Random Notes on This and That: 6/20/05

Just as I was in the minority about Brooke Shields' replacement of Donna Murphy in Wonderful Town, I find myself in the minority on Robert Goulet's generally well-received takeover in the revival of La Cage aux Folles the production closes on Sunday. I felt we were in trouble right from the top of the show, with Goulet's low-energy opening address to the audience. Thereafter, I was never quite sure if Goulet was saying his lines correctly-- he never seemed very sure of them-- and I was further unimpressed by the star's stiff carriage and lack of gusto. Yes, a good deal of the singing voice is still there, but the big numbers were somewhat lazily delivered. And never for a moment did Goulet's Georges seem gay. When Gary Beach's Albin struck back at Georges by mimicking his effiminate mannerisms, the moment made no sense, as Goulet hadn't seemed the least bit effete all evening.

Opposite Goulet, Beach was doing heroic work, not only carrying his own role strongly but working overtime to keep things on track. But I couldn't help thinking that the revival was considerably better with Daniel Davis as Georges, even if those involved in the production may have been having a much better time offstage with Goulet and without Davis.

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Because there's no cast album of the Broadway Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I haven't had an opportunity to comment on the show, so I'll take this one. Chitty strikes me as an extremely English product, an enormously elaborate version of a children's holiday "pantomime," with songs to clap along to and a villain to hiss. Then too, the show's source, the 1968 musical film, is less beloved in this country than it is in England, where it has received annual holiday showings along the lines of our Wizard of Oz presentations.

So Chitty may feel less at home at New York's Hilton Theatre than it is at the London Palladium. True, there have been a couple of improvements for Broadway. Where the opening sequence in London modeled on the film's credit sequence was pretty unintelligible, the New York opening is shorter and clearer. The one brand-new song, "Act English," for the Vulgarian spies, is a slight improvement over the London song it replaced, "Think Vulgar!" And Anthony Ward's enjoyably lavish sets are, if anything, even more elaborate on Broadway.

But there's one significant loss. Raul Esparza is a magnetic performer and as talented a musical-theatre man as we have at the moment. As eccentric inventor Caractacus Potts, he has charm, and his singing of "Hushabye Mountain" and "Teamwork" is good enough to justify a New York Chitty cast recording. But in London's Chitty, Michael Ball's twinkling coziness provided the show with a warm, comforting center that it lacks on Broadway. For all of his gifts, Esparza is not ideally cast here.

Philip Bosco as grandfather Potts and Chip Zien and Robert Sella as the spies are overqualified for their roles. As the Childcatcher, Kevin Cahoon demonstrates that there was no need to hire a name star for the role, as they did in London. If she doesn't sing as well as London's Nichola McAuliffe, Jan Maxwell's deadpan Baroness is very amusing.

Yes, it's exhilarating when Chitty rises into the air and starts to fly. It's probably safe to say that this is the only musical whose star is a car that gets entrance applause and the final bow. And yes, I left humming that title song, which lingered in my head for days thereafter. The Sherman Brothers score is mostly quite pleasant.

Chitty is not quite like any other Broadway musical I can think of, and as such, it exerts a certain fascination. That doesn't entirely make up for the evening's longeurs, especially in the second act. But I did note at the performance I attended that the children present were mostly attentive and seemed to like the show. If Chitty inspires in a child a love for live theatre, it will have served its purpose.

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For those interested in musical-theatre documentaries, you may be interested to know that there are two about the London stage version of Billy Elliot on a new, two-disc DVD in PAL format edition of the show's source film. The first documentary, "The Real Billy Elliot Diaries," takes us into the lives of the three young actors chosen out of 3,000 boys to create the title role in the smash hit West End production. We meet James Lomas of Sheffield, who must leave home for the first time to play Billy. From Essex comes George Maguire, a drummer who has the least dance experience of the trio. Then there's the youngest, twelve-year-old Liam Mower of Hull, who's already spending most of his time in London at the Royal Ballet School.

Lomas, Maguire, and Mower rotate in the role of Billy, but unlike such shared leads as Kim in Miss Saigon, Eva in Evita, or Christine in The Phantom of the Opera, an attempt has clearly been made to make the three boys equal, with the particular appearances of each not announced until show time. The documentary doesn't mention the fact that one of the three lads had to be selected to perform for the critics at the show's press night, and that the honor fell to Mower, the one with the strongest ballet background.

The documentary shows us the three boys facing the press, visiting the Victoria Palace Theatre for the first time, meeting composer Elton John, and preparing to be introduced to the public by performing on the Royal Variety Performance. At the end, we're reminded that after six months, Mower, Lomas, and Maguire will be replaced by three new Billys.

The second documentary, From Screen to Stage, features the talking heads of three talents --director Stephen Daldry, writer Lee Hall, choreographer Peter Darling-who also worked on the film, plus composer John. We learn that John was the first to suggest a musical adaptation, as far back as when he saw the film's world premiere at Cannes, and that Hall, who wrote the screenplay, had never written a lyric before writing all of the Billy Elliot lyrics.

It's explained why the show places greater emphasis on the miner's strike of 1984, and why the actors who play Billy need to be even better than Jamie Bell was as Billy in the film. We learn of the special requirements for the role, the auditions and training process, and the difficulty of narrowing it down to nine boys while letting go others who had worked for more than six months in hopes of winning the role.

These documentaries left me wondering which of the three Billys will be heard on the cast album. There is, of course, the option of featuring all three lads, each performing different songs. Perhaps they'll simply choose the strongest singer to be the only Billy on the disc. Or perhaps they'll feature one throughout, then offer bonus tracks with the other two. One is put in mind of the three sets of leads that got to record the La Boheme Broadway cast recording a couple of years back. But then there are dozens of other La Boheme recordings, so an odd one featuring three different sets of leads was acceptable. There may not be many other English-language cast recordings of Billy Elliot.