CDs: American Musicals in London
A Year with Frog and Toad has been taped for DVD release.
Yesterday, there was a reading in Manhattan of the new musical The Wedding Singer, based on the 1998 film. The music is by Matthew Sklar, the book by Tim Herlihy and Chad Beguelin, the lyrics by Beguelin, and John Rando was the director. The cast included Kevin Cahoon, Amy Spanger, Richard H. Blake, Kerry Butler, Felicia Finley, Jackie Hoffman, Jason Antoon, Stephen Lynch, Matthew Saldivar, and Jeanmarie Evans.
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CD: BAT BOY The Angel Recording Company
What does Deven May, who created the title role in Bat Boy in Los Angeles in 1997 and off-Broadway in 2001, have in common with Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Colm Wilkinson, Chita Rivera, Robert Lindsay, Joan Diener, Tommy Steele, Hermione Gingold, and Patricia Morison?
May has just joined the list of artists who have recorded the same role twice, on a New York as well as a London cast album. The off-Broadway Bat Boyplayed from March to December 2001 at the Union Square Theatre, the run, interrupted by the aftermath of September 11, winding up with a total of 257 performances but never quite achieving the cult-hit status it seemed destined for.
One might not have expected the show to play London's West End, but the West Yorkshire Playhouse U.K. premiere was transferred in the fall to the sizable London playhouse The Shaftesbury, home in the past to Hair, Follies, Rent, and Thoroughly Modern Millie. With a new staging and physical production, the London Bat Boy received less-than-encouraging reviews and is scheduled to close in February.
As you probably recall, Bat Boy was the one about a teenage mutant, half boy, half bat, discovered in a West Virginia cave and taken to the home of veterinarian Dr. Parker, his wife, Meredith, and their daughter, Shelley. Christened Edgar, the bat boy is civilized and educated. Jealous of his wife's attentions to the creature, Dr. Parker helps frame Edgar for murder. Edgar and Shelley fall in love, but their relationship is doomed by the revelation of the secret of Edgar's heritage.
Alternating between tongue-in-cheek spoofing and a more serious plea for tolerance, Bat Boy was moderate fun but overextended. Its chief attractions were May's performance, the off-Broadway female leads Kaitlin Hopkins and Kerry Butler, and a pastiche score by Laurence O'Keefe currently working on Legally Blonde that effectively mixed country, gospel, rock, pop opera, and musical comedy.
The score's highlights include an opening number, "Hold Me, Bat Boy," that sets just the right tone; Meredith's tender "A Home for You"; "Show You a Thing or Two," in which Edgar is educated; the accomplished first-act finale ensemble, "Comfort and Joy"; Edgar's revival-meeting plea for acceptance, "Let Me Walk Among You"; the pop-opera duet for Shelley and Edgar, "Inside Your Heart"; and a terrific duet for mother and daughter, "Three Bedroom House."
With the perfect quartet of leads Sean McCourt, of Wicked, was the doctor, RCA Victor's off-Broadway cast recording was everything you could want. So it's mildly surprising that the London Bat Boy now has its own cast recording, particularly as the indispensable May is repeating his role.
On the new recording, May remains ideal. Rebecca Vere is a brassier, beltier Meredith, but she couldn't be better than Hopkins on the New York set. Nor could Butler be bettered, even if Emma Williams, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang's original West End leading lady, contributes strongly as Shelley, as does John Barr as her father.
While the London CD offers a strong performance and includes a few bits of material not heard on the RCA disc, its chief attraction for Bat Boy fans will be a major new song, a soaring Bat Boy-Shelley duet called "Mine, All Mine" which replaces the pretty "Inside Your Heart." Also featured on the new set is "Hey Freak," a revision of the "Ugly Boy"/"Whatcha Wanna Do?" sequence. For the New York recording, the orchestra orchestrations by O'Keefe and Alex Lacamoire was augmented to ten players; the London recording is accompanied by five.
CD: NO STRINGS Must Close Saturday
Like most successful Broadway musicals of its time, Richard Rodgers' No Strings traveled to London. But it was not to repeat its Broadway success. The 1962 New York production played 580 performances, but the version that opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in December 1963 lasted only 135 performances.
Cast in the London No Strings as two Americans abroad, he a blocked novelist, she a high-fashion model, were Americans Art Lund and Beverly Todd. Lund had created the role of Joey in The Most Happy Fella on Broadway and in the West End; prior to the London No Strings, he had played leads in two unsuccessful Broadway musicals, Donnybrook! and Sophie. Todd was a young actress-singer who had briefly appeared in the New York No Strings; her career has extended to playing the mother of Keith, David's cop lover, on "Six Feet Under." The London No Strings had a colorful supporting cast. Most notably, there was Hy Hazell, the distinctive performer who had won West End acclaim for her roles in Lock Up Your Daughters and Expresso Bongo. No Strings gave her only one song to sing, the duet "Love Makes the World Go," but Hazell had the clout to secure above-the-title billing for what was clearly a supporting role. As a pair of fun-loving American hedonists abroad, Marti Stevens and David Holliday took the roles created on Broadway by Bernice Massi and Don Chastain. A superb singer, Holliday had played leading man to Elaine Stritch in the London Sail Away, and would return to America as a matinee-alternate Quixote in Man of La Mancha and as the young romantic hero of Coco. Stevens had starred in the off-Broadway revival of Oh, Kay!, and would follow No Strings with the London High Spirits and Company. She took Barbara Barrie's role in the latter, and later replaced Elaine Stritch. In Dirty Poole, Poole relates that Stevens' close friend Marlene Dietrich helped Stevens find the proper degree of vulgarity for her No Strings role. In June, DRG reissued the Broadway cast recording of No Strings, and now the English label Must Close Saturday has given a CD premiere to the London version. As I noted in my review of the DRG disc, the Broadway No Strings is one of the essential '60s recordings, and no other cast could possibly top it. With the only Broadway score featuring both music and lyrics by Rodgers, No Strings had been written as a vehicle for singer-actress Diahann Carroll, who won a Tony for the show in New York. Todd is a solid singer, but her smoky sound is less exciting than Carroll's silvery tones. Lund was a fine singer, although Broadway's Richard Kiley was crisper. Both Broadway leads have a more sophisticated, elegant sound, which was ideal for this unusual and innovative show. The London recording features two items not to be found on the New York recording: the brief integral dialogue in the title song, and the jazzy playout, highlighted, like the rest of the score, by Ralph Burns's superlative orchestrations. Because of the presence of Hazell and Stevens, "Love Makes the World Go" becomes a major track on the London set. In general, it's nice to have a second cast recording of a score as choice as No Strings, and the London performance is quite good. But Hazell and Holliday in their brief appearances are the only singers on the London set superior to their New York counterparts.