Cabaret

Cabaret has gone through many rewrites. Bob Fosse's film brought the text closer to Christopher Ishwerwood's original stories. Revivals turned the subtext into text. But from the beginning the show turned a mirror on a hedonistic society that ignores politics at their peril.

Murder Mysteries: Curtains

New York Times 2007: The long road to Broadway for “Curtains” has been nearly as fraught as that of “Robbin’ Hood,” the show-within-the-show that keeps losing cast and crew members to untimely ends during an out-of-town tryout in Boston. Its original book writer, Peter Stone, died in 2003, and Mr. Ebb, the lyricist, died in 2004. Enter Rupert Holmes, the writer and composer of the Tony-winning “Mystery of Edwin Drood,” who is now credited with the script and (along with Mr. Kander) additional lyrics for “Curtains.”

New York Times 2011: “Curtains” is not A-list Kander and Ebb. These are the men who wrote “Cabaret” and “Chicago,” after all. Even with its affectionate parodies of musical theater and its endearing hero, who turns out to be as good a play doctor as a crime investigator, the show never completely catches fire. But (Curtains)… is a very pleasant evening of musical theater…. At its core, “Curtains” is not a detective story. It’s a declaration of love, passionate love, for the theater.

Here’s the optimistic number they sang on the Tony’s: Show People

And here’s the cynical number they probably should have sung: It’s a Business

Tony Awards 2015: The nominees

The 2014 Tony nominees for best musical included two jukebox musicals, a Disney cartoon adaptation, and the well deserved winner A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. I'm pleased to see that three of 2015 Tony nominees possess original scores and the fourth, An American In Paris, is primarily a ballet making it more ambitious than most screen to stage adaptations.

You can take a look at this season's non-nominated musicals here. I've devoted longer posts to Fun Home and The Visit in the past during their pre-Broadway incarnations. Thanks again to Tickle-Brain's Three Panel Shakespeare who's style I pay homage to today (and who is now doing musical recaps of their own).

The Tony Awards will be broadcast this Sunday, June 7, on CBS at 8pm ET / 7pm CT.

The Happy Time

Good Idea: Let's turn Samuel Taylor's coming-of-age comedy into a chamber musical!

Bad Idea: Let's shift the focus from the naive nephew to the roguish uncle! And put the show in a giant theater!

Good Idea: Let's cast hearthrob Robert Goulet as the uncle!

Bad Idea: Let's rewrite the uncle so he's a big success instead of a failure who lies about his success to his family!

The result? A book with no stakes, a short run, and a Tony for Robert Goulet.

70, Girls, 70

The well intended 70, Girls, 70 was competing with the senior citizen casts of Follies and No, No, Nanette for audience nostalgia. The slight caper plot was padded out by a series of vaudevillian turns for the cast members and their ever present accompanist Lorraine.

Clive Barnes wrote "This is a musical of gentle pleasurs, which may well please most the old who are young in heart, and everyone else who likes to see old poeple having fun. It is certainly different from "Hair." ~ New York Times. April 16, 1971.

Flora the Red Menace

"A musical dramatization of Lester Atwell's novel ''Love Is Just Around the Corner,'' ''Flora,'' whose book was written by George Abbott and Robert Russell, tells the Depresion-era story of an idealistic young fashion designer who is persuaded by her stammering boyfriend, Harry, to join the Communist Party. Unable to deal with the organizational discipline and outmaneuvered by a rival for his affections, she is kicked out of the party.

''If the show has a guiding philosophy,'' Mr. Ebb said, ''it is to be true to yourself. When we wrote the show, I was having a similar identity problem, since no one in my family was thrilled at my decision to be a lyricist.'' ~ New York Times. 1987.

Steel Pier

In 1997 Kander and Ebb were put in the unusual position of competing with themselves on Broadway. Their sincere new musical Steel Pier was overshadowed by the hit revival of their cynical musical Chicago. 

Karen Ziemba's heroine is a con-artist but she's no Roxie Hart. She's being dragged into crime by her sleazy boyfriend. Her spectral dance partner quickly reforms her, drawing some to compare the book to Touched by an Angel or Quantum Leap. A far cry from the nastiness of the dance marathon film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

The fun is relegated to a thin subplot with Debra Monk and Kristin Chenoweth as competing divas in the marathon's talent show. The book doesn't give them much but Debra got her signature song, "Everybodies Girl", and Kristin's next show launched her to stardom.

Zorba

The 1968 Broadway cast recording of Zorba is delightful. On stage it was dismissed as a pale imitation of the award winning film. The angry chorus sang "Life is what you do while you're waiting to die" drawing a sharp contrast with Zorba's insistence that every moment in life be treated like "the first time."

The 1986 revival cast the film actors and ran twice as long. The rewrites, re-orchestrations and non-singers make this album considerably less pleasant. The chorus now sings "Life is what you do till the moment you die." Cheerier yes but Zorba's the only one in this story who should sing that.

Antonio Banderas has been in talks for a Zorba revival for some time but it's hard to say if this is wise. Zorba's love 'em and leave 'em philosophy can come across as cruel to modern audiences. Quinn made him The Life Force but regional revivals have dismissed him as a poor man's Tevye.

The Visit

The macabre and the misty-eyed vie uneasily for supremacy in “The Visit,” a musical adaptation of Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s 1956 tragicomedy about vengeance and venality... Claire is a kind of female Sweeney Todd. Her heart was singed by betrayal in her youth; now she is bent remorselessly on brutal revenge. But as reconceived here, she wavers between sentimental musical interludes and glinty-eyed commitment to retribution. ~  Charles Isherwood, New York Times.

Woman of the Year

Oh the grass is always greener
when some other tenant pays rent.
Oh the teeth are always cleaner
in somebody elses Polydent.
~ Woman of the Year

 Although the 1942 film was considered enlightened at the time, for instance, the women's movement has rendered many of its conceits passe. ''In the movie, the implication at the end is that she's going to settle down and be Mrs. Housewife,'' says Mr. Kasha. ''We're not doing that. No one gives up their career; they make room for each other in their lives.''
~ New York Times

 The people who concocted this musical know what their show is really about. Miss Bacall is on hand virtually the whole time, and she's vibrant whether no-nonsense or tipsy, domineering or moony, dry or wet. If ''Woman of the Year'' is tired around the edges, it is always smart enough to keep its live wire center stage.
~ Frank Rich. New York Times.

The Rink

I told you I liked Chita Rivera flops. And look who joined her here. It's Liza!

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