Xanadu - Original Broadway Cast Recording

The most modest musicals are known as vest-pocket musicals; slightly bigger, Xanadu may be classified as an overcoat-pocket musical. Even so, you might wonder what chance it has against the big Disney or Mel Brooks musicals that come from even deeper pockets.

It is based on a movie so bad that it could not even become a cult film, and the Broadway adaptation had to be so economical that the nine Muses were reduced to seven. At least it could afford roller skates for the actors; can you imagine a cast on casters?

Well, what Xanadu really is is a spoof of the Gene Kelly-Olivia Newton-John movie musical, itself a sort of spoof, and thus a spoof squared, appealing to the bit of a square in all of us. And, boy, is it personable: Likableness hangs out of it like the tongue out of a puppy's mouth.

But how, you may wonder, does personableness translate onto a CD, which does not readily capture the quality that lives in intimate houses like Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre, ardent but not yet stellar casts, and visuals that have a breezy, summer-theater look to them?

It doesn't. So the original cast recording must capitalize on other aspects of the show. For one thing, on Xanadu's small band, comprising four musicians on two keyboards (one electronic), a guitar and drums. This makes for music that does its job without overwhelming either the lyrics or the performers.

[IMG:R]And of what sort are the latter? As the Muse Clio, in the guise of Kira, Kerry Butler is utterly charming as she channels her childhood idol Newton-John, toning down her Broadway-sized voice and even assuming a parody Australian accent that couldn't fool a kangaroo. As Sonny Malone, the hapless artist who draws the Muses in chalk on a Venice, California, sidewalk—and to whose aid the Muses materialize (all except the two mean and jealous ones, an invention of the bookwriter, Douglas Carter Beane)—we have Cheyenne Jackson, young and virile, both innocent and forceful.

This Sonny will enlist Danny, an older man who once was himself in love with Clio, as his partner in turning an abandoned theater into a disco. Danny is played by Tony Roberts, one of our best mature musical-comedy actors. He manages to endow his voice with a sophisticated—but not in the least slick—twinkle, best displayed in the song "Whenever You're Away From Me," which contrasts nicely with the blander voices of Butler and Jackson. The rest of the cast provide an apt mini-chorus.

It is to the credit of Mary Testa and Jackie Hoffman, as the envious Muses, that they squeeze all the humor out of their big number, "Evil Woman," and again, in "Strange Magic," putting a comic curse on the young lovers.

Some of the songs were written by John Farrar, some by Jeff Lynne (of the pop band Electric Light Orchestra), but they blend together seamlessly. Neither man is a great lyricist, as witness, for example this: "Whenever you're away from me,/ Wherever you go,/ You're never far away from me./ I want you to know,/I only have to close my eyes, dear,/And suddenly I'm where you are./ You better never stray,/ 'Cos I'll never be far away." That 'cos clinches it; Stephen Sondheim has nothing to fear from this competition.

But the music is pleasant enough in its down-home, hand-stitched way. It has fun with its melding of rock 'n' roll and Tin Pan Alley, with a wink in every measure. You will find yourself amicably winking back.