to get his way; it would seem that the Roundabout needs this show -- financially and artistically -- a lot more than Sondheim needs the Roundabout. The good news is that the iSondheim name, according to Riedel, is very likely to change. He mentions that both Virtual Sondheim and Sondheim on Sondheim have been under consideration as replacement titles, although neither seems to be much an improvement. 

Here's hoping that the differing parties iron out their differences so that we can all get to see both Stephen Sondheim and Barbara Cook back on Broadway where they belong.

Shakespeare Exploded - The A.R.T. Does Musicals (Sort of)

I must confess that I never really paid all that much attention to the American Repertory Theater, and not simply because the organization really didn't do all that many musicals. There was just something about the show choices that never really appealed to me. It was always Henry IV, Part II or a revival of The King Stag. I do have to say that, whenever I did make it across the Charles to the Loeb Drama Center, I was almost invariably impressed by what I saw. The productions were usually innovative and interesting, and featured extremely talented performers.

But the A.R.T. just wasn't generating a lot of excitement in the Boston area, at least not among my circle of theater cronies. And the A.R.T. rarely originated a production that moved to Broadway, as the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago so frequently does. Not that this is necessarily the goal for a regional theater, but, rightly or wrongly, the A.R.T. was never really on my radar.

Diane Paulus has single-handedly changed that. Paulus recently shot to fame as the director of the current hit Broadway revival of Hair. (Read my review.) Shortly after I saw the Central Park production (read my review), I heard that Paulus would be taking over as A.R.T. artistic director. Suddenly, I became a bit more interested in what the A.R.T. was doing.

I recently interviewed Paulus for an article in artscope, a local arts magazine. That article comes out in September, and focuses on the A.R.T.'s upcoming season, as well as Paulus's vision for the future of the organization. I threw in a few questions about Hair, and recently posted that portion of my interview in these pages. 

But I did also want to give my readers a heads-up about three shows that the A.R.T. is doing this fall, all under the rubric of Shakespeare Exploded. First up is The Donkey Show, which takes the basic plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream and sets the action in a 1970s disco. I may be a tad biased here, as three of my Boston Conservatory students are in the cast. But there was something about the way Paulus described the show to me that was infectious, and has me eagerly anticipating the show. If the name sounds familiar, The Donkey Show ran for six years Off-Broadway. I had heard of the show, but never got around to seeing it in New York. The show runs at the A.R.T.'s Zero Arrow Theater (renamed Club Oberon for the run of the show) in Harvard Square from August 21st through January 2nd.

Next up is Sleep No More, an experiential theatrical event based on Macbeth, and told in the style of a Hitchcock thriller. The show was developed by noted British theater troupe Punchdrunk. The production takes place in a renovated school in Brookline, Mass., and guides the audience through four stories of the school, not unlike the ambulatory action in the 1980s Off-Broadway show Tamara. Sleep No More runs from October to January. Finally, there's Best of Both Worlds, which infuses The Winter's Tale with the sounds of gospel music and R&B. The show will also feature a rotating roster of choirs and choruses from the Boston community. This holiday-themed show will run at the Loeb Drama Center from November to January. 

It's not clear to me whether these productions are actual musicals per se, although they all seem to feature quite a bit of music, particularly The Donkey Show and Best of Both Worlds. But, hey, I'm open-minded, and I do make the occasional foray into non-musical theater. (Just to keep up appearances, you know.) But, musicals or not, each of these three productions seems fascinating in its own way, and the Shakespeare Exploded festival makes me quite eager and hopeful to see what the remainder of Paulus's tenure at the A.R.T. will bring.

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 at the Second Stage Theater

As you may know, the new musical Vanities was slated to open at Broadway's Lyceum Theater this past season, but the run was canceled when the economy soured.

Well, the economy did these folks a favor. If Vanities had actually made it to Broadway, chances are it would have been a short-lived embarrassment, like Glory Days, or disappointment, like The Story of My Life. Instead, the show gets a one-month run at a non-profit theater, New York's Second Stage, the possibility of a cast album, and a shot at a life in regional productions. Because, despite a professional presentation and a perky, talented cast of three (Lauren Kennedy, Sarah Stiles, and Anneliese Van Der Pol), Vanities is a musical that makes little lasting impression.

One of the show's key liabilities is its inoffensive but forgettable score by David Kirshenbaum (Summer of '42). It's hard to pin down exactly what's wrong with the score, because it's pleasant enough in performance. But the songs don't stick, either in terms of memorability or in serving a dramatic purpose. Part of the problem could be that the score only intermittently reflects the time period in which the scenes are set. It doesn't grow in its cultural influences as you might expect from a musical that spans the 1960s through the 1980s. There are some Burt Bacharach touches in some of the orchestrations during the '60s portion of the show, but after that the generic score becomes timeless, but not in a good way. It doesn't help that Kirshenbaum throws in such anachronisms as "living large" and "chatty Cathy" well before these terms came about.

Even worse, the songs don't tell the story, they stop it. Every number feels like a digression from the plot rather than something that enhances it. I'm not saying that Vanities shouldn't have been a musical, but the current score doesn't add much to the drama or to our understanding of these characters.

The score might have seemed less egregious had the surrounding text had greater depth. The main problem with Jack Heifner's book, which is based on his 1976 play of the same name, is that there really isn't any drama until about an hour into the show. Before that, we just see these three high school friends graduate, attend college, and head off into the world to inevitably and predictably grow apart. But when the drama finally comes, it's really too late for us to start caring. In the show's pivotal scene at a New York penthouse apartment, the girls finally have a knock-down drag-out fight, and things start to get interesting. But in the following scene, all is forgiven and we're forced to accept an artificially easy reconciliation. Then it's off to the final number, chockablock with platitudes, and the characters walk off into the sunset together. That's right: they literally walk off into the sunset. Oy.  

The problems with the score and the book are probably so systemic that no director could have fixed them. Even so, Judith Ivey probably wasn't the right choice of director. There's a big difference between directing a previously existing show and steering a developing work towards a final product. There are some really terrific developmental directors (Hal Prince, James Lapine) and there are directors who work better on finished material (Walter Bobbie). I'm going to give Ivey the benefit of the doubt and assume that if she's ever going to be a great director, she might be better off in the latter category.

Vanities runs at the Second Stage until August 9th. I have a feeling that, should this production produce a cast album, the show will get a decent amount of play in regional theaters. If there's no CD, this is probably the last we'll see of Vanities.

Tin Pan Alley Rag at the Roundabout

No one likes to be lectured to, not even my students. (Especially not my students.) The key to successful education lies in engaging and inspiring your students to do their own thinking and make their own decisions. The same thing goes for musical theater. Even shows with a lot of information to relate need to do so in an entertaining fashion.

The Tin Pan Alley Rag doesn't. This new musical, compiled by one Mark Saltzman, and being presented by the Roundabout Theater Company at the Laura Pels Theater, represents a static and uninspired history lesson about parallels in the careers and life experiences of composers Scott Joplin and Irving Berlin. Along the way, we're subjected to a lot of plodding exposition and hoary humor, but very little that actually brings the music and stories of these important men to life.

Saltzman apparently took his inspiration from the notion that both Joplin and Berlin had wives who died very shortly after their respective weddings. Saltzman attempts to show how this provided some sort of professional impetus to both of the men, but he never really goes beyond facile observations about love and loss, nor does he show who these people are or why they fell in love. We're witnessing the facts but we're not understanding the feelings.

Even worse, Saltzman uses the fictive meeting that frames the show's story to embark on some banal proselytizing about art versus commerce. Apparently, Scott Joplin spent much of the last years of his life trying to marshal interest in his "ragtime opera" Treemonisha. In this show, Joplin shows up at Berlin's music-publishing business on Tin Pan Alley to try to get Berlin to publish this work. Berlin spouts some bromides about what makes for a hit song, Joplin bristles, then proceeds to admonish Berlin for not pursuing loftier artistic ambitions. The show then follows a series of flashbacks in the How-Did-You-Get-to-Be-Here-Mr.-Shepard mode, parading a collection of cardboard characters through a series of dull, didactic scenes.

Saltzman's only other recognizable theater credit is the revue A...My Name is Alice, to which he -- and dozens of others -- contributed material. His primary work experience seems to be the years he spent writing for "Sesame Street," and although that certainly explains his apparent need to educate, you'd think he would have picked up a bit more about the successful merger of pedagogy and entertainment. Instead, he relies on static devices, such as using Berlin's contrapuntal "Won't You Play a Simple Melody" as an unconvincing excuse to get the two composers to play together. He also employs primitive stage techniques, like the scene in which a symphony conductor in St. Louis clunkily asks "Tell me, Mr. Joplin, what is this 'syncopation' of which you speak?" Forget the fact that syncopation existed long before ragtime, that kind of sloppy exposition is a Drama 101 Don't.

Perhaps the most egregious of Saltzman's transgressions is the false conceit of Joplin urging Berlin on to greater artistic ambition. "What do you play for yourself in the dark?," Joplin asks Berlin. Well, there's no question that Irving Berlin wrote great songs -- truly great songs -- and went on to create at least one decent score, that of Annie Get Your Gun. But most of his other shows are pretty much forgotten, because he never really caught on to the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution. Don't get me wrong: Berlin was a genius, and wrote some of the greatest songs in musical-theater history, including the gorgeous and powerful "Supper Time" from As Thousands Cheer. But he never quite made it into the pantheon of great musical-theater composers, those who, like R&H, created bold, cohesive, integrated scores.

But Saltzman needed something tangible to emerge from Joplin's insistence, so he shows Berlin becoming inspired to create an "American Symphony" telling his life story in musical form. But Berlin never wrote any such work, which gives the lie to Saltzman's entire premise. For such a device to be dramatically feasible, we probably would have needed to witness some sort of regret from Berlin that he never followed in Gershwin's, or Joplin's, footsteps.

How fitting that the Roundabout would end its 2008-2009 season with The Tin Pan Alley Rag, which is really  the rest of its disastrous season (cf. Pal Joey, Hedda Gabler, The Philanthropist, A Man for All Seasons) in musical miniature.

The Tin Pan Alley Rag - Berlin Meets Joplin

So, now that I've seen practically everything on Broadway, or at least anything that I have any interest in seeing, I've been turning my attention to Off Broadway and regional offerings.

I've been intrigued by The Tin Pan Alley Rag, which is being presented by the Roundabout at the Laura Pels Theater. I've heard virtually nothing about the show, other than the fact that it represents a fictional meeting between composers Scott Joplin and Irving Berlin. Here's an edited version of the Roundabout's publicity blurb:

Irving Berlin and Scott Joplin share an evening of fascinating stories and toe-tapping rhythms. The Tin Pan Alley Rag weaves their tales together, as two great icons discover they have more in common than they ever imagined.

Hmm. Seems like the sort of show that could either be very compelling or dreadfully academic. Librettist Mark Saltzman apparently interweaves songs from the Joplin and Berlin songbooks. I haven't come across Saltzman before, but it appears that he started writing for "Sesame Street," and contributed material to A...My Name is Alice. There's not much else on his resume that I recognize, so at this point Saltzman is a bit of an unknown variable.

One thing I noticed while researching TPAR was its top ticket price of $85. It got me thinking about the going rate for Off-Broadway musicals, so I did some poking around. Here's what I found:

• The Toxic Avenger: $71.50
• Altar Boyz: $75
• The Fantasticks: $76
• The Marvelous Wonderettes: $75
• Vanities: $75

It's interesting to note that the Roundabout recently announced a top ticket price for its upcoming Broadway revival of Bye Bye Birdie of $136.50. So the folks at the Roundabout seem to have no problem being on the cutting edge of ticket prices, even if they seem to be lagging somewhat in the show-quality department, at least of late. Will The Tin Pan Alley Rag be able to justify its $10 premium? I'll be seeing the show next week, along with Vanities, The Marvelous Wonderettes, and the second two plays in The Norman Conquests cycle. Watch this space for my reviews.

Musicals in Mufti - Knickerbocker Holiday

One of the key themes of my musical-theater history course at the Boston Conservatory is that art is a product of the time in which it is created. A great way to witness this notion is to look at the Broadway musicals of the 1920s and 1930s.

The '20s were a time of hedonism and frivolity in the U.S., and most of the musicals of the time reflected this fact. Then came the Great Depression, which changed so many aspects of American life, including musical theater. Of course, there were far fewer shows, and many of them were just as fluffy and forgettable as those of he '20s. But now the shows didn't so much reflect the world around them as offer viewers escape from their increasingly dismal lives. 

However, with the seeming collapse of capitalism came an increasingly satiric impulse on the part of the creators of musical theater. Such mordant book musicals as Of Thee I Sing and Strike Up the Band, and such ironic revues as Pins and Needles and As Thousands Cheer revealed a desire on the part of the likes of George S. Kaufman, Moss Hart, Irving Berlin, and George and Ira Gershwin to speak out about the world around them, and to set the goings on into caustic relief.

Enter Kurt Weill, fresh from his productive but volatile collaborations with playwright Bertolt Brecht. Weill was no mere tunesmith, but rather a serious artist intent on using his gifts to illuminate the world around him. Before he went on to create such classics as Lady in the Dark and Lost in the Stars, Weill tested the Broadway waters with agitprop (Johnny Johnson) and allegory (Knickerbocker Holiday).

All of which is by way of introduction to the topic of today's lecture...er, I mean blog post, the York Theater Company's recent presentation of Knickerbocker Holiday as part of its "Musicals in Mufti" concert series. "Mufti" is a Middle Eastern word for "in plain clothes," which pretty much describes the atmosphere and purpose of the concert series: straightforward presentations of underrepresented shows without the frills. Think of it as Encores on a budget.

Knickerbocker Holiday was the first of two collaborations Weill had with poet and playwright Maxwell Anderson, the second being Lost in the Stars. Knickerbocker was not a major success, but it did run for 168 performances in 1938 and 1939, which at the time was enough for the show to make a modest profit. The score gave rise to two timeless classics, the plaintive "September Song," and the gorgeous "It Never Was You," one of my primary candidates for the most beautiful song ever written.

According to Stanley Green in his indispensable book, Broadway Musicals Show by Show, Knickerbocker Holiday was probably "the first musical to use [a] historical subject as the means by which views on contemporary matters could be expressed." The subject here was Peter Stuyvesant, autocratic governor of 1647 New Amsterdam, which we now know as New York. The theme is essentially totalitarianism versus democracy. Which makes sense, given that Weill was an expat from Nazi Germany, but the actual focus of the satire here is...Franklin Delano Roosevelt? Evidently, Maxwell and Weill were critics of FDR and the New Deal, and saw this show as a chance to comment on the president's supposedly dictatorial tendencies. Yeah, I don't get it either, and the muddled message of the show certainly doesn't make things plain.

The show, at least as presented here in Mufti form, was pretty static and unengaging, although I do give the folks at the York props for dusting off this rickety and nearly-forgotten show and giving it an airing. Much of Weill's score reflects the stand-and-sing tendencies of operetta, as do Maxwell's dense book and lyrics. The songs have little if any forward motion, and clearly reflect the influence of Brecht, telling seemingly unrelated stories and trafficking in pedantic aphorism. To be fair, Knickerbocker Holiday was written before the Rodgers and Hammerstein revolution, so it's a bit unfair to judge the show by modern standards. If the show is more akin to operetta than musical comedy, it's important to note that it arose at a time when a hybrid of the two was slowly emerging.

As for the satire, there are a few ham-handed jibes at political corruption, and some rather clumsy attempts to establish what it means to be an American. But there are quite a few elements of the show's message that have proved to be remarkably prescient: the notion that a leader is above the law (George W. Bush/Dick Cheney); the idea of profiteering by selling arms to the enemy (Iran/Contra); that imminent danger is a boon to government (9/11 and the Iraq War), that America grows fat and foolish without an enemy, so it's necessary for the government to create one (communism, terrorism), and the intolerance of legitimate opposition (The Iranian election). The moral of the show: all governments are stupid, incompetent, and corrupt, but at least democracy is efficiently corrupt.

Starting next semester, I'm adding staged readings of obscure but historically important musicals to my BoCo course. Seeing Knickerbocker Holiday in concert has helped me to lower my expectations as to the entertainment value of such an enterprise, although the primary value of the readings will be educational. The cast for Knickerbocker was about as good as you could hope for, comprising such seasoned professionals as Martin Vidnovic, Walter Charles, and William Parry. Also on hand were some admirable younger performers, such as Josh Grisetti, who starred in the York's hit production of Enter Laughing and will soon make his Broadway debut as Eugene Jerome in the upcoming revival of Neil Simon's Broadway Bound. If even this stellar cast of performers has a hard time bringing a creaky show to life, I think it's important for me and my students to modulate our expectations.

Pirates at Boston's Huntington Theatre

I have a very soft spot in my heart for The Pirates of Penzance, the comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan. I was deeply enamored of the 1983 movie version, which was a filmed version of the 1981 Broadway revival. And one of my favorite stage roles ever was the Pirate King, which I played at a certain community theater on the south shore of Boston. (The particular...ahem...company will remain nameless, but I will say that the one stage direction I received from the "directors" was to watch the video.)

So I was intrigued when I heard that Boston's Huntington Theatre Company would be presenting the Gordon Greenberg (director and co-conceiver) and Nell Benjamin (co-conceiver) version of The Pirates of Penzance, entitled Pirates! (Or, Gilbert and Sullivan Plunder'd). The show had an apparently successful run at New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse in 2007, prompting the Huntington to add the production to its current season. I was especially interested in seeing the show when I heard that Broadway performers Steve Kazee (110 in the Shade, To Be or Not to Be) and Cady Huffman (Tony winner for The Producers) would be featured in the show, as the Pirate King and Ruth, respectively.

Benjamin and Greenberg have reworked the show considerably, moving the setting to the Caribbean (get it?), cutting down a decent portion of the score, throwing in some 7/8 time signatures, and rewriting a good 80% of the book. They've attempted to make the show bawdier (note decolletage in poster above), looser, and more freewheeling. But when you tamper with a classic, you'd better have a really good reason, not to mention the chops to fulfill your artistic vision for the piece. Benjamin and Greenberg would seem to have neither, at least based on the show in its current form.

Despite some engaging performances -- including those of Anderson Davis as Frederic, Farah Alvin as Mabel, and Ed Dixon as the Major General -- Pirates is a lackluster affair. The show features a good deal of imaginative and energetic staging from choreographer Denis Jones, but very little that's actually amusing. Greenberg and Benjamin have merely produced a serviceable substitution for the Gilbert and Sullivan original, not an improvement. My overall impression while watching this admittedly professional, if uninspired, production was "Why?"

As for the Broadway ringers, it's beginning to look as though Steve Kazee's charisma-deprived performance as Starbuck opposite Audra MacDonald in the recent Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade wasn't a fluke. And Cady Huffman is surprisingly...you should pardon the expression...flat, despite her numerous talents and charms.

And yet, Pirates is reasonably entertaining, and certainly not a disaster or a waste of time on anyone's part. But, as my friend Ken said to me as we exited the theater, "Tomorrow, I'll probably forget I even saw this show." My feelings exactly.