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

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.