There were signs of life in the Bway musical as the 1990s
progressed, tho the Bronze Age wasn't over yet. But Hlwd's relation to Bway was
always a decade behind, which left the '90s as barren of film musicals as the
'80s were on the Rialto. With the exception of a few hits, Bway was having a
mix of Golden Age revivals (mainly retooled); lazy movie adaptations, and
post-Sondheim experiments of all stripes --most lacking comedy. Given time and
more success with movie musicals some of those listed below may still become
films--if they aren't already in development.
Grand Hotel arrived on the eve of the decade; a rare resuscitation of
a failed musical (from 1958) that actually worked. It took guts, half a new
score and Tommy Tune to polish its tarnished edges. Based on Vicki Baum's 1929
novel, adapted for the stage and later made immortal by MGM's first All-Star motion
picture, the musical was commissioned by California Civic Light Opera honcho,
Edwin Lester for his favorite writers, Bob Wright & Chet Forrest, who had
done him good adapting classical composers for Song of Norway and Kismet--only
this time they wrote their own tunes. The show (which starred Paul Muni and
Joan Deiner--being cast, as usual, by her husband, director Albert Marre) played
subscription engagements in LA & SF and then shuttered before Bway. Three
decades later it was disinterred by the last remaining master-stager from the
Golden Age, Tommy Tune. Luther Davis's '58 book credit was retained tho Peter
Stone rewrote and reset the story back in Baum's original Berlin (At the Grand was set in Rome); and only
half the original score was used. Tune brought in Maury Yeston (with whom he'd
done Nine) to fill in some gaps. The
result was a seamless gem that evoked a 1920s German sound without echoes of Kurt
Weill or John Kander. The show played over a thousand performances, longer than
its Tony-winning rival, City of Angels,
but in the still crippled Bway climate of 1990 didn't risk a recording until
just a month before closing (by which time original Tony-nominated Baron, David
Carroll was dead.) Lilianne Montevecchi and Karen Akers were stars carried over
from Nine, but the real show-stealers
were newcomer Jane Krakowski and elf-ish Michael Jeter whose joyous
transformation from oppressed clerk to lucky man of means (albeit dying) is so
vividly captured in his Tony performance of "We'll Take a Glass
Together" (available on YouTube)--a feat so giddy, it always moves me to
blissful tears.
I saw the show on Bway, and years later in a more
intimate, yet equally affecting staging in LA; its multi-story arc of
desperation & resolution ("people come, people go") never truly
dates, which suggests movie potential as well. Of course, MGM would seem to
have the inside track, but movie musicals (esp. those from Bway) and MGM as a
functioning studio were tropes of the past. Had it been otherwise, it would've
been easy to cast as a mid-to-late '90s movie: Kevin Kline as the Baron, Meryl
Streep as Grushinskaya, Dustin Hoffman as Presysing, Daniel Day-Lewis as
Kringelein; Rene Zellwegger, or Krakowski as Flaemmchen--just for starters.
Unless an Encores! production brings new excitement to the show (ala' Chicago) it doesn't seem likely Grand Hotel will make it to the screen,
but if it does there will likely be no shortage of real stars to fill its juicy
roles.
It was more fitting to see City of Angels in LA than
on Bway--so I didn't bother using up a night in NY, and waited until it came to
the Century City Shubert. As a big fan of Cy Coleman I was thrilled to have him
back after nearly a decade's absence. The show, with a clever, if complicated
book by Larry Gelbart pitting a Hlwd writer's life against his noir alter ego
(in color vs. b&w), was headier than most. But I wasn't as keen as I'd hoped
over Coleman's score with its heavy reliance on Eisenhower era jazz. (Where was
the cover album by Lambert, Hendricks & Ross?) Yet, "With Every Breath
I Take" is a stunning sonic translation of noir in mood and feel, and in
the reprise duet positively breathless. The only other track I'm compelled to return
to time & again, is the marimba victory song, "All You Have to Do Is
Wait"--which doesn't remotely sound like something heard in the '40s, but slides
across with a seductive Latin beat--listen to the bridge ("Time to
fiesta...") for a real slice of Rahadlakum. And mention should be made of
David Zippel's zippy lyrics, especially here:
I'm
leading an ovation
At your asphyxiation
As crowds line up
To watch you pay your debts
I'll collect my bets
Playing castanets
Had the climate been friendlier a mid-'90s movie could've
been argued for, with good roles for Travolta and Mandy Patinkin as the two
halves of Stone/Stine. And plenty of
candidates for the distaff support: wives,
sirens, gal fridays. Even another good role for Madonna (whose vocal on
"Every Breath You Take" seems de
reguier). Not that Bway's Angels
had much star power. Randy Graff, Dee Hoty, Rachel York--talents yes, but none
a blazing original like those that showed up regularly when Bway still made Stars. Leads James Naughton &
Gregg Edelman were of even less wattage. But what mattered here was the
conceit; the literariness of Gelbart's libretto--that rare musical whose songs
take a back seat to the book. For this reason, and being a spoof of Hlwd, and
in particular its noir genre, a City of
Angels movie has much potential. Tho by now, this is perhaps a road too
well tread--witness the Coen Bros. recent witless, Hail Caesar! I suspect there would be more interest were the score
more tantalizing--tho it won Coleman his 2nd Tony award. 
He would cop his third a year later, and in a more
competitive season--with a bit of every trend: The latest whale from London; a
period classic novel adaptation; the Bway debut of a dedicated new musical team;
and then an old-fashioned musical comedy--albeit in concept form: the story of
Will Rogers as if staged by Florenz Zeigfeld: The Will Rogers Follies. Of
course it wasn't staged by Zeigfeld, but the last Golden Age wunderkind, Tommy
Tune. Coleman was back in fine form to my ears, with a cheery, tuneful, if not
indelible, score--that sounds at times like Jule Styne, which isn't too
surprising given the lyrics are by Comden & Green (their final Bway show,
capping a half-century career with another hit and a Tony). It was also the
longest Bway run for all the authors. And my 10th (and possibly final?) visit
to the fabled Palace Theater. In Keith Carradine they found a laid-back, middle-aged
former hippie who embodied the spirit of Rogers perfectly. It was a perfect
"tired businessman's show." A smart-alecky masculine lead surrounded
by dozens of showgirls in visually spectacular, easily digestible production
numbers.
What's not to like? But there wasn't much here for the movies. Will Rogers
segued into pics in 1918 and by the end of his life in '35 was at the peak of
his popularity--cementing his status as the American Everyman Cowboy Humorist Philosopher & Movie Star--But unlike his
early stage years, there's really no equivalent "revue" concept to
translate into pictures. Follies, is
exactly what it announces: a stage show, and thus a hard sell for the movies.
One of the show's highlights was an entire row of seated chorines, playing patty-cake and kicking their alternately
red & blue stockinged legs in rally for "Our Favorite Son" --stunning,
yes, but about the antithesis of cinematic. No, Hlwd didn't come calling.
Tho he worked on many projects thru these years, Cy
Coleman would only get one more musical to Bway, The Life in 1997. A
would-be Threepenny following the
fortunes of (mostly black) whores and pimps set in the sleaziest Times Square
circa 1980. Unfiltered in language and
content, The Life was equally sans
poetry. In a time of encroaching Disneyfication, here was an odd bit of
nostalgia for darker days. (And why is it that the trashiest characters are
always black?) There's a progression of grimness in Coleman's trio of New York
musicals: Sweet Charity to Seesaw to The Life. But tho the rousing "My Body" recalls Charity's
"There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This;" most of the score sounds
more like Seesaw's grittier,
"hipper" attempts ("My City"; "Ride Out the
Storm"). Where Seesaw's Gittel
wondered, "He's Good for Me/But Am I Good for Him?" Life's Queen determined "He's No Good/But
I'm No Good Without Him"--same self-denigration, more fatalism. The
musical, which ran a year on Bway despite its pleasureless themes and ugly milieu,
found its only joy in vulgarity. Take that, Disney!--it seemed to rebuke, tho
the Empire struck back mere months later, and now The Lion King threatens to never close. Lacking humor, or even much
poignancy above cliche, The Life didn't
have the pulse to transfer to the screen.
On the other hand, Miss Saigon is already years in the
development stage, and will likely be on screens within a few years. An updated
retelling and expansion on Madame
Butterfly, set during the Vietnam War, the sophmore spectacle from Les Miz's Boubil & Schonberg (with
lyric assist by Richard Maltby--scoring a retirement goldmine away from partner
David Shire) was the latest British behemouth brought to NY under a cloud of
controversy and yet another record advance sale. The overblown production led Village Voice critic Michael Feingold to
notoriously declare it evidence of the End of Western Civilization. He wasn't
in the mood. For all its bombast the show is gripping and perhaps has the
better score of all the British poperettas that peppered the Rialto in the last
decades of the 20th century. (For sheer La Scala-size magnificence, "This
is the Hour," has few Bway matches, and suggests that Schonberg's
compositions will slide into the classical repretory one day as easily as the
once-decried Puccini.) I waited until the edge of the millenium to break down
and see the show on Bway. Stuck up in the second balcony from an impulse TKTS
choice, I was impressed at how well the Broadway Theater was fitted for sound.
Lea Salonga was back in the show then, which was running close to 4,000
performances. Yet I could see the true power of the piece, as close to opera,
really, as musical theater gets, and appropriately so. A true star, Lea hasn't
obliterated all racial barriers (ala
Audra McDonald) and outside of voicing animation, has been mostly confined to playing
the Asian repertory. Charges of racisim and misogyny have clung to the show
since its inception, to little commercial deficet. Orientalism continues to
grow as a touchy subject; as western interpretations of Asian culture are by
nature exotica--and as such, offensive to some. Yet most occidental audiences
fail to see what's demeaning. If certain characters reflect the underbelly of
Vietnamese society, we don't take that as reflection of a whole culture anymore
than we'd think the Mafia taints all things Italian. 
Another fiery contest was
over Jonathan Pryce reprising his London perf in NY--as disputed by Equity.
Producer Cameron Mackintosh threatened to cancel the whole production, so
Equity caved. (Curiously nothing seemed in dispute about Salonga--who was
likewise not a US citizen, but a Filipina.) Presumably they understood the
difficulty of prime Asian talent, still. Yet here we were decades after Flower Drum Song, and a Brit actor was
not only blatantly cast, but considered essential for Bway. Personally I don't
see the indelible Star in the equation, and we'll certainly see a very
different one in the coming film version. Tho Britain's musical takeover has
yielded unprecented theatrical fortunes, the poperettas haven't done quite as
spectacularly on screen. Understandably Miss
Saigon's future was predicated on how Les
Miserables fared at the box office. The news was encouraging and plans are
moving forward. Potential directors mentioned include Lee Daniels and Danny
Boyle.
The success of Phantom
and Les Miz renewed energy in
adapting literary classics; and soon they came: Anna Karenina, Jekyll & Hyde, A Tale of Two Cities, The Scarlet
Pimpernel, The Woman in White, Jane Eyre, Therese Raquin, Little Women, The Hunchback
of Notre Dame, Dracula, Rebecca--most of them flops. Ahead of them all came
The
Secret Garden in 1991. Pulitzer-winning playwright, Marsha Norman,
adapted Frances Hodgson Burnett's children's classic, wisely avoiding the
sung-thru format; tho Lucy Simon's score is rich and full without operatic
pretensions. Produced by scenic designer Heidi Landesman, who created a set of
Victorian storybook designs that were enchantment itself, the musical has an
atmospheric, gloomy, almost Hitchcockian mise en scene; a haunted house, a
magical garden. There's much death and depression all around that takes a full
evening to heal; it's not really a show for children--only the most patient and
avid. For them it could be mind-blowing--surely it was to some during its two-year
Bway run. Without meaning to I chanced into it impulsively thru TKTS and found
myself pleasantly persuaded. Lucy (sister of Carly) Simon's score is fiercely
appropriate to the source, yet sounds fresh, lush and in a voice of its
own--not Sondheim, not poperetta, not traditional Bway musical. (My ex, TC,
would play the CD frequently on Sunday mornings--along with Nine--it never got old). Cast with
audacious Bway talent: Mandy Patinkin, Rebecca Luker, Alison Fraser, John
Cameron Mitchell; the show oozed "specialness," not least for
introducing an 11 year-old, Daisy Eagan as the antidote to armies of Bway Annies. (Eagan, Marsha Norman &
Landesman would win the show's only Tony Awards--against Miss Saigon and Will Rogers
Follies.)
As a film prospect, the narrative-heavy score weighed
against it in the uncertain millenium years, tho it may yet see light of day.
There is always a market for moody, period British mysteries, and Secret Garden is no slouch in that
department, with catharsis and rebirth its primary destinations. And Simon's
score has at times a folksy, slightly Celtic beat that wouldn't sound out of
place on a U2, or Van Morrison album. Like Rupert Holmes before her (with The Mystery of Edwin Drood), Lucy Simon
brought her roots in folk/rock to assist her theatrical instincts, brilliantly
fusing them together. And also like Holmes, it's too bad she hasn't written
more for the stage. It would be a quarter of a century before she got another
show to Bway; only to see it quickly expire. With inexcusable neglect I have
yet to listen to Doctor Zhivago.
Whatever the show's faults, chances are Simon's score is least among them.
In the parched desert of the '80s, one new composing voice
was heralded from its first rumblings Off-Off-Bway. Praise for William Finn's compositional
talent seemed hyperbolic until I heard it myself. Here was something fresh and unique--without
any hints of rock, Sondheim or Lloyd Webber influence. Finn's style is
colloquial in both lyrics & music, steeped in an everyday vernacular with a
surprising melodicism. The so-called Marvin Trilogy was shaped by James Lapine
into a two-act Bway musical, Falsettos in '92. Tho virtually a
sung-thru show there's no whiff of opera about the musical; nor sense of being
overdone. Finn's narrative gathers specific, non-heroic characters in an
unconvential family grouping, that seems to reach the universal the deeper it
delves into its smallest details. A non-cliched, non-salacious, matter-of-fact
presentation of gays at the story's center was groundbreaking. No one's sexual
preference was of dramatic issue here, but accepted at face value without being
used for any incident. And tho it ran 14 months at the compact John Golden
Theater, it was possibly too ahead of its time. (Losing the Tony to a populist-friendly
Gershwin reboot, Crazy for You.)
Perhaps the upcoming Bway revival will elevate the show's cult status to a
higher profile. Certainly any thought of a film version rests on a passion for
the material over commercial expectations. But the story's insular nature
requires no expensive trappings--neither sets or costumes, nor extras or
special effects; this is a relative bargain for a musical, and with a clever
director might make an effective film. The script's seven fully deliniated
characters are three couples: gay, lesbian & straight, and one child whose
navigation of this minefield is the clever viewpoint for unfamiliar viewers.
Casting would be a delicious task. Juicy roles await the likes of Jake
Gyllenhaal, Amy Adams, Jonathan Groff, Jennifer Lawrence, Adam Driver, Melissa
McCarthy, just to start the potential list. Tho my heart shall remain forever in Michael Rupert's corner; his
velvet baritone arousingly manly, cut with shadings of a three day beard.
There's no better male love duet than the musical's ultimate moment "What
Would I Do? (If I had not met you)" where lovers face early death from
AIDS, in a song of such emotional heft and beauty as to induce tears of
astonishment. Exquisite.
William Finn's voice is so personal he seems incapable of writing
outside of his own experience. His attempts at broader themes (a pageant of
Americana; a play by Kaufman & Ferber) have fizzled. Another circle of
friends & family surround another gay man in crisis in Finn's '98 A New
Brain, built around a frazzled composer suffering a tumor--facing
mortality with contemplation of love and artistic accomplisment. That Finn had
such a scare himself is obvious. Again the score poured forth from a highly
personal place, and in my opinion it's even better than Falsettos. With songs about writing
songs with insipid (or reality-check) messages for children; or about
subjects such as damage wrought by a gambling-addicted father; a mother's
resentment of her son's books; a bag lady's disgust at do-gooders offer of
change; feeling horny on the eve of risky surgery; a list of restaurant
specials by a perky waitress (Kristen Chenoweth in a small role); the plight of
a fat male nurse, eating himself alive; the serenity of sailing--all subjects
of peculiar specificity, yet such infectious rhythm and melody they go down as
easily as the best pop tunes. With such talent it's a shame Bway didn't welcome
a new William Finn show every other year. 
Rushing in to fill the breach, BMI workshop graduates Lynn
Ahrens & Stephen Flaherty were the '90s most dedicated Bway newbies. Unlike
Finn, A&F were master adapters zig-zaging thru wildy diverse sources, none
from personal experience. Their first musical was based on the Peter
Cook/Dudley Moore cult film, Bedazzled--a
brilliant movie candidate for musicalization. But rights weren't given, and we
are deprived of hearing their effort so far. After their Playwrights Horizons
Off-Bway workshop debut, Lucky Stiff (which improbably was turned into a film
decades later--which we'll get to) their follow up, an adaptation of Rosa Guy's
Caribbean novel, Once on This Island, was developed into a modest Bway hit. As
usual, the Carib island setting prescribed a folktale narrative, but unlike
Harold Arlen's House of Flowers or Jamaica, this had more reggae than Rialto.
Lincoln Center welcomed their next effort,
My Favorite Year, a too-literal adaptation of the 1982 movie--a
charming comedy about the early days of live TV, that is favorite pic of mine. The
movie has a balance of comedy, romance and satire that already feels like a
musical, thus seemingly good material for Bway tunesmiths; and tho A&H's
score is nothing less than professional, it doesn't elevate the story one iota.
The show brought Lainie Kazan back to Bway--in a gem of a cameo expanded for
the stage. but the big winner of the enterprise was Andrea Martin, the sole
performer to outshine their screen predecessor. She won her first Tony, and
began a regular affair with Bway--as befitting this astonishing comedienne. The
show didn't catch on, but even if it had would be redundant to film. More and
more movies were turning into musicals, with too few for good reason or worthy
result: some eked out long runs, but none brought light to Bway.
Ragtime was supposed to be the Show Boat of our time. E.L. Doctorow's panoramic novel was an
audacious melding of real and historic figures, a pagaent of Americana circa
1906; a time of growing pains. Milos Forman directed a would-be epic movie in
1981, which despite luring James Cagney out of a twenty year retirement,
eschewed an all-star cast in favor of newer talent (Mary Steenburgen, Howard
Rollins Jr., Elizabeth McGovern, Brad Dourif, Mandy Patinkin). The film
received 8 Oscar nominations but not Best Picture or Director--and won none. Time
has not grown its cachet. Two noms went to Randy Newman, (for scoring &
song) perhaps the closest pop composer to the spirit of ragtime. Ahrens &
Flaherty had to audition for the musical. Assembled and incubated by Canadian
producer, Garth Drabinsky (who was later imprisoned for financial fraud), the
show was workshopped and tested in open-ended runs in Toronto & LA before
coming in to Bway in January '98. The lavish, over-produced show suffered from
fresh comparison to the recent heralds hurled at Julie Taymor's radical
re-imaging of The Lion King--which
took the all-important Best Musical Tony. Ragtime
ran for two years but didn't earn the passionate embrace of the public.
Playwrights were hired for both screen and stage adaptations--Michael Weller,
who gave Milos Forman an actual screenplay for Hair; wrote the movie; Terrence McNally the libretto--which in its
structure as a musical is closer to Doctorow's carnival of events. The opening
is ingenious in introducting a large cast of characters, delineating three
major groups: immigrants, blacks and the landed gentry--as well the celebrated
figures who walk among them; all to the music of the new century in progress:
"Ragtime." There isn't much to criticize of A&F's score, a
polished, melodic & anthemic achievement. I'm especially fond of "New
Music" and "Our Children." And yet why is it I can't seem to connect
to it with any passion? Charles Strouse's Rags--which
shares a similar period & immigrant narrative, as well as partial title--a
Bway flop, but with a score that thrills me in a way Ragtime never does. Poor Strouse, he went from project to project
thru the end of the century, but just couldn't get traction on anything worth
his talent.
Among the few remaining Golden Age teams Kander & Ebb persevered
thru the millenium --and beyond. In '92 they reuinted with Hal Prince (who
first hired them back in '65) to tackle Manuel Puig's Argentine noir, Kiss
of the Spider Woman. Another book & movie adaptation by Terrence
McNally with another "suspected" terrorist; this one safely in prison--rooming
with a queer, who typical of K&E musicals conjures musical sequences
outside the narrative reality. The "emcee" here is the titular femme
fatale, a construct of the gay lad's imagination--his coping mechanism; a role built for Chita
Rivera. Tho she wasn't in the show's first incarnation that
mistake was remedied with further test engagements in Toronto and London,
before settling in to a two-year run on Bway. I never did get to NY during that
period, and subsequently never saw the show on tour either. But I had seen
Hector Babenco's Oscar-nominated movie, which impressed primarily for its lead
actors: Oscar-winning William Hurt and Raul Julia (who switched roles after
they were cast). Tho Chita headlined, the musical's leads were Brent Carver
& Anthony Crivello--competent performers with little star wattage--further
example of Prince's preference for character over star charisma. Puig's prison
romance in which a silly queen wins the love of an anti-fascist revolutionary,
and finds "redemption" of his shallow (movie-obsessed) life in his
sacrifice to save his cellmate. This isn't just serious musical theater, it's
grim. Relief comes in the form of cinematic fantasies that break up the
narrative; with almost flashing signs saying "insert song here." Even
with Prince shaping the project you don't see this as Sondheim material. It's
tailor-made for Kander & Ebb--and the result is thoroughly on point but
lacking surprise; more Bway than South American in feel. You don't think of the
show as "Argentine," the way you do with Lloyd-Webber's
rock/pop/opera fusion, Evita. Not
until the first-act closer, "Gimme Love," do we get anything that
explodes with Latin percussion. And not much afterward. A serious show demands
serious music, and there are many ballads, some nearly lullabies. It's doubtful
Hlwd gave much consideration to a movie version, if for no other reason than
the memory of the acclaimed Babenco film. Perhaps if Madonna still had any
clout as a screen star she could generate interest. Don't hold your breath.
Kander & Ebb still had another five musicals produced
ahead, but the only other to reach Bway in the '90s was Steel Pier-a sad misfire
that was their biggest flop since 70,
Girls, 70. The brief, pathetic Depression-era fad for marathon dancing (which
happily has never been revived) suggests an obvious milieu for a musical. Here
again, this is no comedy--but a portrait of desperate people in desperate
circumstances. The benchmark here is the 1969 Sydney Pollack film, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? likely
the inspiration for K&E, if not their initial source. But David Thomson's
book turned into a sticky stew of sentiment and camp centering on a dead pilot
come to life by divine providence to get Karen Ziemba to move on with her life.
Of course a show of this scope has plenty of supporting players--each with
their own story. Prominent among them, Debra Monk singing Fred Ebb's lewdest ever
lyric ("Everybody's Girl") in as vulgar a manner possible, lip-smacking
such lines as "And so to reaffirm my status/It's absolutely gratis/To use
my apparatus/I'm everybody's girl." Within the K&E canon this score feels
like nothing but trunk songs. A trunk show as well. 
Stephen Sondheim continued his late career leisurely pace
with ever quirkier musicals. Assassins got a brief showcase run
(for the privileged few) at Playwrights Horizons in '91, but took another 13
years to get to Bway. A meditation on killers of American presidents, the
musical (written with John Weidman) was a story-less narrative more akin a
revue. Not film material. Nor was his next (and to date, last new Bway show) Passion
in '96, a chamber opera that was filmed onstage for PBS's American
Playhouse--demonstrating no further need for cinematic transcription. Given this is a rare project initiated by
Sondheim himself, there's more than usual revealing his psyche. A passionless
musical about passion, that disguises its true core as a gay fantasy: where the
queer breaks down the resistence of his straight prey. Was Steve aware, or in
denial? I confess to enjoying it (on PBS) more than I'd expected--but this is only caviar for the general. 
Having dominated the '80s as no one else, Andrew Lloyd
Webber slowed down in the next decade, presumably to count his billions. His
first post-Phantom show was a curious
tangle of romantic couplings between an English soldier and a French actress across
18 years; toying blithely with all manner of young/old pairings, including that
of a 15 year old girl. Based on a 1955 novella by British novelist, David
Garnett, Aspects of Love was more suggestive of an Eric Rohmer film;
something inherently French, the kind of social tolerance we puritan Americans
accept as "Continental"--but condemn at home. The show ran three
years in London but less than one in New York. As always, L-W stuffs the show
with endless music, this one without a hint of pop sensibility--which even Phantom had at times. There's as little
humor as there is spoken word; a serious study of amour. (And doesn't Sondheim's
Passion--in both form and gravity--seem
like a kissing cousin to this work?) L-W was introduced to the book when first
asked to write some songs for a proposed film version that never came off. It
isn't likely his sung-thru score will ever bring it closer to the screen.
Billy Wilder's gothic masterpiece, Sunset Blvd was Bway bait
for many years. Gloria Swanson first spearheaded a musical version in the late
'50s, which (possibly from being in amateur hands) went nowhere. In the early '60s Hal Prince tried to get it
off the ground with Stephen Sondheim. But it was finally, Lloyd Webber, the
post-Phantom-King-of-the-World who
took it to completion, full of pomp & circumstance and a production as
elaborate as Phantom. Wilder's
screenplay is so tight, there was no room or need to expand or alter; so in
essence it was putting the action and dialogue to music. Of course as usual Sir
Andrew never met a passage he didn't want to set to music. But with sincere
homage to film composers of the story's late '40s era, such as Max Steiner,
Franz Waxman and Miklos Rozsa, L-W's score is consistently fascinating in how
it captures the mood of each scene; how it sounds "cinematic." Patti
Lupone, who despite its import on her career cites Evita as one of the worst experiences of her life, returned to
L-W's clutches for the privilege of debuting Norma in London, with full intention
of moving on to NY. But major scandale
erupted when L-W thought better of re-casting for America, granting Glenn Close
the honor of tryout in LA (where I first got to see it) and subsequently on
Bway. Having the London OCR to absorb the score, I was less impressed with
Close in both voice and performance--her craziness seemed too over the top. But
Judy Kuhn's Betty Schaffer was beautifully sung--tho her pregnancy lost her the
role on Bway to Alice Ripley. With Close & Co. heading East, the search was
on for a third Norma to remain at Century City.
In my last year on Bonner Dr. in West Hlwd I heard singing
from a nearby backyard; a woman's voice, strained and painfully off key at
times, always singing one of Norma's Sunset
ballads. Keep your day job was my
thought. I didn't realize who this was until one afternoon I saw Faye Dunaway
outside my kitchen window in Alex & Loretta's driveway. She was looking for
her cat. We spoke. What I should have said but didn't was, "You're Faye
Dunaway, You used to be in pictures. You used to be big." She was living
one house a way--a serious down-sizing in the slope of her film career. But now
Lloyd-Webber had hand-picked her to replace Glenn Close, and there was much
anticipation of Mommie Dearest tearing into the role. Alas, shortly after our
encounter she was fired in rehearsals, and the show folding tent altogether to
proceed East. Now in sisterhood with Patti Lu, Dunaway trashed L-W, who stood
his ground: Faye wasn't up to the role. It was my geographic fortune to have
clearly heard why. But Dunaway might not have been a bad choice for a movie
Norma, had they continued the Marni Nixon tradition. Glenn Close is of course
as much a movie star, and would doubtless want to leave her somewhat kabuki
approach on celluloid (or really, it's all digital now); and it isn't out of
the realm of possibility a film may yet be made. This is the movie Streisand should be striving for, not Gypsy. Her age here is more appropriate,
and let's not forget she recorded these arias on her albums. And who doesn't
like playing someone going insane? Wake up, Babs! Get on the phone, Andrew.
We're none of us getting any younger.
Movies continued to be adapted into musicals thru the '90s;
at least a dozen including The Goodbye
Girl, The Red Shoes, Victor/Victoria, Big, Saturday Night Fever, Footloose--none
of them necessary; most of them clinging close to their sources without much creativity
or reconstruction. Few of them noteworthy. Or hits. None of this discouraged
the practice--over fifty pics have
been reworked for Bway since the turn of the century; most of them inevitably
named "[movie title]--The Musical," where once a Bway adaptation demanded
a new title to distinguish its difference. In his attempt to brand himself the American
Lloyd-Webber, Frank Wildhorn chose instead to adapt literary classics in the
public domain, beginning with Jekyll & Hyde, the last of 4 new
musicals
(Titanic, Steel Pier, The Life)
to open the final week of April '97; the worst reviewed and longest running (4
years) of them all. Wildhorn's style of power ballad tuner illicits universal
trashing from the cognoscenti, yet he filled the hungry, if diminishing demand
for Bway poperettas. Encouraged, Wildhorn quickly proved to be as prolific as
he is prosaic. At one point in '99 he had three musicals running at once on the
Bway. His second, The Scarlet Pimpernel was revamped not once but twice in
mid-run over two years. And another 18 (!) musicals have so far burst forth
from Wildhorn's pen, raiding the library for familiar sources (Dracula, Carmen, The Count of Monte Cristo,
Cyrano de Bergerac, Svengali, Mata Hari, [Alice's] Wonderland--none of them elevated over previous incarnations. He
even tackled The Civil War--which
seems the definition of hubris itself. Hlwd never took note. He did jump on the
film adaptation bandwagon once, and predicatably Bonnie & Clyde lasted as briefly as his three previous Bway
flops. In all fairness and full-disclosure I admit I've invested little energy
in studying Wildhorn's ouevre--driven
off by the Consensus of the Discerning, who simply consider it junk. Life's too
short.
(Titanic, Steel Pier, The Life)
to open the final week of April '97; the worst reviewed and longest running (4
years) of them all. Wildhorn's style of power ballad tuner illicits universal
trashing from the cognoscenti, yet he filled the hungry, if diminishing demand
for Bway poperettas. Encouraged, Wildhorn quickly proved to be as prolific as
he is prosaic. At one point in '99 he had three musicals running at once on the
Bway. His second, The Scarlet Pimpernel was revamped not once but twice in
mid-run over two years. And another 18 (!) musicals have so far burst forth
from Wildhorn's pen, raiding the library for familiar sources (Dracula, Carmen, The Count of Monte Cristo,
Cyrano de Bergerac, Svengali, Mata Hari, [Alice's] Wonderland--none of them elevated over previous incarnations. He
even tackled The Civil War--which
seems the definition of hubris itself. Hlwd never took note. He did jump on the
film adaptation bandwagon once, and predicatably Bonnie & Clyde lasted as briefly as his three previous Bway
flops. In all fairness and full-disclosure I admit I've invested little energy
in studying Wildhorn's ouevre--driven
off by the Consensus of the Discerning, who simply consider it junk. Life's too
short.
Not that I didn't relish the Art of the Flop, as it was
served in The Golden Age: Flahooley, The
Body Beautiful, Whoop Up, All American, Bajour, Maggie Flynn--valiant but
misguided attempts at the integrated musical comedy. But in the waning years of
The Brass Age (1971-2000) there was far too little comedy as musicals had
become, almost by definition, dead- (and often deadly-) serious. Thus we come
to our last quartet: shows built around a nautical catastrophe; a senseless
murder; racism & anti-semitism; Siamese twins--too serious to be popular,
tho one was a hit. But each a unique gem in one way or another.
The hit was Titanic--and a surprise one at that.
Skeptics were sharpening their knives waiting for the inevitable disaster
metaphors. But Peter Stone, who'd managed to turn the making of the Declaration
of Independence into an exceptional libretto, penned another historical narrative
with dozens of characters into a cohesive, dignified whole--and didn't even use
Molly Brown! And Maury Yeston provided another full-meal of a score without the
need of nonstop recitative. The majesty of the occasion lent it the pomp of an
opera--but this was no pop- or operetta. Regretfully I never saw the Bway
production, which I've been told was technically brilliant; and unfortunately
not feasibly duplicated in subsequent tours. (I'm sure if Chas Addams had been
alive to attend the opening he would've said, "I came to see the
iceberg.") The show was in its 8th month at the Lunt-Fontanne when James
Cameron's epic movie was released. Few remember that a similar cloud of doubt
shrouded the pic before its release--only to become the highest grossing film
of all time. Naturally Cameron's approach was less characterlogical and
academic and more fictionalized romance and state-of the-art special effects.
That both stage & screen Titanics--produced
85 years after the event--were successful is a fluke as improbable as the
sinking itself. Whatever interest Hlwd might have had in Stone & Yeston's
musical (if any) was obviously obliterated by the Oscar laden--and Celine Dion
vocalized--movie. As movie or musical Titanic
can thrill us, it can leave us awestruck-but not uplifted.
Side Show took me by surprise like no other musical in years. I
didn't get to see it in its brief Bway bow--but did make it to the first
regional production at Theatreworks in Mt. View (outside SF). By then I had
long been enraptured by the OCR. Melody is a keen gift. In today's overly
rhythmic, overly spoken musical preference, there's far too little of what we
used to treasure as melody. Anyone can write a song, but stringing the notes
together to follow a path that turns the ear in such a way as to put a smile
into it--that's not an everyday thing. Rodgers had it in spades. Jule Styne had
it and Charles Stouse--to name a few. In latter days William Finn startled us
again by reminding how long it had been. And in this group include Henry
Kreiger--whose Dreamgirls score was
much more than Motown pastiche. Side Show
is a backstager as well, tho trawling in more down market venues: the freak show.
Yet there's nothing repulsive or disturbing to look at our two heroines,
The Hilton Sisters, Daisy & Violet, who are simply always attached. Kreiger
sets whole scenes of dialogue to music, but unlike so often in Lloyd-Webber's
shows, the melody simmers with inspiration rather than plain utility. It's a
wonderful score, with exquisite orchestration and an exceptional chorus--the
final minute of "Say Goodbye to the Freakshow" gives them a slice of
heaven to vocalize. And mention must be made of the mini-opera that is
"Tunnel of Love," a breathtaking quartet of roiling emotions set to a
driving, spooky beat that thrills to no end. Alice Ripley & Emily Skinner
are irreproachable as the Hiltons, and this was our introduction to the velvet
tones of Norm Lewis. Robert Longbotton's production, too, was much praised, but
the public would not be sold. Like Tod Browning's 1932 pic, Freaks (which the Hilton's wound up in)
the subject was of limited appeal. But a show this good awaits rediscovery. A
Bway revival came from director Bill Condon in 2014 and was received with even
more enthusiasm but couldn't fill seats. Yet here's one flop musical that would
make a terrific movie. From the beginning I could lose myself in the album and
visualize a film by Tim Burton. He has just the right eye for this sort of
thing. Not a moneymaker, perhaps--and isn't that true of all his better
films?--but potentially a bit of Rahadlakum. 
Perhaps Spike Lee could make something wonderful out of The
Capeman, Paul Simon's magnificent Bway debut. Apparently the libretto
by Derek Walcott was problematic. True, Simon's songs are often not in a
familiar theatrical idiom, but that makes them all the more exciting. It's a
hypnotic blend of Island rhythms and '50s folk, pop & doo-wop, all
thoroughly in character and period; tracing the sad, fated life of a Puerto
Rican teen who commits senseless murder; and the man he becomes after prison.
Again, serious stuff. I cannot speak
for what transpired on stage, but it might be that uber-choreographer Mark
Morris's direction was yet another layer of unconventionality (and was possibly
all wrong). But my many hours lost in the (unreleased--bootleg) OCR leave no
doubt that this (along with Rent and Side Show) is among the 3 best scores in
all the '90s--at least in my humble opinion. Woefully unappreciated, Simon's
score was lost in the wake of Lion King
and Ragtime, which arrived shortly
prior, and suffered the further indignity of recording a cast album, but not
seeing it released. Instead, Simon's record company put out a "Songs from
Capeman" album by the artist himself--which even among his following was
largely dismissed, and saw no upside to a Bway CD release of a show that played
nine weeks in the winter of '98. Simon's record is fine but it's a Paul Simon
record, not the full show, and missing both the exceptional orchestrations and
the wonderful cast including Ruben Blades, Mark Anthony and Sara Ramirez. Bway
was still a bit chilly welcoming composers from the rock or pop
worlds--something that would change soon enuf with the likes of Sting & Cyndi
Lauper; and now they're all writing musicals. But for Simon the experience was
so fraught with disappointment he's not likely to ever try his hand again in
the theater. Nor has Mark Morris quit his day job.
And finally, Parade, whose central scenic element
was a giant oak tree from which the lead character (a hapless Jew in Atlanta) is
doomed to be lynched by play's end. Fun times. Again, Ethan Mordden may have
said it best: "The entire show is disturbing; it is the only musical I can
think of that has stirred real anger in people, tho none that I've spoken to
could articulate exactly what had incensed them." Surely it wasn't the
quality of the score by 29 year old Jason Robert Brown nor the libretto by
Alfred Uhry--a Southern Jewish playwright who'd won the Pulitzer Prize a decade
prior for Driving Miss Daisy--both
superlative if uncompromising. Brown's stated major influences are Sweeney Tood & Sunday in the Park with George, which makes it easy to see why he
took to the Leo Frank tragedy. And where Hal Prince fits in. This is no
would-be opera; but an actual musical with strong book scenes. It's also a
rather scathing indictment of prejudice and the scourge of Confederate
fethishization in Southern culture. Dark stuff, no matter how pretty the tunes.
More Caviar for the General--or in this case, the Aficionado. Not a show to
drag the reluctant husband to. For the most part revivals from the Golden Age
provided Bway's merriment at the end of the millenium. New works reached for
profundity, gravity; as if entertainment alone were a sin. And as for musical movies.
. . well there really weren't any. But a new century was coming, and with it surprising
new life on Bway.
Next Up: The Fantasticks
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