CDs: Bedtime Story

Composer-lyricist David Yazbek has accomplished something rare. He's written the scores for just two Broadway musicals, and both are hits. True, it may be premature to predict the fate of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, his second show, now playing at the Imperial. But it looks to become a commercial success, just as The Full Monty did five years back.

Yazbek evinces the ability to write scores with precisely the right sound for the story and characters at hand. His Full Monty songs were perfect for the Buffalo, New York blue-collar folk of that show, while his Dirty Rotten Scoundrels songs are elegant and breezy, just as they should be for this lightweight tale of con artists and wealthy victims on the French Riviera. And Yazbek's lyrics, loaded with topical allusions and famous names, are clever and quotable. In the opening number, he rhymes "given" with "David Niven," who starred in one of the two movies upon which Dirty Rotten Scoundrels is based.

There is, however, a significant difference between this show and the previous Yazbek-Jack O'Brien-Jerry Mitchell musical, The Full Monty. The latter had a strong emotional core that made one care about and root for the characters. Scoundrels lacks such content, and that may make it harder for some to become deeply involved in the proceedings.

Quite a few of the Scoundrels songs "Oklahoma?," "Rüffhousin' mit Shüffhausen," "The More We Dance," "Love Is My Legs" are spoofy pastiche pieces, the sort of thing that can become wearying. But Yazbek handles them well, and also demonstrates that he's capable of more heartfelt items, notably "Love Sneaks In" for leading-man Lawrence John Lithgow.

The most celebrated number in the score, and one performed to a fare-thee-well by Norbert Leo Butz the front runner for the 2005 musical-actor Tony, is the rap/hip-hop style "Great Big Stuff." Another much-admired number, "All About Ruprecht," may lose something on disc, without its crudely comic visuals. But outstanding is the eleven o'clock "Dirty Rotten Number," for both leading men. The sharp supporting team of Joanna Gleason and Gregory Jbara scores with "Like Zis/Like Zat," and Gleason also leads the catchy female ensemble "What Was a Woman to Do?"

The excellent new Dirty Rotten Scoundrels CD release date May 10 really comes to life, though, at track eight, when Sherie Rene Scott arrives and delivers, in that spectacular voice, the show's two best tunes, "Here I Am" and "Nothing Is Too Wonderful to Be True." But that's not to say that Lithgow and Butz aren't fine all the way through, or that Sara Gettelfinger doesn't get the most out of the raucous "Oklahoma?" Harold Wheeler's orchestrations are also top-notch throughout.

Scoundrels is yet another example of Broadway's recent musical-comedy renaissance, as well as another entry in the tongue-in-cheek, self-referential musical sweepstakes. As such, it lacks the heart that Broadway's best musical comedies tended to possess. But if one admires rather than loves the Scoundrels CD, there's no denying that Yazbek has contributed an accomplished and enjoyable score, and that Ghostlight's cast recording is everything it should be.

Notable is the CD's seventeenth track, called "A Message from John Lithgow." In the space of half a minute, the star warns listeners who haven't yet seen the show that they might want to stop before hearing the final three tracks, which contain "spoilers" revealing a couple of the plot's major twists.

The sixty-eight-minute CD is also equipped with three fine bonus tracks. First are Yazbek's impressive demos of "Here I Am" and "All About Ruprecht." They're followed by a slowed-down, very handsome "Nothing Is Too Wonderful to Be True," featuring a wonderful vocal by Scott, accompanied by the piano of Bill Charlap. They make the song sound like a future cabaret standard.

The CD booklet includes color photos, the lyrics, good liner notes by Peter Marks who comes right out and states that The Full Monty's score was more deserving of the Tony than Mel Brooks' Producers score, and a plot synopsis that also includes a "spoiler" warning for those who haven't yet seen the show.

ALTAR BOYZ Sh-K-Boom

In terms of fulfilling its goals, few musicals this season were as neatly and effortlessly carried off as Altar Boyz, now playing at off-Broadway's Dodger Stages. Of course, the show's goals are modest. Altar Boyz is an amusing send-up of a Christian boy band, and is not so much a book show as a high-concept novelty piece, part concert, part revue. Some have correctly noted stylistic similarities to Forever Plaid and Nunsense.

Altar Boyz has turned out to be one of the best reviewed musicals of the season, opening to a virtually unanimous set of favorable reviews. And it also fits into the current craze for tongue-in-cheek, self-aware musical comedies.

Cute, clever, and hard to resist, Altar Boyz is performed by a terrific cast of five that will be hard to equal on tour or in subsequent New York companies, with each of the performers Ryan Duncan, David Josefsberg, Andy Karl, Tyler Maynard, Scott Porter allowed a chance to shine.

Of the twelve musical numbers, half have music and lyrics by Gary Adler, while the other half are entirely the work of Michael Patrick Walker. This unusual arrangement results in a seamless, catchy score with nary a weak number.

Some of the song titles "The Calling," "Epiphany," "Something About You" have been deliberately chosen so as to conceal jokes in the lyrics that won't be revealed here, although those jokes are fully revealed on Sh-K-Boom's lively cast recording release date May 17.

The CD preserves about forty-seven of the show's eighty-five minutes. What's missing is the dialogue from Kevin Del Aguila's book, which contains much of the show's humor. So Altar Boyz inevitably loses something on disc, without the between-song patter. But the songs are enjoyable even without the dialogue that surrounds them, and also without the energetic Christopher Gattelli choreography that accompanies them in the theatre.

Led by Lynne Shankel, the four-piece band includes keyboards, guitar, and drums. Altar Boyz is the sort of franchise that's likely to have a long life, and it plays well on disc.