PAL JOEY
Word is that the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s 1940 musical comedy, Pal Joey, will be revived on Broadway in a limited engagement in December this year. Christian Hoff will star in the titular role, with Stockard Channing as Vera Simpson and Martha Plimpton as Gladys Bumps.
Lillian Ross has written a super article in The New Yorker about watching the revival with the daughters of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Mary Rodgers Guettel and Alice Hammerstein Mathias. Some of the highlights:
About the Orchestra in the Current Production:
Mary gave Alice an affectionate pat on the shoulder. “Did you see the trumpet in the orchestra pit?” she asked. “The player colored it bright orange! Did you ever see an orange trumpet before? And there are thirty live musicians! No fucking electronic stuff!”
About Harold Prince and Stephen Sondheim:
“I went to the opening, in 1949, with Hal Prince as my date,” Mary said. “I’d known him for three years, since I was fifteen. We ran into Steve Sondheim there, and I introduced Hal to him. Hal was worried about being drafted. They’ve been friends, and collaborators, ever since.” She said that Oscar Hammerstein had been a mentor to Sondheim. “I think Steve’s favorite R. and H. show is Carousel.”
About Richard Rogers:
“I don’t believe you can judge a genius by the way he treats the human race. He may be as mean as a snake, and my father often was. But a genius gives back – oh, my, does he ever…. People say that Daddy could compose music fast, five minutes after seeing the lyric, but he spent many weeks thinking about each song.”
Enjoy the rest by following the link above. It’s a great read!
Purchases from Amazon.com
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
1. South Pacific Original Broadway Cast CD.
2. South Pacific Original Film Soundtrack CD.
3. South Pacific Complete Studio Recording CD.
4. South Pacific Broadway Revival Cast CD.
Above: The French poster for the film version of BRIGADOON
Playbill is reporting that a revival of the classic Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe musical, Brigadoon, is headed for Broadway. However, this is a “revisal” rather than a straight revival of the show, which was last seen on Broadway in the 1980/1981 season. From the article:
Bill Haber and Liza Lerner (Alan Jay Lerner’s daughter) are the producers attached to the revival, which has a new book by John Guare, based on lyricist-librettist Alan Jay Lerner’s 1947 original, about two American hunters in Scotland who happen upon a centuries-old Scottish village — which is still stuck in the old days.
The New York Post previously reported that Guare’s new book reinvents Brigadoon as “a pacificist town that ‘disappeared’ in 1939 because its inhabitants didn’t want to live in a world torn apart by war.”
OK. The first thing that strikes me is the idea that Brigadoon disappeared in 1939. In the original version of the show, the town disappeared 200 years ago – in other words, during the 18th century – and appeared for one day every 100 years. Shortening the timespan in which the town appears and disappears starts meddling with things that are fundamental to the concept of the show and which would – I think – be better left alone.
But perhaps the information provided here isn’t comprehensive enough to make such a definitive assumption. Maybe it is only the latest appearance/disappearance of the village that takes place in 1939, which would mean that the village disappeared in 1739 and had returned once before in 1839. If Tommy and Jeff discover Brigadoon in 1939, are the stakes heightened for the characters when it comes to their respective motivations to stay or return to the real world, which is about to be hurled headlong into World War II?
But later in the Playbill article, the writers point up a contradiction between the description quoted above and what appears in the casting notice:
But the casting notice characterizes the production this way: “Vivid re-imagining of the classic 1947 production; new production with a revised book. Story of Tommy and Jeff, two modern-day American travelers, who stumble back in time to a village in 18th-century Scotland.”
“Stumble back in time”? Will this Brigadoon feature actual time-travel?!!
Until things become clearer, its hard to draw any real conclusions about this proposed revival of the show. If the Guare time shift aligns with World War II in the way I think it might rather than being a straight change of the time period, then the revisal might prove to be quite interesting. Time will tell…
LITTLE WOMEN
I was giving the cast album of Little Women, a show that has not made much of an impact on me in the past, another spin in the CD player recently and was, as ever, frustrated by what Mindi Dickstein and Jason Howland brought to the score of their adaptation of this much-beloved classic. I have a soft spot for the novel and have always thought that the novel had the potential to be a great musical, but this is not it.
During this listen, I wondered what the reviews of the Broadway production were like and found this evaluation of the show in Time. The overall tone of the review is positive, but the piece ends with a decidedly unambiguous slating of the score:
Richard Zoglin wrote:
Though it’s based on a beloved book for young people, Little Women: The Musical is the most adult new musical of the Broadway season and an unexpectedly satisfying meal. Skillfully adapted from Louisa May Alcott’s novel by Allan Knee…. the show is pretty, unpretentious, warmhearted but surprisingly restrained: even the death of Beth, the quiet sister felled by scarlet fever, takes place offstage…. If only the score by Jason Howland had a few decent tunes, Little Women might have been a real banquet.
Calling Little Women the most adult new musical of the season is damning the show with faint praise, considering that the only other new musicals that had opened by the time that Little Women premiered were Dracula and Brooklyn. The truly worthwhile new musicals of that season all opened after that. Of course, Zoglin didn’t have the advantage of knowing that when he wrote his review – but it does make me chuckle to think that his statement in this case really only holds true if you don’t know the context of the season in which Little Women was produced.
Oh well, the novel is in the public domain, so perhaps someone will take another shot at some point. Of that much, Louisa May Alcott’s stories about Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy are most certainly worthy…
The performances for this year will be:
Nothing will be performed from Lovemusik or Legally Blonde as they were not nominated for Best Musical. The Tony committee offered them a spot but were forced to retract the offer when the nominated musicals objected as they would have had to cut their spots to accommodate the extra performances.
Variety has run with an interesting article on the re-integration of musicals into popular culture. The full article is available here, but here are a few choice quotes:
David Rooney and Gordon Cox wrote:
Musicals are once again becoming part of the pop-culture consciousness, exerting an influence on advertising, chart-topping songs and, of course, movies….Pop shows like Wicked, Legally Blonde and Hairspray have helped shake the dust off the image of the old-fashioned Broadway musical. Those and similar shows haven’t always earned a unanimous critical embrace but have broadened the traditional tuner audience to a new generation, particularly – but not exclusively – teen and tweener girls….
The age of irony also has been good for the Broadway demographic, with self-satirizing shows like The Producers and Monty Python’s Spamalot, or irreverent comedies like Avenue Q contributing to make musicals more guy-friendly….
Shows that poke affectionate fun at the musical form, such as Curtains and The Drowsy Chaperone, have the double benefit of appealing to die-hard tunerphiles while making other folks feel they are in on the joke.
It’s a neat little summary of some of the trends that are current in musical theatre – and it’s always good to know that musical theatre has an impact on the world in a wider context.
Which was the musical that got you interested in musical theatre?
The first musical in my life was The Sound of Music. Until I was four, my Gran used to look after me during the daytime. And at nap time, she used to platy me one of three LP’s – the other two being My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins. The reason I single out The Sound of Music is that I, probably at around age 4 or 5, made a tape of myself singing Liesl’s part of “Sixteen Going on Seventeen”. I found the tape a couple of years ago and, even if I say so myself, I am pretty damn cute. I guess that is where the love affair started for me.
FAME
An offshoot from the eternal question: what exactly defines a musical in terms of the relationship between music and drama? I’m not convinced that this particular film can be called a musical, although the stage production sharing the same name and title track certainly is. Perhaps the best way to classify Fame would be to call it a pseudo-pop-dance-musical. Whatever it is, it is messy somewhat contrived, senselessly (and at the same time unavoidably) episodic: it really gets by because the cast is so committed to what they’re doing and because of the way it captured the spirit of the 1980s so perfectly. In the grand scheme of things, Fame most likely will be a footnote in the canon of movie musicals, along with Footloose, Dirty Dancing and Flashdance and the somewhat thin debate surrounding their classification.
The “Good Morning, Baltimore” is great, but what really makes the scene is what Santos says to Justin says afterwards. That’s one of the most awesome things I’ve ever seen.
Musical Cyberspace 
SOUTH PACIFIC Review Roundup
Broadway’s revival of South Pacific has opened to a set of excellent reviews. Here’s a roundup of what the critics are saying about the show:
Raves
Ben Brantley at The New York Times: For this South Pacific recreates the unabashed, unquestioning romance that American theatergoers had with the American book musical in the mid-20th century, before the genre got all self-conscious about itself. There’s not an ounce of we-know-better-now irony in Mr. Sher’s staging. Yet the show feels too vital to be a museum piece, too sensually fluid to be square. I could feel the people around me leaning in toward the stage, as if it were a source of warmth on a raw, damp day. And that warmth isn’t the synthetic fire of can-do cheer and wholesomeness…. It’s the fire of daily life, with all its crosscurrents and ambiguities, underscored and clarified by music.
David Rooney at Variety:This is undeniably a period piece but it’s approached here with a serious-minded contemporary sensibility that keeps it relevant. Mixed-race relationships may now be accepted, but as anyone following the presidential contest knows, race itself remains an issue. And questions about the morality of war, the loss of lives and the way America engages with the world inevitably continue to resonate today, perhaps even more than when the show was first seen in the aftermath of WWII…. Possibly the most accomplished young actress in American musical theater today, Kelli O’Hara’s creamy vocals are perfection…. Closer in age to Nellie than past actors in the role, handsome Brazilian operatic baritone Szot is new to musicals and a real find.
Cilve Barnes at The New York Post:Sher has been helped here by Christopher Gatelli’s boisterous but unobtrusive choreography, Michael Yeargan’s beautiful settings (at the start, the thrust stage rolls back to expose the full and eloquent orchestra) and Catherine Zuber’s carefully accurate costumes…. O’Hara delivers Nellie on her own terms and in her own deliquescent persona…. Szot… has a splendid voice, fine presence and acts superbly…. As for the rest, there’s not a single weakness – with Burstein offering a magnificent mix of sleaze and heart as Luther, and the excellent Morrison (whose profile resembles James Dean’s) leaves a poignant impression as the young airman, Cable.
Joe Dziemianowicz at The Daily News: O’Hara is just plain wonderful…. Szot… with a rich baritone ideal for de Becque…. Hawaiian actress Loretta Ables Sayre is the find of the season, completely convincing and hilarious. Danny Burstein brings rowdy good fun to scheming seaman Luther Billis, while Morrison, as always, delivers a strong performance…. Sher has reinstated “My Girl Back Home,” a duet cut from the Broadway original, which neatly ties Joe and Nellie’s stories. It’s a simple and magical number shrewdly staged near dozens of road signs – a neat comment on feeling adrift far, far from home. Such consummate care and eye for detail pervades this production, even the scene changes.
Michael Sommers at The New Jersey Star-Ledger: Some enchanted experience, South Pacific returns to Broadway in as perfect a production as anyone is ever likely to see…. Expect no offbeat concepts from director Bartlett Sher, who focuses intently on the drama in this saga of American military personnel stationed on a Pacific island during the bleakest days of World War II…. Designer Michael Yeargan melds misty tropical views, military equipment like flatbed trucks and a bomber, slatted screens and Donald Holder’s colorful lighting to create a series of handsome vistas.
John Simon at Bloomberg: Director Bartlett Sher’s challenge was reviving without exactly repeating the original staging, and he (with choreographer Christopher Gattelli) has made some fine contributions, while smartly retaining certain Logan masterstrokes. Sher restored material cut from the original script that deals compellingly with racism. He has excelled at getting mute, peripheral characters to scurry about or linger atmospherically to perfection (note two distant, sunbathing nurses), and in making first-rate use of an airplane and all sorts of military equipment…. Most important, Sher has retained the cinematic flow, naturalism and suggestive use of Trude Rittman’s brilliant underscoring.
Elysa Gardner at USA Today: Bartlett Sher and a gifted, great-looking cast fully engage both the challenges faced by these and other characters and the romantic sweep of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s ravishing score. Led by Brazilian baritone Paulo Szot and the increasingly wondrous Kelli O’Hara, the company includes a superb Matthew Morrison as golden-boy lieutenant Joe Cable; a frisky Loretta Ables Sayre as Bloody Mary; and two of the most adorable child actors you’re likely to ever see, Luka Kain and Laurissa Romain as Emile’s little ones. I doubt there has ever been a nobler or sexier Emile than Szot’s.
Michael Kuchwara at Associated Press: Director Bartlett Sher has done a masterful job in balancing story and song. For one thing, his leads are youthful, sexy and can act. Kelli O’Hara… makes an endearing Ensign Nellie Forbush, the self-described “little hick” and “cock-eyed optimist” from Little Rock, Ark. O’Hara finds both parts of this exuberant, insecure woman…. Brazilian opera star Paulo Szot brings a debonair charm to the role of de Becque and manages to turn that old warhorse, “Some Enchanted Evening,” into something that is not only emotional but resonates believability within the context of the story – two people falling in love at first glance.
Positive
Eric Grode at New York Sun: It is the finest Rodgers and Hammerstein revival since Nicholas Hytner’s epochal Carousel of 1994 – which may be the finest musical revival to reach Broadway during that time – and it is a tonic for anyone seeking the glories of modern-day stagecraft employed in the service of musical-theater greatness. Mr. Sher is seemingly incapable of creating a stage picture that is imprecise or unattractive…. Paulo Szot and the wonderful Kelli O’Hara, each show an acute sensitivity to dynamics…. Morrison’s pop-inflected tenor mars Cable’s material, and his military bravado has an unwelcome touch of playacting.
John Lahr at The New Yorker: Under the elegant, astute direction of Bartlett Sher, Lincoln Center’s revival… is a majestic spectacle…. Kelli O’Hara puts a fine shine on the role of Nellie. She has a good voice; she’s charming; she cartwheels and cuts up on cue. But… O’Hara is too classy and too knowing to fit the idiosyncratic comic contours of the role. This doesn’t impede her or the musical from getting over, but it lowers the temperature of the flamboyant end result. As Émile, the Brazilian Paulo Szot is superb, with a resounding creamy bass voice and a warm masculine presence. He plays well opposite the lithe O’Hara.
Mixed
David Finkle at Theatremania: While Bartlett Sher’s current revival of South Pacific… is not a perfect realization… it’s near enough that anyone caviling about its drawbacks for more than 10 seconds is just a spoil-sport…. For the high quality of the production’s many noteworthy facets, Sher can take a bow…. It’s also Sher who must shoulder responsibility for what many will consider a misconstrued interpretation of Nellie, who’s far more restrained in O’Hara’s performance than someone vociferously declaring herself “a cockeyed optimist” would likely be. Sher also might have helped Szot seem less awkward during the book scenes than he does.
Frank Scheck at The Hollywood Reporter: Directed by Bartlett Sher, this lavish production doesn’t always succeed on a purely dramatic level, with the story line involving the major characters never quite connecting the way it should. But it does do full justice to the glorious score, and that’s more than enough…. The main performers simply don’t bring the requisite charm to their roles; O’Hara and Morrison stress the seriousness of their characters’ predicaments at the expense of much of their humor, and Szot… sings gorgeously but delivers a hopelessly stiff performance…. Fortunately, at least two of the supporting players take up the slack, with Danny Burstein’s conniving Luther Billis being a constant source of delight and Loretta Ables Sayre investing Bloody Mary with a galvanizing combination of humor and steeliness.
Matthew Murray at Talkin’ Broadway: Something this transporting, this precise, and this beautiful can only be crafted by the most skilled of hands…. O’Hara is riveting in her dramatic scenes…. But she’s not the irrepressible spirit she describes in “A Cockeyed Optimist” or the defiant feminist of “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair”…. Morrison’s problem is the opposite. Though dynamite in his lighter scenes, he strains as his role’s weightiness increases, connecting with his vital songs on the superficial level of the less-experienced Cable, but not of the more complex, conflicted man he eventually becomes. Everyone else is spectacular.
Jeremy McCarter at New York Magazine: Kelli O’Hara’s pure voice, easy charm, and golden good looks are so rare a combination they’re almost scary…. Paulo Szot doesn’t offer much in the way of swooning charisma, playing stiffly…. Not detecting much chemistry between O’Hara and Szot is, I recognize, a minority view…. There’s a lot to admire in Bartlett Sher’s revival…. It all immerses you in the forties, even though little in Richard Rodgers’s lushly orchestral score admits its origins in the high swing era…. Alas, a pioneer spirit doesn’t make the show complex or challenging enough to keep up with the racial conversation we’re having today. If it’s relevant now, it’s largely through letting us see how far our cultural depictions of American race relations have come.
Adam Feldman at Time Out New York: Bartlett Sher’s revival of South Pacific is faultlessly decorous. The staging is always elegant; the cast… acts with restraint and sings beautifully…. But is South Pacific a masterpiece? The score is a treasure, certainly, but elements of this 1949 show’s depiction of military life now seem corny, as does the pedantic antiracism song “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” And although the strings beneath their dialogue signify romance from the start, there is something creepy about the rushed central relationship between American nurse Nellie Forbush (the lovely O’Hara, totally capable as always but a touch on the chilly side) and the wealthy, older French plantation owner Emile de Becque.
Michael Feingold at Village Voice: South Pacific, directed by Bartlett Sher, plumps for the work’s seriousness, approaching it with quiet realism…. An additional pinch of that showbiz self-mockery wouldn’t have hurt Sher’s production, which at times seems too sedate. Kelli O’Hara’s winsome, beautifully sung Nellie surprisingly lacks vigor; Loretta Ables Sayre makes Bloody Mary more amiable than lewdly ferocious…. Against this, it’s the graver romantics who register most strongly: Li Jun Li makes a fetchingly delicate Liat, Matthew Morrison’s Lieutenant Cable supplies everything the role needs, including a hint of aristocratic hauteur, while handsome, stalwart-voiced Paulo Szot, an unusually young de Becque, will probably soon figure in a lot of romantic playgoers’ dreams.
In the light of this successful critical reaction, the producers have announced that the revival will now play an open-ended run. This is wonderful news – South Pacific is my favourite Rodgers and Hammerstein musical and ultimately the one, in my opinion, that has the potential to outlast any of the others.
Purchases from Amazon.com
FROM LEFT TO RIGHT:
1. South Pacific Original Broadway Cast CD.
2. South Pacific Original Film Soundtrack CD.
3. South Pacific Complete Studio Recording CD.
4. South Pacific Broadway Revival Cast CD.