Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me - Original Broadway Cast Recording

[IMG:L]Ghostlight Records
Now Available

For those of us saddened by the early departure from Broadway of the musical Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me—and the unfortunates who missed it altogether—there is consolation. It is the original cast recording of this self-styled "comedy musical."

There are, to be sure, problems with a show centered on a stand-up comic, however much he can also be an actor. Sure enough, comedians have had successful evenings on Broadway, but in the very thing lampooned in the opening number of this rollicking musical: the one-man show.

Putting the comic into a book musical—even what may better be designated a comic-book musical—is another matter, especially when the show purports to be the true life story of its protagonist. Well, as one of the lyrics disarmingly has it, "the truth/Even if the truth is full of lies." So we get the newly widespread, though usually unconfessed, blurring of fact and fiction. But when the sleight-of-hand is admitted, why not? Particularly when the show, besides a bang-up book by Short and Daniel Goldfarb, has music and arrangements by Marc Shaiman and lyrics by Shaiman (who also acts here) and Scott Wittman (who also directed), the wizards of Hairspray, plus additional material by the not-to-be-sneezed-at Alan Zweibel.

Of course, we must concede the limits of a CD: Martin Short isn't there in the flesh. Now a lot of what a comedian does is not in his scripted material. Rather, his material includes his face, body, limbs, gestures and general demeanor—his comic expressions and funny movements that not even the best CD can provide.

On the other hand, there are compensations. Some subtle details you miss in the fast and furious onstage cavortings you can now savor at fully enjoyed leisure. A pleasing song, all too quickly over, can now be replayed ad libitum. A witty lyric can be relished without missing so much as a syllable. Jokes swallowed up in the undisciplined guffawing of the audience can at last be pleasurably retrieved.

[IMG:R]Even the jazzy scenery by the excellent Scott Pask and the jolly costumes by the adroit Jess Goldstein are conscientiously captured in the generously illustrated booklet. Missing, inevitably, is the jaunty choreography by Christopher Gattelli&#l212;but what do you want? An egg in your beer?

Short remains very funny, even when only heard and not seen. Lots of fun from the fine supporting cast comes through, too. Brooks Ashmanskas is a snazzy comic foil; the multitalented Mary Birdsong and Nicole Parker dazzle with—among other things—sassy impersonations of Joan Rivers, Jodie Foster, Ellen DeGeneres, Britney Spears and Celine Dion. Capathia Jenkins has a voice that could splinter icebergs, never mind just stopping a show. And composer Shaiman, besides playing a mellow piano, also acts up—not a storm, but a teasing breeze.

Now for samples of the rambunctious stuff you'll find in this disc. It ranges from collegiate mischief (from a scene set in heaven), "I think Helen Keller/Told me she's a lez/But I can't understand/A single word she says," to more pointed political incorrectness. A black woman sings, "Now won't somebody please explain/Why whether gospel or some blues/These songs are always written/By some old fart white gay Jews?" All this with prickly music to match.

Yet the long and the short of it is Martin Short, who radiates droll mock modesty cloaking cheeky self-assurance. Packaging him into a jewel box cannot constrain him: In this CD, the letters stand also for Cascading Delight.