Tag: Musical

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Escape From Margaritaville

Walking into the Marquis Theatre with frozen margarita machines primed for consumption, I knew this jukebox assemblage of Jimmy Buffett songs was headed straight down the runway towards party time.  The shocking revelation was that Escape From Margaritaville made Mamma Mia! look like Shakespeare.  For today’s review, let’s follow Mr.  Buffett’s lead.  “Why don’t we get drunk and screw” with this musical.

First, let’s be positive, briefly.  The men fare far better than the women in this production.  Paul Alexander Nolan (Bright Star, Jesus Christ Superstar) nicely inhabits the part of Tully, the ultrafit beach bum lothario who is the lead singer at Margaritaville, a dive Caribbean resort.  His goofball bartender friend Brick is amusing played by Eric Petersen.  The winner in the performer sweepstakes was Don Sparks as JD, the grey haired party relic who is searching for his lost shaker of salt.  The plot points are that obvious if you know the songs (and not as stupid funny as they could be).  Lastly on the positive side are Michael Utley’s orchestrations.  The music really sounded very good.

Now let’s get to the meat of the matter and try to understand why the cheeseburger was not in paradise.  Three main problems:  awful book, bad choreography and a too bland lead actress.  Alison Luff has a nice voice but meanders through this musical with little stage presence and no real chemistry with Mr. Nolan.  Admittedly things started fine but deteriorated when character development through acting was needed to fill in the blanks of so many one-dimensional people.  Vacationing in the Caribbean, she has copious amounts of sex and then turns into a cardboard ingénue?

Written by television’s Greg Garcia and Mike O’Malley, the book is the major flaw.  Shooting for and missing over-the-top silly, the cornball story arc added serious to stupid.  They’re not just drunken wastes of human existence, they have real hearts!  More than a few comedy lines failed to generate laughs, even amongst the singing Parrothead fans.  The second act is wildly over-plotted with too many songs shoehorned in.

As for Kelly Devine’s choreography, the very few moments of inspired ideas were quickly forgotten as the generic party ensemble executed high school quality maneuvers.  It’s copycat, check the box choreography.  Spinning clouds instead of the spinning cupcakes from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.  The requisite tap number with the shiny outfit costume change (The Book of Mormon, others).  Escape From Margaritaville is not the worst show ever and might even be improved with significant editing.  Director Christopher Ashley (Come From Away) gives this all a professional sheen but it’s slick cruise ship fun at Broadway prices.  Buy a foam shark hat and take pictures with your besties at intermission.

www.escapefrommargaritavillemusical.com

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Grand Hotel (Encores!)

A 1929 novel begat a 1930 Broadway play begat an Oscar winning Best Picture in 1932 starring Greta Garbo.  In 1958, a musical called At The Grand debuted in San Francisco but failed to reach Broadway.  Thirty one years later, a renamed Grand Hotel finally arrived, directed by Tommy Tune with some new songs by Maury Yeston (Nine).  To get there, the writer and original composers were dumped during the out of town tryout in Boston.  Songs were added and cut, the book rearranged and refocused.  Set in 1928 Berlin between the wars and right before the Depression, the musical became a hit, winning five Tonys and running for 1,077 performances.

Encores! produces fairly high quality concert versions of forgotten or slightly flawed works for a week.  This version in particular had a set which harked back to the original with polished staging, nice choreography and impressive costumes.  A real opportunity to revisit and reassess this piece.  My memory of Grand Hotel is that the show was stylish but forgettable and boring.

In 1989, critics were quite mixed to negative in their reviews.  Tommy Tune’s creative imagination was uniformly praised and the show “should satisfy those with a boundless appetite for showmanship untethered to content.”  Others had more fun with headlines such as “Vacancies at the Inn” and “A Few Reservations about Hotel.”  Clive Barnes knocked the “dull” score which had “Tune where its tunes should be.”  The Wall Street Journal used the words superficial, melodramatic and pedestrian, with a story “as empty as the lives of those who inhabit the hotel.”

Viewing Grand Hotel nearly thirty years later, there is no surprise revelation.  There are a few good songs, notably “Love Can’t Happen” and the showstopper, “We’ll Take A Glass Together.”  The book is not good and quite scattered as evidenced by the multiple bellhop phone conversations with his pregnant wife in a hospital delivery room.  The German boss, naturally, demands double shifts.  Whether in the original story or not, it’s another undeveloped distraction.  The enjoyably oddball characters remain sketchily drawn but the pace doesn’t really slow down so the overall effect is akin to entertaining blah.

Grand Hotel made Jane Krakowski a star as the typist with dreams of Hollywood glory.  The showstopper featuring Michael Jeter’s Tony Award winning performance as the terminally ill accountant can still be found online.  Most of this cast sang the score beautifully but fully developed characters did not really emerge.  Given this show’s pedigree, they cannot be entirely blamed.  For musical theater fans, the Encores series is invaluable, informative and fun.  On the subway, a handful of strangers compared notes after Grand Hotel.  Unfortunately for this show, we were all in complete agreement.

www.nycitycenter.org

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A Letter To Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk was the first openly gay person in the United States to win a political office when he was elected.  Along with the mayor of San Francisco, he was murdered in 1978 during his first term in office.  Fairly grim stuff and covered by the multiple Oscar winning film Milk, starring Sean Penn.  The musical A Letter to Harvey Milk takes place in the spring of 1986, seven years after the murder.  While the musical has serious themes, it is not a biography at all.

Based on a short story, this show is about a older man named Harry Weinberg, beautifully played by Adam Heller.  Harry used to be a butcher and Mr. Milk was a frequent customer.  Harry joins a writing class in his Jewish Community Center, eventually penning the letter of the title.  Along the way there are brief moments with Harvey Milk (Michael Bartoli) but this show focuses on Harry, his wife Frannie (Cheryl Stern) and Barbara, the young writing instructor (Julia Knitel).  Through ninety minutes we engage in fairly familiar emotional territory with the main conceit centering on homosexuality and acceptance, with a large schmear of Jewish humor.  Example:  Who do you think I am?  Shylock Holmes?

Thankfully, A Letter to Harvey Milk has a very strong book and the three lead characters are given a lot to say and think about.  The story arc surprised me and was very effective in peeling back the layers within both Harry and Barbara, and the letter that was written.  The music and lyrics range from garden variety to schtick.  However, the big ballads are very good and memorable, notably “Frannie’s Hands” and “Love Is a Woman.”  Evan Pappas skillfully directed A Letter to Harvey Milk.  Interesting scene transitions and captivating lighting effects enriched the storyline in this well-performed production.

www.lettertoharveymilk.com

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Folk Wandering (Pipeline Theatre)

In development for seven years in various theater incubators, the musical Folk Wandering has now been given a full production by the Pipeline Theatre Company.  This show seems to be about three women and their experiences in 1911, 1933 and 1955 America.  One is a young girl of thirteen living in a tenement but wants to be a journalist.  Another is wandering the west during the Great Depression with her daughter.  The third is in a relationship with a musician who looks like James Dean.

Folk Wandering’s opening number is “Attic Song” in which the entire cast is rifling through the bins and boxes of a large attic (quality scenic design by Carolyn Mraz).  All of these talismans and trinkets must have stories; they are not simply piles of junk.  From this premise, the three different unconnected plots emerge.  This musical’s book was written by Jaclyn Backhaus who had  major success with the terrific Men In Boats a few years ago.  The music and lyrics are credited to ten different artists.  There are some very tuneful songs here and also some blatant borrowings, notably the Once clone.

All of this material demands that it coalesce into a whole musical with a purpose.  That does not really happen.  Some plots are far stronger and clearer than others.  Dashes of comedy with dollops of tragedy.  Perhaps that is the plight of the female experience in early 20th Century America.  I loved the folk idea of the title to bind the three main character’s yearnings.  The music, however, did not commit to delineating three distinct genres (or one consistent one).  The overall effect is still experimental more than fully developed.

Folk Wandering has been creatively directed by Andrew Neisler.  Individual moments are very memorable.  A strong cast commits to this material with well-drawn characters.  The men here shine a little brighter than the women which is slightly harmful given the book’s focus.  Dan Tracy, DeMone and Seth Clayton were all linked in one section and developed heart-tugging emotions through their supporting characters.  In other scenes, they were each hilarious with expressively theatrical physicality.  Like many of the songs and scenes in Folk Wandering, these actors were an enjoyable part of an unsatisfying whole.

www.pipelinetheatre.org

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Daddy Long Legs (International City Theatre, Long Beach, CA)

Visiting Long Beach, staying with friends and following their recommendation to see Daddy Long Legs proved to be excellent ideas, all around.  I was not familiar with the loosely adapted 1955 film starring Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron which I could overhear being widely discussed amongst the audience.  Based on her very successful 1912 novel, Jean Webster adapted her story into a play.  Here is what the New York Times said on September 29, 1914:  “If you will take your pencil and write down, one below the other, the words delightful, charming, sweet, beautiful and entertaining and then draw a line and add them up the answer would be Daddy Long Legs.”

The play made Ruth Chatterton a star and she was later nominated for Best Actress Academy Awards for two pre-code films, Madame X (1929) and Sarah and Son (1930).  How significant was this story?  Films were made by Mary Pickford in 1919, Janet Gaynor in 1931 and a Shirley Temple adaption in 1935 called Curly Top.  This version is a musical first produced in 2009 with subsequent stagings in the West End and off-Broadway.  The effective book was written by John Caird (Tony Award Best Director of both Nicholas Nickelby and Les Miserables).  Paul Gordon (Jane Eyre) wrote this beautiful score which felt like a chamber piece overflowing with lilting, elegant, moving, character-driven heartfelt songs.

Daddy Long Legs begins at the John Grier Home, an orphanage where Jerusha Abbott is the oldest resident at seventeen.  One of the trustees, a “Mr. John Smith” becomes her benefactor and sends her off to college to fulfill her promise as a writer.  All she needs to do is write him a monthly letter.  Jerusha comes up with his nickname, Daddy Long Legs.  This musical traces the lives of these two characters through their letter writing.  While the original book and play had more than twenty characters, many of whom are mentioned here, this musical has been structured into an intimate two person show.

We have a good Samaritan using his considerable wealth to allow a smart, heretofore unlucky girl a shot at the opportunity of a lifetime.  Ashley Ruth Jones and Dino Nicandros deliver superb acting and singing performances which build from simple beginnings to more complicated characters in a organically developing story arc.  Dozens of gorgeous songs, both solos and duets, keep their relationship evolving despite the fact that most of the interaction is through letter writing.  Credit has to be given to the director Mary Jo DuPrey who keeps this period piece flowing gently, melodically and emotionally to its satisfying finale.

Perhaps the most outstanding song was titled, “The Secret of Happiness.”  Seeing this production of Daddy Long Legs was one of those such secrets.  So was the fact that I beat my friends – for the first time ever – in the card game of Oh Hell.  And I did it twice this weekend!  So let’s update the New York Times formula from 1914:  If you take your pencil and write down, one below the other, the words Daddy Long Legs, International City Theatre and two card victories then draw a line and add them up, the answer would be bliss.

www.ictlongbeach.org

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Jerry Springer – The Opera (The New Group)

Which of the following of these five things is the most unbelievable?  That Jerry Springer – The Opera is what it says?  That Jerry Springer – The Opera won the 2004 Olivier Award for Best New Musical?  That Jerry Springer – The Opera makes The Book of Mormon look like wholesome entertainment?  That The Jerry Springer Show is still on television having passed its 25th Anniversary?  That Republicans in the wake of another school shooting will actually do something about gun violence other than offer their prayers and condolences?  Too easy a multiple choice question probably.

The homepage for this television show recruits new guests and currently asks:  “Did you have a child with a transsexual or are you pregnant by a transsexual?”  “Are you ready to turn up and get lit and confront somebody?”  “Do you have a sexy job?”  Somehow this amalgam of trash has been turned in an opera.  Well, actually more of a musical with operatic flourishes.  The opening number starts:  “My mom used to be – My mom used to be – My mom – Used to be – My mom – Used to be my Dad.”  The lyrics of this show are laugh out loud hilarious. Crude, rude and as over the top as the source material.  Act I of this show is raunchy musical comedy wrongness.  I was howling throughout.

Frankly, it’s a bit hard to understand how this show took so long to get across the pond from London.  Yes, the second act is as blasphemous as anything I have ever seen, including a now PG rated The Book of Mormon.  The first half of this inspired lunacy is the real thrill here.  The second half is funny too but falls slightly short of sublime genius.  That I can use sublime genius and Jerry Springer in a sentence is enough to recommend this show.  Full credit and gratitude for this outrageously fun piece goes to the composer and lyricist Richard Thomas and the book writer Stewart Lee.

There is a song entitled “This is My Jerry Springer Moment.”  If the line “so dip me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians” tickles your funny bone, then there are hundreds of laughs in store for you here.  I did not actually count the laughs but there are way, way, way more than a few dozen.  I’ll say no more except that the music is terrific, the singing fantastic, the set totally on point, direction that precisely escalates the chaos and a perfect Tiffany Mann as Shawntel.  The New Group has scored a colossal success with Jerry Springer – The Opera.

www.thenewgroup.org

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Thoroughly Modern Millie (The Actors Fund Benefit Concert)

Legendary Broadway stories about the understudy taking on the lead role are usually the stuff of fantasy entertainment.  In the musical 42nd Street, the iconic line is: “You’re going out there a youngster, but you’ve got to come back a star!”  In 2002, Broadway had a real life “star is born” moment.  Thoroughly Modern Millie opened with an unknown Sutton Foster in the lead, originally cast as the understudy but elevated to the starring role during the pre-Broadway out of town run.  After instant fame and a Tony Award for Best Actress, what followed was an incredible string of on stage successes including The Drowsy Chaperone, Shrek, Anything Goes and Violet.

The Actors Fund announced a one night benefit concert for this show reuniting most of the original cast, so I had my chance to finally catch this piece.  (The original New York Times review was so negative, I skipped the show the first time around.  Thankfully, the internet encourages alternative voices.  After reading Ben Brantley’s remarks now, they just sound mean-spirited and bitchy.)  In this staged concert version, the audience was filled to overflowing with industry types.  The result was possibly the loudest sustained applause and the most standing ovations I have ever witnessed.  These people knew the show, loved the score and adored the actors.  The environment was an extremely memorable combination of celebration and reunion, with a dash of Broadway magic.

So how does Millie hold up?  In the 1920s, Millie leaves Kansas for New York as a modern gal to snag a wealthy husband (ideally a boss).  She gets a room at a hotel for women (run by a former actress turned infamous white slave trader).  Naturally Millie falls in love with a handsome but poor schlep named Jimmy (who has the invaluable skill of knowing the location of the “juice joints”).  It’s all silly pastiche, expertly put over by a committed and talented cast.

Not all the songs and sections in Thoroughly Modern Millie are Grade A, but there are enough of them to make you smile, laugh and enjoy big Broadway fun.  Harriet Harris’ Chinese dragon lady won her a Tony and she was truly hilarious.  The choreography was inspired, particularly the typewriter tap dancing effect.  Both Gavin Creel (Jimmy) and perfect caricaturist Marc Kudisch (the boss) showed why they were Tony nominated for their performances.

When Ms. Foster belts out “Gimme Gimme that thing called love” near the end of the show, this concert and its audience erupted into a frenzy of love and support, quite fitting for a charity event.  Founded in 1882, the Actors Fund is a national human services organization meeting the needs facing the unique challenges for people with a life in the arts.  Services include emergency financial assistance, affordable housing, health care and more.  A worthwhile cause and a memorable evening that can only happen in New York.  It’s what keeps the Millie’s coming here year after year.

www.actorsfund.org more.

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Hey, Look Me Over! (Encores!)

For Encore’s 25th anniversary, the first entry this year is not an underappreciated or forgotten musical.  Instead, selections from nine shows which have not yet been picked for a seven performance revisit.  Lucille Ball’s Wildcat from 1960 about a rugged gal who dreams of striking oil, famous for the song “Hey, Look Me Over!” titles this collection.  A Hungarian immigrant engineering professor helps guide a football team in 1962’s All American, book by Mel Brooks.  The 1957 Lena Horne calypso flavored vehicle Jamaica.  A pair of Jerry Herman shows, Milk and Honey (1961) and Mack & Mabel (1974) wrap up the first act.

Bob Martin, the Man in Chair from The Drowsy Chaperone, is on hand to add humor between segments, thankfully.  We then plow on to the second half with an opening overture from Jule Styne’s Subways Are  For Sleeping (1961).  The 1960 Frank Loesser flop Greenwillow about a magical town where the eldest men must heed the “call to wander” leaving their women and children behind waiting for a return.  Sail Away, a 1961 Noel Coward show centering on a brash, bold American divorcee working as a hostess on a British cruise ship.  Finally, the crowd pleasing George M! from 1968 wraps things up with “Give My Regards to Broadway” and some much needed tap dancing to liven up the proceedings.

Hey, Look Me Over! is entertaining in an analytical way for aficionados of musical theater.  The hypothesis:  despite their flaws, are these shows worth revisiting.  The conclusion:  mostly not.  With a talented cast and a sumptuous orchestra there are high points.  Reed Birney and Judy Kuhn singing “Once Upon a Time” from All American.  Clifton Duncan’s soaring vocals in “Never Will I Marry” from Greenwillow.  And the show which felt most revivable, Mack & Mabel, about Mack Sennett and the silent movie era.  “Movies Were Movies” and “Look What Happened to Mabel” were beautifully performed by Douglas Sills and Alexandra Socha.  However, a jukebox of flops, near misses or dated minor successes does not scream out for an encore in this moderately entertaining compilation.

www.nycitycenter.org

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Hallelujah, Baby! (York Theatre Company)

I am currently reading an exceptional book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson.  Equal parts harrowing and historical, three individual’s memories and countless research contextualizes the massive movement from 1915 through 1970 by black citizens escaping the Jim Crow south.  Unrelatedly, I received an email from the York Theater Company about its Musicals in Mufti series (Indian word for “in street clothes,” here meaning without the benefit of a full production).  The first show this year was going to be Hallelujah, Baby! directed by my childhood friend Gerry McIntyre.  I didn’t really know much about the show other than it made Leslie Uggams a star so I decided to go check it out.  Who knew escaping Jim Crow could be packaged as musical comedy (albeit with an edge)?

Hallelujah, Baby! covers the civil rights movement from 1910 through the 1960s (although an update brought it to the present).  Georgina (Stephanie Umoh, charming) is a young woman living in the south longing for a better life.  Her mother is a maid (Vivian Reed, Bubbling Brown Sugar, still a colossal force of nature).  Georgina longs for a better life and “My Own Morning.”  While reading a serious book about this period, I luckily got to experience a 1967 musical comedy covering essentially the same story arc.  The show has quite the pedigree.  Composed by Jule Styne (Funny Girl, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes) with a book by Arthur Laurents (Gypsy, West Side Story) and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green (On the Town, On the Twentieth Century), Hallelujah, Baby! won a pile of Tonys including Best Musical and Best Actress.

Now in its 24th year, the York Theatre’s Musicals in Mufti series curates rarely produced or originally underappreciated gems.  One week of rehearsals and one week of performances with scripts in hand, the audience gets to experience the heart of a show.  For me, it was considering this big Broadway musical dabbling in civil rights during the tumultuous 1960s.  Although naturally a tad dated, Hallelujah, Baby! is filled with excellent songs.  The structure of following an outwardly ageless 25 year old woman (and her two male suitors) through different eras was a clever conceit.

A full production would offer the chance to really delineate the periods, costumes and styles.  In the meantime, we have this excellent short-lived off-Broadway study.  As evidenced by our recent news cycle, the struggle to completely escape Jim Crow is sadly not over.  Putting the show in historical perspective:  this story was told by a creative team of white people in the 1960s.  Fifty years later, Lin-Manuel Miranda has given us Hamilton.  Where will we be in 2060?  While this year’s Mufti series is a celebration of three Jule Styne shows, this entertaining production of Hallelujah, Baby! is also a rare opportunity to look back half a century and consider the Broadway community’s commentary on social issues and American history.  That’s a pretty big payoff for seeing a Gerry Mac show!  Next up in the Mufti series:  Bar Mitzvah Boy and Subways are for Sleeping.

www/yorktheatre.org

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Miss Saigon

I am not sure it will ever be possible to stage a production of Miss Saigon that is better than the revival closing on Broadway this week.  Extraordinarily well-directed by Laurence Connor (School of Rock, Les Miserables), this musical was riveting from start to finish.  I remember the original production which I saw in 1993 and liked.  The show still suffers (slightly) from the singing every line overkill typical of Broadway during this period.  But it soars so high from the glorious voices of its cast to the dramatic staging, scenery, lighting and focused commitment to storytelling.

What does extraordinarily well directed even mean?  The musical opens in Dreamland, a Saigon whorehouse in 1975 frequented by American soldiers during the Vietnam War and run by The Engineer (a superb Jon Jon Briones whose 11:00 number, “The American Dream,” surpassed my memory of the original). With a huge ensemble cast, every Marine and Bar Girl on stage has a reason to be there.  You can see and follow lots of individualized stories going on amidst the seedy action and tensions.  This is not a chorus standing around to fill space, these are all actors embodying the scene.  Greatness is usually in the details and this Miss Saigon has them all covered.

Eva Noblezada plays Kim, forced into The Engineer’s service after her family was murdered and meets Chris (Alistair Brammer, excellent), a soldier stationed in Saigon.  An updated version of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, what follows is a doomed romance of an Asian woman abandoned by her American lover.  Ms. Noblezada was simply astonishing.  The beauty and clarity of her voice in combination with an exceptionally dramatic face fully conveyed the anquish, hope, fear and dreams of Kim.  I loved this production.  Yes, Miss Saigon is melodrama combined with its famous helicopter scene.  But when the blades are rotating and the breezes are literally blowing, it’s Broadway magic.

www.miss-saigon.com