110 in the Shade

"The rainmaker doesn't change the weather: he changes people, turning them into what they really are." ~ Ethan Mordden. Open a New Window: The Broadway Musical in the 1960's 

110 in the Shade has been compared to The Music Man. Both involve a con man who charms the town and a spinster who stands against him. While Marian domesticates Harold, Starbuck awakens a drive in Lizzie. Lizzie's been held down by her well meaning family. She needs to break out of her comfort zone and find some independence before she can settle down with a spouse. The show is more respected than beloved but Lizzie is a fantastic role for a singing actress. The role won great praise for both Inga Swenson in 1963 and Audra McDonald in 2007.

I'll be taking a break from this comic to work on some other projects. Have a safe winter and a happy new year!

The Baker's Wife

Patti LuPone got a signature song, Meadowlark, from The Baker's Wife despite producer David Merrick's attempts to cut it. That's about all she got as the show closed on the road. Stein's book spends more time with the Baker than his wife and he's a dull protagonist. We've been left with a pleasant, abridged cast album, and the occasional regional production.

Carmen Jones

A piece of gossip begat Mérimée's novella, which begat Bizet's Opera, which begat Hammerstein's adaptation Carmen Jones. Hammerstein remained faithful to Bizet's plot while moving the setting to WWII and filling the lyrics with 40's colloquialisms. The film is dated and heavily dubbed but it preserves the work of some extremely talented artists including Pearl Bailey and the Oscar nominated Dorothy Dandridge.

Clips:
Pearl Bailey performing Rhythm on a Drum in the 1954 film.
Diahann Carroll discussing her audition for Carmen Jones.
The delightful short All The Great Operas in Ten Minutes

Aspects of Love

"We... we sleep with everyone.
One by one and two by two.
And if you're in the audience
then you'll sleep too."
~ Forbidden Broadway

"Though ''Aspects of Love'' purports to deal with romance in many naughty guises - from rampant promiscuity to cradle-snatching, lesbianism and incest - it generates about as much heated passion as a visit to the bank."
~ Frank Rich, New York Times

Webber's Aspects of Love is not as romantic as it thinks it is. The May-December country house romance drew unfavorable comparisons to Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music. Sondheim's lovers know they're in a bittersweet comedy. Webber's bores take themselves so seriously that the plot turns to camp. They vow "love will never let you be the same" while repeating the same toxic patterns. The leading lady jerks three lovers around till their attentions turn to an underage girl. Then she sings an angry anthem, "Anything But Lonely," vowing to round up someone new "who'll say how good [she] looks each day." Send in the clowns indeed.

Once On This Island

Promises, Promises, The Fantasticks and Once on this Island fall into the category of romances with pretty songs and ugly stories. Ti Moune's story is told with such glee that it's easy to forget it's a tragedy. The Gods attempts to grant her wishes are comically inept and the gentleman she wants is a garbage person. They are less Romeo and Juliet than Jason and Medea. Still "Mama Will Provide" is a fabulous song.

Gee I really should have saved this series till Valentine's Day. I'll get to Christmas shows eventually.

Promises, Promises

Okay so it's not really a holiday musical but it does have the song Turkey Lurkey Time.

Billy Wilder's The Apartment and the musical adaptation Promises, Promises fall into the genre of dark romantic comedy. It's boy meets girl with a villain in the way but this time the boy is self loathing and the girl is suicidal. The corporate setting makes it a creepy cousin to the peppier How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. 

The brittle film has held up better than the sentimental musical. It was a hit in 1968. Bacharach's sound was fresh and the gender politics slightly less dated. When the show was revived on Broadway in 2010 the critics found Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth's natural liveliness was undercut by the hangdog roles. The 2017 London revival faced similarly mixed reviews.

Fortunately act two is perked up by the arrival of Marge, a flirty alcoholic. Christine Baranski and Kate Finneran made three course banquets out of her would be seduction of the leading man.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - Season Two

I got nervous around the middle of season two. The story was wandering and I wasn't sure what the stakes were. Everything started to feel less... well... crazy. The season finale had to cram in a lot of plot to ramp things up again. Afterwards I listened to several interviews with the series creators. They described Season Two as having a three act structure. Looking back I can see it. I also respect how the characters can have multiple ups and downs without hitting the "reset button" and forgetting what they've already learned.

Favorite songs this season include:

Ping Pong Girl

Research Me Obsessively 

Remember That We Suffered

Tell Me I'm Okay

and my number one favorite: The Math of Love Triangles.

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - Season One

"She's so broken insiiide!"

The song that won me over was "Feeling Kinda Naughty" in episode 2. That was the moment I knew this show would be appointment television. Other favorite songs that season include:

A Boy Band Made up of Four Joshes
Settle For Me
I Give Good Parent
I'm the Villain

Rachel Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna are writing about mental illness in a way I haven't seen in pop culture. The protagonist is coping with an abusive childhood, depression, anxiety and self-loathing in a mix of healthy and incredibly unhealthy ways. She's tried therapy and over-medication. Now she's diving head first into the fantasy of a romantic relationship and destroying everything around her in the process. The show still doesn't have the ratings it deserves but it has won awards and critical acclaim.

The people who love this show reeeally love it. I'm one of them.

Aida

The Elton John / Tim Rice musical. Not the Verdi opera or the 1952 musical My Darlin' Aida. 

Revisiting 2000's Aida I see that it laid some groundwork for 2003's Wicked. The serious woman chooses political rebellion over romance. The shallow leading man finds his angsty side. The privileged woman sings a comedy song about fashion in act one and a heartbroken ballad in act two before taking political power.

A key difference is that Wicked focuses on the friendship between the leading ladies while Aida devotes about 7 songs and 2 reprises to the chemistry free romance. Critics were cold but Headley won a well deserved Tony and the show ran 4 years. The score won a Tony too but it was up against two LaChuisa scores which likely cancelled each other's votes.

Now I suppose I'll have to research My Darlin' Aida.

They're Playing Our Song

Ever hear the one about the manic pixie dream girl who romances the uptight boy?
How 'bout the one where the destructive manic depressive hooks up with her priggish passive-aggressive co-worker?

On paper They're Playing Our Song shouldn't work. Neil Simon's characters are too unpleasant to root for. They should not be together. It's not that he's trying to deconstruct the romantic comedy. He's too busy writing wisecracks to cover up the lack of plot. She's late for work, they argue, her ex calls on the phone, rinse, repeat.

And yet the show was a hit running 1082 performances. Watch the clip from the 1979 Tony Awards and you may see why. Lucie Arnaz oozes carefree sex appeal while Robert Klein transforms his role into a clumsy jittery clown. You may not want Vernon and Sonia to get together but you'll have fun watching Arnaz and Klein.

The Most Happy Fella

“You ain’t young no more, and you ain’t good-lookin’, and you ain’t smart.”

Thus says Marie to her brother, the unconventional protagonist of The Most Happy Fella. He has proposed to a young woman by letter and sent a photo of his handsome foreman in his stead. This Cyrano set-up could have carried a musical comedy but writer Frank Loesser was more ambitious. He resolves things quickly to focus on Tony’s rocky marriage to his wary new bride.

Loesser is best remembered for the brassy scores of Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed. The Most Happy Fella is something different. The brass is mixed with complex arias, quartets and chorales. The title role was originated by operatic baritone Robert Weede though Loesser denied the work was an opera. When asked he said “It’s a musical with a lot of music.”

Far From Heaven

I’ve discussed several musicals that explore the leading lady’s conflict between marriage and career. This month I’ll be looking at a collection of shows whose leads are unfulfilled housewives.

Housewife: a married woman whose main occupation is caring for her family, managing household affairs, and doing housework.

Musicals often explore characters inner thoughts but the lyrics of Far From Heaven mirror the dialogue of Todd Haynes’ 2001 film. This leaves the music itself to explore the subtext of the deeply repressed characters.  Cathy’s opening song, “Autumnin Connecticut,” is less “I want” than “I am.” She won’t begin to question her life till her husband Frank’s infidelity is revealed. Cathy’s music is operatic while Frank and the chorus express themselves through Angry Jazz. Raymond, the gardener, shares Cathy’s musical language signaling their bond. Frank will not adopt this language till he accepts his homosexuality in the tear-jerking ballad “I Never Knew.” By the end the three have much in common but society will force them to part. Two of the stars stars, Steven Pasquale and Kelli O'Hara, would quickly jump to the similarly themed Bridges of Madison County. 

This is my 200th comic! That's 600 panels of musicals. Thanks to all of you for reading!

Starlight Express

Co-worker: "Why are you drawing gay Transformers?" 

Me: Because Starlight Express!

I'd been told the story was "The Little Engine that Could" on roller skates. It starts that way but goes into much more... interesting places.

Frank Rich of the New York Times noticed as well. In his 1987 review he wrote:

"Andrew Lloyd Webber modestly explains that he conceived his new musical, ''Starlight Express,'' as an entertainment ''event'' for children who love trains. Over two numbing hours later, you may find yourself wondering exactly whose children he has in mind...

All the women are subservient carriages vying for the favors of mostly abusive male locomotives - with only an androgynous male caboose occupying lower social status. This hierarchical scheme is reinforced by Ms. Phillips's muscle-flexing choreography, seemingly inspired by male physical-culture magazines, and by the robotic costumes, which emphasize codpieces for the men and tight corsets and miniskirts for their groupies."

Weird Romance

This summer Ellen Greene reprised her signature role at the Encores concert of Little Shop of Horrors. The role of Audrey had been written for Faith Prince but a television contract prevented her from performing in the scheduled premiere. The role went to Ellen and history was made.

Ellen had already originated roles in several Off-Broadway musicals and would again. After co-starring in the Little Shop film she reunited with Alan Menken to play contrasting roles in Weird Romance. Both women were trapped inside machines and the shows emphasized ensemble rather than the star. Critics dismissed the show but there are some interesting ballads and comic numbers.

Triumph of Love

“They came in a whirl of wanton words,

Those feckless and false young men.

They tore at my heart like hungry birds

and never came back again.

Serenity. Serenity. I never knew any then.”

Princess Leonide was a ruthless figure in 1732. The playwright, Pierre Marivaux, liked to tweak the commedia conventions. He’d place his lovers in farcial situations only to break their hearts. The 1997 musical softened Leonide with a song of remorse, and upstaged her by casting Betty Buckley as Hesione. Leonide’s seduction of the prince and his uncle were played for broad comedy while Hesione got songs of awakening love, self-discovery and heartbreak. Critics praised Buckley, panned the show, and left it to college campuses. A film in 2001 awakened some regional interest in the play but the story remains an acquired taste.  

Wicked

Wicked's a guilty pleasure for me. There are fun songs but the book's a mess. Nothing Elphaba does in Act Two lives up to her big boast at the end of Act One. The New York Times called the novel“deadly dull” and the musical "bloated." 12 years later it’s still a hit. When the inevitable movie hits will the screenplay fill the plot holes and show us some of Elphaba’s off-stage activism?

"[Glinda's] lie, on top of the Wizard's lies, made me furious as a kid. And of course I grew up in the shadow of Vietnam, when boys I knew were being sent to kill the Wicked Witch of the Vietcong, by Nixon, who wouldn't come out of the White House and who wouldn't answer questions.'' ~ Gregory Maguire

IDINA MENZEL: Wheelchair Sister, I've been told that you've become a bitch and enslaved the Munchkins.
BITTER WHEELCHAIR SISTER: Yes, I did it because I'm angry that I'm in a wheelchair!
~ Broadway Abridged. 

Edit: Check out this gorgeous collection of Wicked fan art at Playbill.com! 

Here's Where I Belong

One wonders whether [East of Eden] could ever have been made into a satisfactory musical. It is too serious- and yet in a musical, lightness is always breaking in. As a result, the climax of the play, the big moment between the unloved son and his unbending father, comes strangely after a jolly family song-and-dance number. The mind cannot adjust so easily. ~ Clive Barnes. New York Times. 1968.

When book changes went in that were not his own, McNally asked to have his name removed from the credits.... Miller relented, and the Broadway Playbill listed “Alex Gordon,” a nom de plume for novelist Gordon Cotler, as author of the book. In spite of the rewrites, much of McNally’s original work remained... A ballet and song in the show about the packing and shipping of lettuce was expectedly awful, as were all the production numbers. ~ Ken Mandelbaum. Not Since Carrie.

The song list includes a number called "Pulverize the Kaiser" and seems to keep the doomed brother Abra alive to sing in the finale: "We're a Home." 

The Apple

Part Rocky Horror, part biblical allegory and part acid trip. The Apple gets weird fast. Legends say that the premiere audience was given free copies of the soundtrack. Shortly into the film the audience began to boo furiously and throw the records at the screen. Few walked away from this with careers intact. 

As TV Guide wrote: "Making a cult hit is harder than it looks."

Shock Treatment

In 1981 the team behind the cult smash The Rocky Horror Show gathered as much of the original cast as they could for a sequel. Tim Curry was unwilling or unavailable to reprise Dr. Frank-N-Furter so a new set of villains were invented to torment Brad and Janet in Shock Treatment. A Screen Actors Guild Strike, limited distribution and mixed reviews plagued the film and it disappeared from memory.

In 2015 Richard O'Brien finally allowed a stage adaptation which premiered at the King’s Head Theatre in Islington, London. This version kept the songs, cut some of the extraneous characters and added more nudity. Reviews were enthusiastic.

Murder Mysteries: Drood

Last fall I led up to Halloween with a series of horror themed musicals. This fall I'll be looking at murder mysteries.

In 1976 Walter Kerr of the New York Times dismissed the genre saying:  "It's never worked. Reason: the music totally relaxes the suspense, and the suspense makes the music seem intrusive."

The successful musical mysteries, like Drood, tend to forgo suspense for comedy. Charles Dickens died before completing The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The suspects are introduced, Drood vanishes, a disguised detective appears and the story ends. Several authors and screenwriters have supplied answers over the years, though the one Dickens foreshadows isn't very interesting. Rupert Holmes shakes things up by letting the audience vote for the identity of the killer and the detective. The audience can then pair off two of the survivors as lovers.

Few of the 8 suspects have actual motives for killing Drood and Holmes acknowledges this. He's set us in the framing device of a music hall. Many of the actors admit they simply want to sing another song.