The Drowsy Chaperone

Molina has the Spider Woman. Trevor has Diana Ross. The Man in the Chair has Janet Van de Graaff. Each glamorous muse welcomes you to forget your troubles.

What are the Man in the Chair's troubles? He never says outright though he admits he's "feeling a little blue." He's been married and divorced. He reads as gay (Well, not so much when Bob Saget played him) but denies it. ("I'm a very complicated person.") Now he's a recluse.

Why is The Drowsy Chaperone his favorite musical? He claims it's just "fun." And it is. Janet retires from the stage to marry Robert. Her former producer wants her back. Fidelity is tested and Janet's alcoholic drowsy Chaperone foils the producers schemes. One deus ex machina later we have a happy ending.

Purists have griped that the score sounds more 50's than 20's, particularly in Janet's homage to "Rose's Turn," while others have dismissed the show as mindless fluff. Those of us who like a darkness for flavor can see the Man in the Chair's fate as a sad one. But at the end of the day The Drowsy Chaperone remains fun. It also won Beth Leavel a Tony and provided Sutton Foster with one of her best numbers.

Me and My Girl & No, No, Nanette

Me and My Girl. Music by Noel Gay. Lyrics and Book by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose. 1937 West End. 1952 & 1985 West End Revivals. 1986 Broadway.

No, No, Nanette. Music by Vincent Youmans. Lyrics by Irving Caesar and Otto Harbach. Book by Frank Madel and Otto Harbach. Revival book by Burt Shevelove. 1925 Broadway. 1971 Broadway revival.

Two old fashioned musicals that got revised for modern sensibilities. Though My Fair Lady is the best remembered there were many musicals in the 1930's about crossing class lines.

Meanwhile No, No, Nanette toyed with sexual promiscuity while making sure Nanette and her uncle Jimmy never actually get laid. The men drive the plot but the women get the best songs. Ruby Keeler came out of retirement to dance up a storm in the revival. Helen Gallagher took home a Tony in the role of Lucille. She has the least effect on the plot but the score treats her like a star.

Me and My Girl at the 1987 Tony Awards
No, No, Nanette - A starry medley at the 1972 Tony Awards.
No, No, Nanette - Trailer for the 2011concert at Encores

Gershwin series part four: Political Musicals

Life has gotten busy and blog posts have fallen behind.
The election season has reminded us all that "Nobody's Got No Class."

So here is a quick sketch of the political satires of George and Ira Gershwin. I've covered politically themed musicals in the past but there are many more.

Strike Up the Band deals with a war motivated by corporate greed.

Of Thee I Sing deals with a Presidential candidate drawing international outrage when he mistreats a beauty pageant contestant.

In an earlier post I looked at the sequel, Let Them Eat Cake, in which that same candidate, now President, has his fascist proposals undermined by women voters.

Make of this what you will.

Quick Sketch: Showboat and Carousel

Show Boat. Music by Jerome Kern. Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein and P.G. Wodehouse. Book by Oscar Hammerstein. 1927 Broadway.

Carousel. Music by Richard Rodgers. Lyrics and Book by Oscar Hammerstein. 1945 Broadway.

I didn't have time to draw a full cartoon today. I tried a couple of quick sketches and looked for a theme. I realized that these two particular shows were groundbreaking classics that I don't particularly enjoy watching today.

The Lincoln Center's 2015 concert of Showboat reminded me that it can still work if it's cast and paced well. Two well received productions of Carousel reminded me that I'll never really appreciate that story.

Gershwin series part one

Lady be Good, Music by George Gershwin. Lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson. 1924 Broadway. 1926 West End.

Tip Toes, Music by George Gershwin. Lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Book by Guy Bolton and Fred Thompson. 1925 Broadway.

George Gershwin passed away at the age of 38 from a malignant brain tumor. By that point he had composed an incredible body of music that survives till this day. His brother Ira found new collaborators but devoted his late life to compiling George's music and correspondence for the Library of Congress. He lived to the age of 86.

I was introduced to the Gershwin's through a high school production of Crazy for You (1992). The show took the premise of Girl Crazy (1930) and cherry picked from their song catalog for the score. Tommy Tune and Twiggy had starred in 1983's My One and Only which was a similar hybrid of old and new. Nice Work If You Can Get It (2012) and the stage adaptation of American in Paris (2014) would follow suit. I lined up the song list for these shows and saw they share many of the same songs. "Nice Work If You Can Get It," "But Not For Me," and "S'Wonderful," appear in three out of four.

There's a reason new books are written for the Gershwin catalog. The brother's original shows have extremely creaky librettos relying on thin romantic farces to showcase the stars. When their first shared Broadway show, Lady Be Good, was revived at Encores in 2015 the New York Times called it "a featherweight farrago of romantic contrivances that wears out its daffy appeal long before the curtain falls."

But oh those songs.

Lady Be Good included "Fascinating Rhythm" and "'The Half of It, Dearie' Blues." The song "The Man I Love" was cut. It would be cut from two more shows before becoming a standard on its own.

Tip Toes introduced "Looking for a Boy" and "Sweet and Low Down."

Shuffle Along

This is not a revival of the 1921 musical Shuffle Along. Rather it's a story about the rise and fall of Shuffle Along's creators. Critics praised the dances but criticized the libretto for an over-reliance on first person narration.  

"The dramaturgical tactic is vaguely Jersey Boys meets 42nd Street." ~ Time Out

As with Hamilton we are left with a question of who remembers you and who tells your story.

Nominated for 10 Tony Awards.

Adding Machine

Elmer Rice's bleak 1923 play was adapted into a musical in 2007. I was impressed with how much humor the work mined while remaining true to the source material. I was also saddened by how timely the themes of destructive capitalism and social alienation remained.

Musical theater protagonists often strive to rewrite their fate, but Mr. Zero seems resigned to his. His most drastic actions occur when change is forced upon him. Rice asks whether Mr. Zero is a victim of society or a willing participant in a corrupt system.

*** Spoiler **** There are a lot of musicals about murderers aren't there? Shortly after watching a production of Adding Machine I listened to the cast album of Duncan Sheik's American Psycho Musical. While Patrick Bateman has reached a level of wealth Mr. Zero could only dream of they are both slowly dying inside. This causes them to make very bad decisions.

A Connecticut Yankee

Mark Twain's story was a cynical take down of modern greed. The musical settles for a love triangle. Legends say that Rodgers tried to save his partnership with the alcoholic Larry Hart by pitching a revisal for their Pal Joey star Vivienne Segal. Sadly Hart passed shortly after opening. His last song was a showstopping "To Keep My Love Alive."

The show is not favored for revival due to a dull book that the New York Times called "feeble" in 1943 and "quaint" in 2001. The songs "Thou Swell" and "My Heart Stood Still" were hits and "To Keep My Love Alive" has been recorded by the likes of Mary Testa, Ella Fitzgerald and Elaine Stritch.

The Bing Crosby film in 1949 used the same source story but a different (and in my opinion inferior) score.

Happy End

Legends say that Bertolt Brecht and his wife, Helene Weigel, sabotaged the opening of their own show to prevent the career of writing partner Elisabeth Hauptmann. Brecht scholars would debate the uncredited role she played in Brecht's prior work and whether she'd meant Happy End to launch an independent career. Helen Weigel staged a political protest in the middle of the performance, audiences booed, and Happy End was temporarily forgotten.

Several songs, including the Bilboa Song and Surabaya Johnny, gained some airplay on their own. The full show would find a new life in 1977 for a short lived Broadway production with Christopher Lloyd and Meryl Streep.

The slight gangsters vs. salvation army plot has been considered a sequel to The Threepenny Opera and a spiritual precursor to Guys and Dolls.

Football Musicals: All American and Good News

Good News was a hit. It got a film, revivals and revisals. The football hero can't play in the big game unless he passes the big test. His pretty new tutor helps him but his chance at romance is nearly dashed by a clingy ex.

All American was a flop. The football hero got the romantic subplot while the focus went to Ray Bolger (The Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz) as his zany Engineering teacher. Ray nearly loses his love interest and his self respect when he sells out to a corrupt corporate sponsor.

Other singing football players include the washed up Wreck of Wonderful Town and the beefcakey Aggies of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.

Hey, just realized I finally got a 20's show in here! 

Happy Super-Bowl!