Looking Back: '89-'90
The first Broadway musical opening of the fall was Sweeney Todd, in a production seen the previous season at York Theatre Company. This was strongly received, partly because the quality of the ten-year-old musical was becoming more and more evident with each return it had previously been revived in New York in the mid-'80s by City Opera, and partly because critics tend to have an easier time assimilating a complex work when they see it in an intimate production in which every word can be made out.
Susan H. Schulman directed the new Sweeney, and at least one major critic saw in this production a new interpretation of the female protagonist, Mrs. Lovett. Although the wonderful Beth Fowler is incapable of giving a bad performance, she was not ideally cast as Lovett, thereby negating the production's supposed feminist rethinking. Most of the performances including Bob Gunton, Jim Walton, and Eddie Korbich were fine, but this Sweeney was simply a scaled-down Teeny Todd, offering no great insights into the material. Mostly, it was an opportunity geared to those who didn't fully appreciate the show the first time around.
Vanessa Redgrave was stunningly hammy in Tennessee Williams' Orpheus Descending, a play that appeared to be taking its place in the standard Williams repertoire. Directed by Peter Hall, Redgrave drove the entire production, which would prove to be the last time to date that Broadway would see Tammy Grimes. David Hare's The Secret Rapture was provocative, but its disappointing reception from New York Times critic Frank Rich provoked an angry response from Hare, who was also the director of the New York version. Larry Gelbart's satiric Mastergate was witty but hard to warm to, hence its short run following good reviews.
Graciela Daniele's dance-theatre piece, Dangerous Games, was critically dismissed and lasted just four performances. But it had its intriguing moments, even if it probably could have used another workshop or two. Then came the first grand-scale musical production of the Broadway season, Meet Me in St. Louis, staged by South Africans Louis Burke and Joan Brickhill and backed by EPI, the makers of feminine depilatory products. One of the most lavish productions Broadway saw during the decade, it played at a loss for much of its eight-month run.
Meet Me in St. Louis wasn't terrible; in fact, it was moderately enjoyable in a bland sort of way. But it was a show that would have been better suited to the old Jones Beach Marine Theatre in Long Island or to St. Louis' Muny than to Broadway. The overqualified principals included George Hearn and Betty Garrett. Groomed as the star was the young, hard-edged Donna Kane, whose singing was quite loud.
Within a week of the St. Louis opening, two more musicals arrived, both failures that, unlike St. Louis, would be long gone by Tony time. The high-profile entry was Sting in 3 Penny Opera, as it was titled in the fall of 1989. This one was roundly panned, yet it was not nearly as bad as that would seem to indicate. Indeed, it was an authentically Brechtian staging that observed any number of details of traditional Threepenny stagings.
But there were problems. Sting's Macheath was underpowered. Director John Dexter was unable to elicit a unified performing style from the cast, in which Georgia Brown's Mrs. Peachum was the standout. Leading lady Maureen McGovern suffered vocal problems on the road, and was unable to open the show on Broadway; her place was taken on opening night by a colorless understudy, Nancy Ringham, and by the time McGovern returned, the production was ready to fold after a two-month run.
The week's other musical was the amusingly inept Prince of Central Park, an overt flop that couldn't possibly have played much more than the four performances it managed. Jo Anne Worley was rushed in to take over during rehearsals for Gloria De Haven, but Worley's best efforts were unable to do much for the woebegone Prince.
Three days later, a major musical arrived, my favorite of the season. While just about all the critics raved over Tommy Tune's staging for Grand Hotel, few of them wholeheartedly endorsed the show. That may be because it featured the sort of fragmented score that was difficult to take in the first time around. But here was one of those shows for aficionados, who embraced Grand Hotel and returned again and again to witness one of Broadway's most memorable stagings of the decade. To this day, I'm not entirely certain of the merits of the material. I do know, however, that I found the show mesmerizing. The performances by Michael Jeter, David Carroll, and Jane Krakowski were particularly strong, but Tune made everyone look good in this gorgeous, non-stop evening.
Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men was a solid courtroom drama of the old-fashioned variety, and it was welcome. Director Don Scardino, who had little success with the recent Lennon, supplied a highly persuasive production. Somerset Maugham's The Circle was thin stuff, but one couldn't afford to be too hard on a revival that boasted the skills of Rex Harrison and Glynis Johns, both in their final Broadway appearances. Tom Stoppard's Artist Descending a Staircase was only middling fun. Understudying actress Stephanie Roth was none other than future desperate housewife Marcia Cross.
Then arrived my other favorite of the season, Tyne Daly in the second Broadway revival of Gypsy. Because of her erratic singing, Daly's performance would prove controversial, even if it was the sort of star turn that snared all of the season's musical-actress prizes. No other revival Rose embodied the character's qualities so effortlessly and bountifully. It was a gloriously right performance, the centerpiece of a solid Arthur Laurents staging that made this Gypsy the most satisfying of the show's three Broadway revivals.
The last Broadway musical of the '80s was the season's best received, City of Angels. What with the blockbuster trio of Cats, Les Miz, and Phantom all going strong on Broadway, New York critics were dying to see American talent take back the Broadway musical from the British. Grand Hotel appeared to be the first exhibit in the struggle. But City of Angels was seen as the witty musical comedy that accomplished that goal.
With intricate lyrics by David Zippel, Cy Coleman's jazz-inflected score was up to his usual high standard. Larry Gelbart's split-screen book --a 1940s detective film noir alternating with the making of the picture--was full of laughs, and Michael Blakemore's staging on Robin Wagner's dazzling sets was exemplary. Yet City of Angels had virtually no emotional content, and that made it, at least for this observer, less treasurable than the best American musical comedies. The show's dual-level action may almost have been too clever for its own good. The successful two-year run indicates that City of Angels lacked something in broad appeal. But I wouldn't be surprised to see the Roundabout bring back City of Angels one of these days.
More star turns: Dustin Hoffman acquitted himself well in Peter Hall's staging of The Merchant of Venice. What had been one of the most riotous performances of the '70s, Estelle Parsons in the solo play Miss Margarida's Way, went sour in an ill-advised revival that lasted just over a week. Kathleen Turner was a solid Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, even if the production was stolen by the Big Daddy and Big Mama of Charles Durning and Polly Holliday. And Maggie Smith was pure comic gold in Peter Shaffer's highly amusing Lettice & Lovage.
Two of the season's most acclaimed plays were the Steppenwolf's Grapes of Wrath, Frank Galati's stark, haunting staging of his own adaptation of Steinbeck's classic, and The Piano Lesson, one of August Wilson's most admired and successful Broadway entries.
Although Aspects of Love features one of composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's most intricate and intriguing scores, the overall effect of the show was unsatisfying, the romantic roundelay of the action coming off as more ludicrous than affecting. Trevor Nunn staged a production that was remarkably lavish, so much so that the show was unable to recover much of its investment in a year's run. Late in the Broadway run, Sarah Brightman was a glamorous takeover leading lady, although the music didn't lie as comfortably for her as it had for original Ann Crumb.
A Change in the Heir was a disastrous small-scale musical that somehow made it to Broadway, for a two-week run. Judy Blazer was the accomplished leading lady. Equally dire were Truly Blessed, a celebration of gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, and Rupert Holmes' would-be thriller Accomplice. The Cemetery Club at least boasted Eileen Heckart and Elizabeth Franz. But the only efffective end-of-season play was Craig Lucas' enchanting Prelude to a Kiss, although Broadway-transfer leading man Timothy Hutton wasn't quite as good as Alec Baldwin, who starred in the off-Broadway premiere at Circle Rep.
Of course, it should be mentioned that the season's most anticipated new musical was not Grand Hotel or City of Angels but instead Annie 2, a lavish sequel that was wisely shut down in D.C. after its disastrous world premiere. Three years later, the Annie sequel finally made it to New York, in the form of off-Broadway's pleasant but unnecessary Annie Warbucks.