Phone Rings, Door Chimes, In Comes... well not "Happiness"

I can't help but wonder just how long Susan Stroman is going to be able to ride on the coattails of 'The Producers." Looks at what she's directed since then: "Thou Shalt Not," "The Frogs," "Young Frankenstein," and now "Happiness." Yes, there's also "Contact" on her directing resume, but that's a ballet, despite what the Tony nomination committe may think. And along with her delightful "Double Feature" at NYC Ballet, I have no complaints about her direction of BALLET. Original musicals? Well I think her record speaks for itself.
Okay, so tonight was only the first preview of a world premiere musical. Had the creative team not heard of the out of town tryout? Or did all of the regional theatres look at the musical and just reject because it's not very good. Whatever the case, this show needs a lot of work. The score is full of mediocre songs. Not one came even close to being as good as songs like "Will You?" or "Around the World" or "Another Winter in a Summer Town" or even "Jerry Likes My Corn" from Frankel and Korie's last musical, "Grey Gardens." We do, however, get songs that sound a bit like those faux-period songs from the first act of "Grey Gardens" that Edie sings at the piano. You know... the songs that were so unmemorable that I can't even remember their names? Those songs.
John Weidman's book? Seemed a bit "The Story of My Life" meets "Company" to me. The basic idea, without giving away the twist, is that all of these people are stuck in a subway car, and one by one they relive their happiest moments. In song. Except for the one guy who hasn't had a happy moment yet. So you get the treacly "let's look back at the happy times of my youth" vibe from "Story of My Life" combined with that "Company"ish structure, where each character gets their one song, which the unhappy central male character observes, and then at the end (**Spoiler alert, I guess, though it seems kind of obvious**) he sings a song about how now realizes he wants to "Be(ing) Alive" or rejoin the human race "Before the Parade Passes By" (oops, not sure how Hello Dolly slipped in there). The problem with this structure is that each character only gets one song/scene to make the audience care about them, so that better be a damn fine song. And "damn fine" is not a phrase I'd use to describe the majority of the show. There are some other songs thrown in their that the crowd sings - I suppose to break up the monotony of it all - but I'm guessing those will be the first to hit the cutting room floor, considering the show is running an overlong two hours, sans intermission right now. I did kind of enjoy the opening number, but for whatever reason, it was orchestrated to prominantly feature a synthesizer, making the song sound very 1980s. I
The set is... serviceable. The subway car doesn't look much like a New York subway car (they could have at least gotten the seats right), but then again the show also has "New Yorkers" talking to each other on the train. Has John Weidman ever actually ridden on the subway before? Because if he did, I think he'd know that even when a train is stuck in a tunnel, New Yorkers do not talk to each other. They sit there in angry silence, and angrily look at their watches, while listening to iPods or reading books or newspapers. None of this chit chat nonsense. So I guess this show isn't much for realism. Call me a jaded NYer, but people singing instead of speaking I can accept via willing suspension of disbelief. But native New York strangers talking to each other? Not so much.
Back to the set, I'm guessing it's so minimalist because Lincoln Center spent so much money on the huge cast. And a very good, huge cast it indeed is. The only weak link was probably Sebastian Arcelus who I found a bit bland. Thank goodness Joanna Gleasona and Hunter Foster have returned to musical theatre after disappointing attempts at drama. And Hunter Foster gets what was probably the most interesting choreography of the night in his song about climbing the ladder of success... using literally a ladder.
The audience response at the end seemed fairly positive - then again audiences gave warm responses to the first previews of much unloved shows like "The Little Mermaid" and "The Story of My Life" too, so I don't know how much that counts.
I have a ticket to see the show again in two weeks, so hopefully that will be enough time to do at least some of the needed work on it. But if you're expecting another "Grey Gardens," well it's probably wise to lower your expectations just a smidge. Or forty.

Just so you don't think all I do is suffer, I did see two fantastic productions last week: one was "A Winter's Tale" at BAM, and the other way Edgar Oliver's solo play, "East 10th Street." Unfortunately I'm pretty sure "A Winter's Tale" is sold out, and "East 10th Street" closes (since it's now Saturday) tonight - why Brantley waited until the next to last weekend of its returns engagement to rave about it, I'm not sure I understand. I will be sure to point out return engagements of either of those.

If you have the time or interest, you can listen to Edgar Oliver read a story here. There's something strangely hypnotic about his voice...

"Variations" of a Lifetime Original Movie

On paper, “33 Variations” sounds like a pretty good idea for a play: Beethoven was asked to write a variation on a waltz, and ended up writing not just one, but 33 variations on the theme. So a musicologist (played by Jane Fonda) goes to Bonn (home of the Beethoven archives) to try to figure out why. Only it turns out that there's not too much to tell about the writing of the variations. At least not enough to sustain a full length play. So playwright Moises Kaufman decided to give the musicologist ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Now it's a race against time – will the musicologist figure out the secret behind Beethoven's obsession before she dies? Does anyone care? And as if in an effort to save the play from falling so low as to qualify as a Lifetime original movie, no one really seems terribly concerned that this woman is going to die. Her daughter gets one little outburst – not screaming or crying, just a bit of pouting – and other than that it seems like everyone has just accepted that she's going to die, and there's not point in worrying about what you can't control. Yeah, because that makes for exciting theatre. You know what also makes for exciting theatre? Conflict. There's lots of ground covered in the play – so much so that quite often characters just stand at the edge of the stage, tell us how they're feeling (note tell, not show) and fill us in on what's happening in their lives. So one speech may say “I was upset my mother was dying. So I went to visit her in Germany. She's had fourteen medical since I've been there. She can't feed herself anymore. And I've fallen in love with a nurse and we've moved in together. My mother made an important discovery today.” And then we get a few lines of dialogue, which feature the musicologist in her latest mobility enhancer (over the course of the second act she goes from cane, to walker, to wheelchair, to electric wheelchair, to bed – and as if to show us that she's really sick, during intermission they give her a much less flattering hairstyle. Because sick people shouldn't have good hair?). I will say that the first act is much bigger on the explanatory monologues than the second. Partly because of that, I suppose, the first act is extremely dry and choppy. It's made up of far too many short scenes, switching between mother in Bonn, daughter in New York and Beethoven in Vienna, far too often for comfort, making the audience (or at least me) feel like we're just being barraged with a whole pile of dry information about these characters that we have no reason at all to care about. The second act is a bit warmer, and does have some nice scenes – one where Beethoven walks us through the thought process behind one of the variations (while it's played in the background by a live pianist) was quite nice, though not as interesting it certainly thought it was – the combination of lighting and music and one man standing on stage declaiming just screamed “I am a brilliant scene. Come bow at my brilliance” and well, it didn't quite deserve to think so highly of itself. Still, even if we do start to care about the characters, the almost complete lack of conflict is still absolutely evident, and the play plods on to its inevitable conclusion. Why this needed to be two and a half hours, I'm not sure. I'm sure the fact that Kaufman both wrote and directed it had something to do with that. I have to assume that another directed would have done some happy hacking. It almost reminds me of Norma Desmond's “Salome” in “Sunset Boulevard,” and how she freaks out when Joe wants to cut scenes. Kaufman obviously loves to hear his writing recited out loud, hence not so much cutting. I did read somewhere that he was planning on cutting ten minutes or so between the first preview and opening night. Considering the play was two and a half, and I had read it was going to be two forty, I suppose that's already been done. Ah well.

The acting is all okay, but none of the actors blew me away... I was barely getting gentle breezes out of them. I mean, this isn't “Mourning Becomes Electra” where everyone was hideously miscast – they're all fine, and they play their parts well. It's just not really a play with showy roles. I suppose the closest thing to scenery chewing we get is Zach Grenier's Beethoven, but I can't say I was really overly impressed.

What I did love, was the set, lighting and projection design. I was a little skeptical at first, but as the play went on, I was really quite impressed by the look of the piece.

Really, this just felt to me like one of those plays that should have been produced at some place like Playwright Horizons or NYTW, gone through it's limited run with maybe faint praise, and then been forgotten about. Kind of like that dull dull play Itamar Moses wrote about Bach that they did at NYTW a few years ago. Not that this is quite as boring as that one, but it's not *that* much better either. I'll file this one under “big disappointments.”

The Story of "The Story Of My Life"

I've been on something of a "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" kick lately, burning my way through the complete series set that I didn't open until a month ago, and has now consumed my life. And if that show has taught me nothing else, it's that just because you're dead, that doesn't mean you can't be killed again. The (dead) character Malcolm Gets plays in "The Story of My Life" is regrettably not a vampire, but I do believe that if Will Chase had driven a wooden stake through his heart in the first scene, the musical would have been much better for his trouble. Sure, it would take some 'willing suspension of disbelief' for a ghost to be killed with a stake, but if it was explained to the audience how unbearably irritating this character would become in just a short time, well I'm sure they could deal.
The basic premise of "The Story of My Life" is that this world famous author (played by Will Chase) is trying to write a eulogy for his dead bookseller best friend (played by Malcolm Gets), who haunts him because the famous author did such a crappy job writing a eulogy for the bookseller's dad, that he wants to be spared the same fate at his funeral. Oh, and the big revelation at the end (spoiler alert, spoiler alert) is that famous author's best friend inspired all of famous author's stories, and he only now realizes this now that his friend is dead and haunting him. This point is obvious basically from the second song (and is repeated over and over again is every other damn song), so that this is a big revelation after 90 minutes is indeed quite a bit annoying. And yet, as annoying as that revelation is, it is still not as annoying as Malcolm Gets' portrayal of the bookseller. I suspect that the blame lies more with Gets being miscast, than with the writing of the character. The problem is that the character of the bookseller is supposed to be this nice, likable loser. And Gets just fails miserably at this. The way he plays the part, it's like the guy never progressed past the age of five. This is fine when he's actually playing a little kid, but as Will Chase matures and eventually plays a believable adult, Gets still has this embarrassingly artificial kid persona. And so the whole time it's like he keeps poking Will Chase and saying "hey mister, hey mister, hey mister, hey mister" and it gets to the point where you just want to throw him out the window. It's just a really half-assed, dismal, completely unbelievable performance. And an even bigger disappointment, when you consider what a beautiful, adult, fully realized performance Will Chase gives. Chase, who granted did not impress me all that much in "Lennon" or "High Fidelity" and seemed a bit long in the tooth in the video cast of the final "Rent," finally lives up to his hype. It's a wonderful performance, that makes almost every song he sings (in the rather saggy final third, even he has trouble saving the show) into a thing of beauty, just as much as Gets ruins most everything he wraps his vocal chords around.
On the plus side (what? there's a plus side?) I do have to say that composer/lyricist Neil Bartram is one to keep an ear on. The music is happily tuneful, and there are more than a few songs that I would love to hear again on a cast recording. Nothing against the long contingent of composers who try (and generally fail) to follow in Sondheim's footsteps by writing not immediately melodic stuff, but it's nice every now and then to not get a headache trying to wrap one's brain around 90 minutes of dissonant chords. I look forward to hearing more of his stuff in the future.
The set is spare, but fine, and the lighting adequate. This isn't one of those stunning huge spectacles - it's an intimate, one set, two actor chamber piece, that (because off-Broadway is dead) wandered onto the Great White Way.
I should say that when the show first started - for the first ten mintues or so - I actually had high hopes for it. Things became a bit bumpier after that, what with an irritating plot device of having each scene start with a different story being pulled off of a shelf, and with... um... pretty much everything Malcolm Gets did, though as I said before Will Chase was able to save the show up to a point, after which I was grinding my teeth and looking at my watch in boredom. Still, the final song or two were admittedly kind of touching (in a kind of cheesy, sentimental, cliche way), and I did leave with a bit of a tear forming in my eye. So I guess having a good start and a good ending is a plus. In this economic climate, is anyone going to want to spent 50, let alone 110 bucks on a so-so musical? That waits to be seen, but I can't say I'm exactly holding my breath.