Double Take December: PARADE

Posted on December 23, 2011 by David Fick
ANYTHING GOES

To purchase the Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording of PARADE, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Parade

Something I Like: This 1960 Off-Broadway revue really gave Jerry Herman’s career the boost it needed for him to transition from a songwriter to a creator of musical theatre. In this score, you’ll hear the main themes of “It’s Today”, from Mame, in the song, “Show Tune”, as well as snippets of what would become “I Wanna Make the World Laugh” and “Wherever He Ain’t” in Mack and Mabel. Essentially it is a great insight into a Broadway composer finding his own voice in the world of musical theatre.

Something I Don’t Like: The con that balances the pro mentioned above is that the revue does showcase a composer-lyricist in process. The songs don’t grab one as later Herman creations would, nor do they sparkle with originality. Also, we go get to see something that was left behind: a Herman who might have been sharper, more satrirical, more trenchant than he became. I don’t like that largely left those aspects of his artistry behind.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Parade in the comment box!

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Double Take December: ANYTHING GOES

Posted on December 22, 2011 by David Fick
ANYTHING GOES

To purchase the 2011 Broadway Revival Cast Recording of ANYTHING GOES, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Anything Goes

Something I Like: I really enjoy watching Patti LuPone singing the title song on Broadway’s Lost Treasures. What a pity it is that there will never be another disc in that series. The score is also filled with other delightful Cole Porter gems, none better than the brilliant “You’re the Top”. Other highlights are the wisely reinstated “Easy to Love”, the effusive “Blow, Gabriel, Blow” and the charming “It’s De-Lovely”.

Something I Don’t Like: The interpolation of “Friendship” has never sat all that well with me, perhaps because (unlike “It’s De-Lovely”, which was first heard in a revue) the song is part of another legit musical comedy, DuBarry Was a Lady. The book, originally by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse before being revised by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, also sometimes has a rather tenuous grip on its multiple narratives. At its core, Anything Goes is a farce with musical theatre romance thrown in as a nod to convention, and I’d like it to have been made just that bit tighter in its construction when John Weidman and Timothy Crouse revised the book in the 1980s.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Anything Goes in the comment box!

Posted in Cole Porter, Guy Bolton, Howard Lindsay, John Weidman, PG Wodehouse, Russel Crouse, Timothy Crouse | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Double Take December: TABOO

Posted on December 21, 2011 by David Fick
TABOO

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of TABOO, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Taboo

Something I Like: It was a super show until Charles Busch got his hands on it. I like the earlier, unadulterated Mark Davies version better, is what I mean. I adore how committed Rosie O’Donnell is to Broadway musicals and I am glad she put her weight behind this one, losing $10 million in the process, but this show – one that had a beating heart and a great deal to commend it – was a mess by the time it got onto Broadway. At least the Boy George-Kevan Frost score is a centralfeature in both versions.

Something I Don’t Like: Charles Busch and his revisions. He doesn’t seem to understand what the show is about or how the various narrative strands tie together. With such a split in the very (re-)conception of the show, it’s little wonder that none of the elements of the Broadway production came together successfully.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Taboo in the comment box!

Posted in Boy George, Charles Busch, Kevan Frost, Mark Davies | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Double Take December: SOME LIKE IT VROT

Posted on December 20, 2011 by David Fick
KAT AND THE KINGS

To purchase the Cast Recording of KAT AND THE KINGS, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Some Like it Vrot

Something I Like: I really liked the two songs with love in the title, even though the second one “L.O.V.E” directly lifts it’s vamp from the classic Judy Garland song, “Zing Went the Strings of my Heart”.

Something I Don’t Like: Like its title, the show is a derivative echo of Some Like it Hot. The show, written by David Kramer, half of the team that created Kat and the Kings, also misses out on some obvious moments, including an onstage transformation of the two boys into their drag getup and the show is far too reliant on crass humour. This show could work if someone whipped the book into shape and if the bits of the score that don’t land (like the villain’s song early in the first act) were reworked.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Some Like it Vrot in the comment box!

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Double Take December: NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS

Posted on December 19, 2011 by David Fick
NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS

To purchase the DVD of NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Notre-Dame de Paris

Something I Like: I like that it gave Dannii Minogue a chance to be in a musical!

Something I Don’t Like: There’s just nothing subtle about it, neither in Riccardo Cocciante and Luc Plamondon’s score nor in the concert-style staging that seems to go part and parcel with the piece. Some of the lyrics in the English translation are lamentable.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Notre-Dame de Paris in the comment box!

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Double Take December: PARADE

Posted on December 18, 2011 by David Fick
PARADE

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of PARADE, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Parade

Something I Like: This is the show that gave Jason Robert Brown, in collaboration with Alfred Uhry, something really substantial to write about, allowing him to move away from autobiography and situational angst, thereby allowing us to see more clearly the development of his own voice as a composer. There are some moments of triumph here: the charmingly effusive “The Picture Show”, the compelling “You Don’t Know This Man” and the thrilling “This is Not Over Yet” are among them

Something I Don’t Like: It’s no secret that Brown is not at the top of my list when it comes to him and his musical theatre contemporaries. Here, with the pop music sensibilities that he often uses to temper his work on the back burner, the influence of Stephen Sondheim on Brown’s work becomes even more visible. This is not a bad thing necessarily, but I do wish we could hear Brown click into his own groove as a composer more astutely. That said, the man is an artist and that exploration is part of his journey and something to which he is fully entitled. It’s just that it’s also the reason why Parade musically slips into bombast from time to time and loses its sometimes incredibly keen focus on the very human story at the heart of this show – which is a pity given the very real high points it offers in its score.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Parade in the comment box!

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Double Take December: PASSING STRANGE

Posted on December 17, 2011 by David Fick
PASSING STRANGE

To purchase the DVD of PASSING STRANGE, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Passing Strange

Something I Like: Stew and Heidi Rodewald bring us intriguing subject matter done in an interesting way. The range of theatrical and musical influences that come to bear on this show are varied and challenging in combination, as were those that helped to create Fela! a few seasons later. Because of those influences, this show begins to play with what a piece of musical theatre can be. I also love how the different resonances of the word “passing” in the title are interpolated into the action of the play. There is some super music in the show. And its great that the show is preserved in Spike Lee’s filming of the piece.

Something I Don’t Like: Strangely enough, I suppose, there are times when I just don’t like Stew as the Narrator in this. At this point in time, I feel like its the persona Stew put forward in the role – so I would be interested to see someone else doing it, to see for sure if it is the actor or the role that I find jarring.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Passing Strange in the comment box!

Posted in Heidi Rodewald, Stew | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Double Take December: ON A CLEAR DAY…

Posted on December 16, 2011 by David Fick
ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Something I Like: The music is beautiful. Burton Lane really did some amazing work on this score. And although the lyrics written for the show show do not consistently represent Alan Jay Lerner’s best work, “What Did I Have That I Don’t Have?” and the titular song (in its chorus, at least) are both moving pieces of work. I like that there is a revisal of the show (currently running on Broadway) that has tried to give the best parts of the show a shot at a fully fulilled theatrical realisation, but I am not sure that this has been achieved. It seems to me that the new show has as many problems as the old one did, unfortunately.

Something I Don’t Like: The book is messy. There’s no balance found between the primary narrative thrust and the secondary narrative. It’s as though Lerner couldn’t unpack his ideas enough to find either the right focus for the show or an ideal balance between the two narratives to make the show work. Lerner’s lyrics for the show also tend to be self-conscious, lazy, repetitive and even trite at times, particularly but not only in the verses that lead into the songs. One really becomes aware of them as lyrics rather than experiencing them as chunks of dramatic action, which is a trademark of Lerner’s writing throughout his body of work.

Feel free to share your “double take” on On a Clear Day You Can See Forever in the comment box!

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Double Take December: PASSION

Posted on December 15, 2011 by David Fick
PASSION

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Filming of PASSION on DVD, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Passion

Something I Like: Stehphen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Passion has a brilliant, sophisticated, moving score that really shakes you right to the core by the time you’ve heard it all the way through. A mature work, for a mature ear and a mature soul – and a truly cathartic musical.

Something I Don’t Like: I don’t like how dismissive people are of Passion. People who call the passionless or dull are either not making the effort to engage with its complexity properly or avoiding engaging with it because it cuts too close to the bone. That’s my theory, and I’m sticking with it.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Passion in the comment box!

Posted in James Lapine, Stephen Sondheim | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Double Take December: MAME

Posted on December 14, 2011 by David Fick
MAME

To purchase the Original Broadway Cast Recording of MAME, click on the image above.

It’s Double Take December at Musical Cyberspace! Every musical pretty much has something one likes and something one doesn’t in it. This month I’ll be listing one of each for a range of musicals, a different one each day.

Mame

Something I Like: I adore “We Need a Little Christmas”, I really do, and at this time of the year it’s always on my playlist. Besides that song, the score also offers other great joys: the celebration song, “It’s Today”; the brilliantly awful “The Man in the Moon”; the ever-golden affirmation of friendship, “Bosom Buddies”; the immensely moving “If He Walked Into My Life”; and even the seemingly endless title song, “Mame”. Those songs all represent Jerry Herman doing what he did best with Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee crafting the book around his catchy tunes.

Something I Don’t Like: Angela Lansbury is awesome in the title role, both on the recording and in the existing video footage of her performance. It is a complete travesty that she was not allowed to play the role in the film version.

Feel free to share your “double take” on Mame in the comment box!

Posted in Jerome Lawrence, Jerry Herman, Robert Edwin Lee | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment