Notes on Recent Musicals
In the last few weeks, New York has seen new incarnations of three celebrated '50s musicals. The big deal was, of course, Roundabout's The Pajama Game, and I'm glad to note that it's a success, simply because one never likes to see a first-rate golden-age musical comedy return as a failure.
But unlike many observers who have deemed this production sensational, I found the new Pajama Game satisfactory but unremarkable. True, it makes a better case for the show than did the last two local incarnations, the New York City Opera and Encores! versions. And that's even with Peter Ackerman's book revisions, which substantially alter the characters of Hasler, Prez, and Mae and eliminate such items as Hines' opening monologue and the "Jealousy" ballet.
Helping matters is the fact that the Babe in question, Kelli O'Hara, is actually a babe. So Sid Harry Connick, Jr.'s attraction to her is readily understandable, and there's palpable chemistry between O'Hara and Connick, especially in "There Once Was a Man."
One can only be impressed by O'Hara's ability to belt and to sing in a range entirely different from the operatic vocals she supplied for such shows as The Light in the Piazza, My Life with Albertine, and Sweet Smell of Success. Otherwise, I found O'Hara's Babe lacking sufficient fire, with certain moments i.e. Babe defiantly volunteering to be Hines' knife-throwing target going for little.
Connick's star quality cannot be denied. But I would say he got off somewhat easy with the critics. His acting is on the stiff side, with a tendency to direct his dialogue to the floor, and while his singing is expectedly grand, the character of Sid sometimes disappears when Connick is supplying his trademark pop crooning. That goes double when Connick, supposedly still playing Sid, gets to play the piano during the "Hernando's Hideaway" number. Still, Connick is the production's big attraction, and he has all of the requisite leading-man charm.
As Hines, Michael McKean is a talented comic actor in a role that was created for a beloved vaudevillian Eddie Foy, Jr.. There's notably fine work from Roz Ryan and Peter Benson, but I found Megan Lawrence's Gladys overly broad.
Along with Connick, Lawrence does score heavily in "Hernando's Hideaway," the most impressive number in Kathleen Marshall's production and the sort of showstopper that can make one forget the evening's previous shortcomings. Marshall's choreography is elsewhere fine if uninspired.
As for the show, it remains dandy, the Richard Adler/Jerry Ross score without a single clinker. "I'm Not at All in Love" is one of my all-time favorite up-tempo Broadway numbers, but then everything in the score is delightful. Adler and Ross followed the 1954 smash The Pajama Game with the 1955 smash Damn Yankees. Had Ross not died that year, what other delights might this team have gone on to give us?
The Pajama Game took the 1955 Tony for Best Musical. The year before, that prize went to Kismet, which came back to town as the first entry in this year's trio of Encores! shows. And of this production, one can say for sure that, in the role of the campily seductive Lalume, Marin Mazzie was never better, offering a performance that was a worthy successor to such '50s Lalumes as Joan Diener and Dolores Gray.
But Kismet stands or falls on its leading man, and while Brian Stokes Mitchell's singing was often thrilling, his Hajj lacked the extravagant humor and larger-than-life hamminess required to bring the show fully to life. While it's hard to think of a current leading man Burke Moses? Marc Kudisch? who would be able to do full justice to the role, Mitchell's turn here was disappointing. Danny Gurwin had the wrong sound for the Caliph, and Marcy Harriell, who was announced as being indisposed at the performance I attended, was less than sumptuous as Marsinah.
I was sorry to note that many of the critics seemed to blame the evening's lackluster nature on the work itself, rather than on Mitchell or on Lonny Price's routine staging. Nor did the reviews give the ravishing score its due. But Kismet would surely not withstand a full-scale Broadway revival, so it was a good choice for Encores!, even if Mazzie was the evening's sole standout.
That lush score notwithstanding, Kismet was never one of the great musicals of its era. But Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella is, and New York City Opera brought back its fifteen-year-old production for a March repertory run. In recent seasons, when City Opera has revived a Broadway musical, it has tended to bring in at least one non-operatic or Broadway star principal. Sweeney Todd had Elaine Paige; A Little Night Music had Jeremy Irons; Candide had John Cullum and Judy Kaye; and Kristin Chenoweth is said to be likely for next season's Pirates of Penzance.
In City Opera's current Happy Fella, the import is film and stage actor Paul Sorvino. Those familiar with the cast albums of The Baker's Wife and Carmelina know that Sorvino can be a lovely singer. But those albums were made in the '70s, and Sorvino's voice is now a more erratic instrument. In his first scene, the one that features the title song, Sorvino was disastrous, off pitch and out of synch with the orchestra, all the while staring desperately at a conductor George Manahan, delivering a superb account of the score who appeared to have his hands full.
Thereafter, Sorvino improved, but it remained a sometimes bizarre performance. Lyrics were garbled, and this tenor in a baritone role added absurdly high notes to the climaxes of "Rosabella" and "Mamma, Mamma." Yet Sorvino could not have been more touching in the final scene, and was in general a good fit for the role of Tony. Sorvino looked like he needed a couple of weeks of previews to get himself in shape for the show, but City Opera offers only a couple of performances before press night.
Still, one is grateful to City Opera for bringing back a show that was a financial disappointment in its two Broadway revivals and isn't likely to have another Broadway mounting. And no other local company could afford to put on Happy Fella with such a sizable orchestra and ensemble. Lisa Vroman offered a sumptuously sung Rosabella. Ivan Hernandez had all the required looks and voice for Joey. Leah Hocking was a robustly enjoyable Cleo. And I was once again moved by Loesser's glorious show.
I'd count Grey Gardens, elaborately presented off-Broadway by Playwrights Horizons, as a fascinating, highly collectible, and somewhat unworkable show. The riveting 1975 film documentary from which the show was adapted is tricky source material for musicalization. And the writers are not quite able to pull off their conception of devoting the show's second half to the film's depiction of Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, while filling the first act with a newly-created backstory for the mother and daughter.
The song-filled first half is not gripping enough to occupy over an hour of stage time, even if several of its Scott Frankel/Michael Korrie songs "The Five-Fifteen," "Will You?" are attractive. And the second half demonstrates the difficulty of musicalizing a film that was less notable for its plot than for its grotesque characters. The second-act features such strong numbers as "The Revolutionary Costume for Today," "Around the World" and "Another Winter in a Summer Town," but it also tends to sentimentalize and give conventional shape to the action of the film. Then too, the show fails to adequately explain how the Beale ladies of the first act wound up as the Beale ladies of the second.
I have long championed the work of Christine Ebersole, who managed to be wonderful even in flops like Harrigan 'n' Hart and Paper Moon and has only recently been getting her due as one of our top musical-theatre performers. In Grey Gardens, she plays mother Edith in the first act and daughter Edie in the second, and gives a performance that is both riotous and heartbreaking. It has been declared by at least one critic to be as fine a performance as any musical has ever contained, and it's hard to argue with that assessment.
Mary Louise Wilson is superb as the mother in the second half, although Sara Gettelfinger disappoints as daughter Edie in the first act. The Michael Greif/Jeff Calhoun staging is mostly impeccable. And if Grey Gardens is ultimately an unwieldy show, Ebersole's work makes it esssential viewing.
Even when it goes wrong, Grey Gardens is always entertaining. But Lincoln Center Theater's Bernarda Alba, while sometimes intriguing, can be fairly heavy going. Some of that is due to the source material, Lorca's grim The House of Bernarda Alba, a play that might be tricky to pull off even in a straight revival.
Adding to the heaviness of the evening is Michael John LaChiusa's score, which is occasionally attractive but rarely takes the form of standard song and rarely offers up a soaring melody. Because of the complex nature of the composition, Bernarda Alba might have worked better as an opera; as it is, the new musical has a good deal of dialogue.
Graciela Daniele's production has its striking moments, and the all-female, talent-laden company works hard to bring the show to life. But Bernarda Alba tends to keep the audience at a distance, and is rarely emotionally involving. Still, it's probably best to resist passing final judgment on the complex score until one hears it again on disc.
Heaven knows we've recently had a slew of self-referential musicals that comment on the form itself. But while small-scale, {title of show}, now at the Vineyard, may be the ultimate example of the genre. Not only is it about the conception and creation of a new musical, but it stars its very own librettist Hunter Bell and composer-lyricist Jeff Bowen, playing themselves and enacting the story of how they brought their show to fruition. Neatly staged by Michael Berresse and with good work from the rest of the cast, Susan Blackwell and Heidi Blickenstaff, {title of show} is filled with showbiz references, from Donna Murphy's attendance record to Broadway.com. And if it's bound to appeal to a limited audience and feels slightly overextended at just under ninety minutes, {title of show} is clever and original, and boasts several appealing songs.
In addition to being a powerful dramatic actor, Jonathan Pryce has demonstrated a remarkable affinity for musicals in such productions as Miss Saigon, Oliver!, and the National Theatre My Fair Lady. Taking over from John Lithgow as Lawrence in Broadway's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Pryce supplies a highly amusing turn, the personality abundant, the comic timing excellent, the vocals strong. Indeed, they couldn't have found a classier, more commanding replacement. And Pryce makes an excellent partner for Norbert Leo Butz, whose Freddy is even more inventive than it was a year ago. Filling in as Christine is Rachel York, who is quite good, even if there's only one Sherie Rene Scott. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is still not my favorite musical, but it's definitely a crowd-pleaser, and it's in fine shape at the moment.
As you might expect, the only recent musical evening that was virtually without interest for me was Ring of Fire, which got to Broadway because critics raved about it during its recent Buffalo tryout. Of course, I am the wrong audience for this salute to the music and spirit of Johnny Cash, my interest in country music being non-existent. But even so, director-conceiver Richard Maltby, Jr.'s attempt to make this song cycle amount to more than the sum of its parts is never quite successful. The result is a perky but bland evening. And why does everyone keep writing that Maltby invented the jukebox musical with Ain't Misbehavin'? What about Jacques Brel.....?
