Random Notes on This and That: 9/13/04
Ebb's passing is also a significant milestone because we have been fortunate to still have with us so many of the talents Stephen Sondheim, Charles Strouse, Jerry Herman, Cy Coleman, Harvey Schmidt, Tom Jones, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick who emerged during the same period as Kander and Ebb.
While I would have liked to see several more new Kander and Ebb shows, I'm glad to know that Ebb lived long enough to see the gigantic success of a pair of revivals, Cabaret and Chicago, the latter an unparalleled revival blockbuster. Ebb also got to witness the screen triumph of Chicago, something that no one could have predicted a decade ago. Thanks to the revival and film, Chicago became the most beloved and well-known musical of the present era. And last year saw the publication of the first book about Kander and Ebb, Colored Lights.
Ebb was said to have regretted the fact that the final pair of Kander and Ebb musicals, Over & Over and The Visit, never got beyond their regional world premieres. It will be interesting to see if those pieces, plus the unproduced Kander-Ebb-Peter Stone Curtains, are now pursued.
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Am I out of order in questioning the casting of Brooke Shields as Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town? For all I know, Shields, who replaces Donna Murphy from September 28, will turn out to be brilliant. But Shields was less than brilliant in Cabaret, a production so tightly staged that individual performances couldn't severely damage it. Wonderful Town, on the other hand, was written as a star vehicle, and strongly depends on its leading lady.
The obvious problem here: Shields is a great beauty, and Ruth Sherwood has trouble finding or keeping a man. True, it's Ruth's formidable intelligence and sarcasm that tends to turn off the male sex. And it's true that the role's originator, Rosalind Russell, was, in fact, a very handsome woman. Still, Shields seems a questionable choice for the part. Let's hope she surprises us.
Of course, it should be noted that the casting of Shields may be less about suitability and more about drawing power. So the bigger question may be: Will Shields stimulate ticket sales for a production that up to now has failed to catch on?
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Articles about the forthcoming new musicals built around pre-existing pop song catalogues tend to cite Mamma Mia! and Movin' Out as the chief influences or models. But I don't believe those two shows use pop music in the same way. Mamma Mia! worked its ABBA songs into a conventional book, the dialogue punctuated by the pre-existing songs. Movin' Out is a ballet rather than a musical, danced to the songs of Billy Joel. The songs aren't really a part of the story, which is told almost exclusively through movement. They are instead the accompaniment to the story, even if they have been carefully chosen to implement the mood or action of the dance scenes. The forthcoming shows built around pop catalogues Good Vibrations, All Shook Up appear to be in the Mamma Mia! mode, as is the London/Las Vegas Queen musical, We Will Rock You.
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Even though it has just shaved off the first five days, Little Women is still taking an unusually long preview period at the Virginia Theatre. More than six weeks, in fact, from December 7 to January 23, and that follows an out-of-town tryout. It's hard to recall a recent musical that scheduled so many Broadway previews.
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How can a show that's constantly in motion be so inert? That's the question posed by Dracula, the musical bravely struggling on after opening last month to a set of blistering reviews.
In Des McAnuff's production of Dracula, the performers fly through the air, shoot across the stage on rollers, and disappear into trapdoors, while the scenery keeps shooting up from the floor or irising in for a close-up. Yet nothing much ever seems to be happening. If the book by Christopher Hampton and Don Black wins points for sticking closer to Bram Stoker's novel than most adaptations, the musical tends to illustrate its source without really dramatizing it, relying on the audience's pre-existing familiarity with other versions of the Dracula story.
I would say a word for Frank Wildhorn's music, which is occasionally better than the lifeless show that contains it. True, there's nothing very surprising here. But Wildhorn is working in a somewhat more sophisticated, or at least more intricate, style than in Jekyll & Hyde and The Scarlet Pimpernel. There are fewer big anthems and more musical scenes, with few breaks for applause and several recurring themes. Unlike Jekyll & Hyde, almost nothing sticks out as an overt bid for the pop charts.
"Over Whitby Bay" is a pretty duet for Mina and Jonathan. There's a charming waltz number for Lucy and Mina called "How Do You Choose?" The catchy ensemble "Deep in the Darkest Night," for the vampire hunters, has a trace of Pimpernel's "Into the Fire," while Renfield's waltz, "The Master's Song," sounds a bit like the same score's "The Riddle." And there are brief but attractive arias in Lucy's "The Mist" and Jonathan's "Before the Summer Ends."
But the bigger, standout songs i.e. "If I Could Fly" don't have melodies to match the best of Jekyll or Pimpernel. And even though the tunestack has altered substantially since the 2001 La Jolla version of this Dracula, the vacuous Black-Hampton lyrics are still of little help. Because the show never manages to come to dramatic life, one suspects that this score may sound somewhat better on disc than it does in the theatre.
As for the physical production, it's elaborate yet not especially handsome; there's a great deal of flying, but none of it is very transporting. The cast is blameless, with some choice talents misused. In the difficult title role, Tom Hewitt acquits himself as well as possible. Melissa Errico, who really shouldn't be involving herself in this sort of hokum, looks great, and if she can't make much out of Mina and has some music that's not well suited to her range, she adds a touch of class to the proceedings. Kelli O'Hara is better than the role of Lucy deserves; Don Stephenson makes an effective Renfield; and Stephen McKinley Henderson supplies some authority as Van Helsing.
Of the show's numerous problems, the biggest may be its lack of a point of view. If one needs to do a musical version of Dracula, one should have a reason for retelling the story. That's never in evidence, so there never appears to be much reason for the show, except to exploit the same spirit of Gothic horror and romance that has already been plumbed by Phantom of the Opera and Jekyll and Hyde.
Dutch producer Joop van den Ende may have been seeking an exploitable title for the European market, and he may have found one. One suspects that the genre represented by Dracula has been pretty much exhausted on Broadway and in the West End. But this Dracula would probably be more welcome on European stages, where Dance of the Vampires in its original, more serious version continues to thrive.
It must be admitted that the Broadway botch of Dance of the Vampires was, in all of its craziness, a lot more fun than this Dracula, which is often downright dull. Which leaves one to wonder: Will they actually go through with Elton John's Vampire Lestat?
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I also caught up with the new Broadway cast of Hairspray, starring Michael McKean and Carly Jibson. McKean plays Edna Turnblad with considerable honesty---too much honesty, in fact. Such a naturalistic approach to the role deprives it of most of its extravagant size. McKean attempts to act a role that requires grand-scale performing. In doing so, he loses most of the laughs, and he's never really convincing as a woman.
McKean does possess a certain sweetness and warmth, and deserves credit for being brave enough to replace the irreplaceable Harvey Fierstein. McKean is also winning in the finale, but then that's the sort of sequence that can make you overlook just about any previous shortcomings. In general, though, McKean's Edna isn't one that you need to collect; you'd be wiser to wait for the suitably larger-than-life Bruce Vilanch, who takes over at the Neil Simon next month. Watch for Vilanch's topical jibes during "Timeless to Me."
Hairspray had one of those perfect original Broadway casts, but the other new faces do well. Jibson is delightful, pretty much everything you'd want in a new Tracy. She's cute and funny, has a distinctive look, and is a fine singer who moves with ease.
Peter Scolari's appealing Wilbur is rather young-looking, and he and McKean make an odd couple. When Vilanch takes over, he will be joined by his road-company husband, Todd Sussman. Jennifer Gambatese to be seen this winter in All Shook Up is an original Penny, while Chester Gregory II is a winning Seaweed. As Velma, Barbara Walsh does nicely by an uncharacteristic, caustic role. Richard H. Blake is a smooth Link, Jonathan Dokuchitz a genial Corny. As for the principal holdovers, Jackie Hoffman still gets all of her laughs, and Mary Bond Davis remains a model Maybelle.
Seeing Hairspray for the fifth time, one notes that the Marc Shaiman-Scott Wittman score remains as fresh as ever; Jerry Mitchell's musical staging is still quite fine; and set designer David Rockwell was robbed of a Tony.