Random Thoughts on This & That

One of the things I enjoyed best about “It’s a Business” from Curtains was that we were getting yet another fantastic auteur vamp from John Kander. It’s especially prevalent in the jubilant exit music that was unfortunately not recorded on the original cast album.

The complete cast for the Roundabout revival of A Man For All Seasons was announced today. Over which name do I get the most excitement? Maryann Plunkett!! A Tony-winner for Me and My Girl, she hasn’t been on Broadway in fifteen years and it’s wonderful to see that she’s to make a triumphant return as Alice More. (For those Sondheim-philes out there, she was also a replacement Dot in the original production of Sunday in the Park With George).

There has been much hoopla made over the selection of Bailey to replace Laura Bell Bundy in Legally Blonde. To quote a great literary/cinematic (and occasionally musical theatre) hero: “Frankly, I don’t give a damn.” I will never align with the ideas of casting professional musical theatre productions on any side of the pond based on a reality show. Thankfully the LB show didn’t allow the audience to decide (oh the humanity!), but still, there are too many qualified individuals pounding the pavements looking for a chance that have to audition along with all the rest. The determined ones who are in the closed room with the deadpan (dead?) casting director or assistant, minus the immediate criticism. You know, the old-fashioned way… So let us hope this lunacy is just a trend. (Though sadly it appears to be becoming a West End phenomenon, though you should check out Seth Rudestky’s recaps on playbill – they are brilliant, insightful, honest and HILARIOUS).

As promised, I was at The Dark Knight on July 18 at 12:01. The film is one of the most remarkable achievements of its genre, with much-deserved praise for the performance of Heath Ledger. It’s one of iconic stature, and not just because of his unfortunate and untimely death this past January. The boldness and bravery of an actor making such fantastic choices, and making them work brilliantly is a testament to the talent we, the world, have lost. Like so many other great artists we’ve lost at an early age, from George Gershwin to James Dean to Michael Bennett, we lament the greatness we will never know from Ledger’s woefully premature death.

And no, I will not be seeing Mamma Mia! Truth be told, I’ve not seen Hairspray, Dreamgirls, The Phantom of the Opera, or Rent, so it’s not really a big surprise that I wouldn’t be seeing a big-screen adaptation of a musical. I saw Sweeney Todd, but since that’s one of my all-time favorite shows, I was chomping at the bit to get there. For some reason I don’t take as well to the stage musical adapted for screen like I once did, though I still appreciate them immensely.

With Daniel Day-Lewis now signed for the role of Guido Contini in Rob Marshall’s film adaptation of Nine and rumored for the film remake of My Fair Lady, do you think he’s going to become a full-fledged musical theatre star? The only actor I know who has played both of these uniquely different roles is Jonathan Pryce in a London concert of the former and the 2001 Cameron Mackintosh revival of the latter. I only hope the actress cast as Eliza Doolittle will do her own singing, do it well.

Long-rumored negotiations over the film adaptation of August: Osage County are now officially under way. The show has settled in nicely for what appears to be a decent run, with Amy Morton continuing to tear up the stage as Barbara and Estelle “I can stand on my head” Parsons as Violet. Though we’ve discussed the play here often enough, I can’t get enough of it. The experience I’ve had as an audience member each time has knocked me for an adrenaline-rushed cathartic loop. However, that said, I feel a film adaptation may lessen the impact experienced when seeing the play when its alive with its electric intensity. Ideally, a taped for PBS version with the original cast would have been the best bet, preserving the legend for all-time, but I’m still intrigued at the prospect of the film. And everyone who’s anyone in Hollywood is interested – and rightly so. Thank God Tracy Letts is writing the screenplay.

There’s been a huge release of Jerry Herman music on itunes, amazon (digital) and at arkivmusic.com (CD issue). Most notably, they are reissuing the 1967 cast recording of Hello, Dolly! with Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway, which for my money is the best Dolly recording out there. (Pearlie Mae’s sass on “So Long, Dearie” is worth the price of the disc alone). But also, the Original London Cast Recording of the show with Mary Martin is getting its first-ever digital release. I’ve heard the album from an LP rip I received a couple years back. What’s most amusing is Martin’s yodeling “ole!” on the second pullback in the title song. I practically fell out of my chair laughing. It’s a cute album.

I love my blogging. I love the people I’ve met taking up this little venture of mine and am grateful for their kinship. Too many people have told me I should be a theatre critic as a result. But if anyone recalls my very first post, waaaay back in October of ought-7, I specifically stated that I refuse to be a critic, and I find that I really must stick to that gun. My blog is my hobby and I daresay, I doubt I will ever write an official “review” for anything ever again. In the meanwhile, I’m also finding myself simultaneously pulling back toward the creative individual I was when I was eighteen; dabbling in opera performance, musical theatre, acting, directing, creative writing, etc. Right now I find myself working on a project that came to me over the weekend. I won’t elaborate yet as the sperm has yet to penetrate the wall of the egg. (Wow, how’s that for graphic imagery?) Hopefully what I come up might be something of interest to all you out here in Blogsville, 😉 For the occasion, I’ve purchased my very first laptop, so I can have my writing and blogging accessible to me wherever I may go. This venture here has been one of the most satisfying things I’ve undertaken in a long time and am glad that I can continue to share my thoughts and information with you all. Oh, and of course the youtube/bluegobo videos…

Mary Martin Goes to Hollywood

Mary Martin made a cameo as herself in the 1946 Warner Bros. musical Night and Day, quite possibly the most factually inaccurate biopic ever made. Cary Grant starred as a suave and debonair – and decidedly heterosexual – Cole Porter, with Alexis Smith, 17 years Grant’s junior as Porter’s older wife, Linda. Almost every aspect of his life is made up, exaggerated or just extremely far-fetched. Apparently Porter loved every minute of the fiction they created of his life.

Here Martin recreates her 1938 show-stopping, star-making number “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” from Leave it to Me, which accurately places the number in its original setting: Siberia. What? Oh well… here goes! (Doesn’t Jane Wyman look like the eager little beaver?).

I also unearthed this gem of Martin singing “Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-De-Ay” from Happy Go Lucky, a starring vehicle for Martin that didn’t jumpstart her film career the way I’m sure the suits would have hoped. This number reminded me of the hilarious floor show number from Leo McCarey’s The Awful Truth. (Anyone?)

Doubt, A Movie


With my nine years spent in Catholic elementary school, with nuns and all the fixings, I was incredibly intrigued to see this play when it first opened. I had never seen Cherry Jones before and frankly was wondering what the fuss was about. Until I saw the play. Her performances as Sr. Aloysius was one of the more spectacular I have ever seen and consider myself a big fan. Brian F. O’Byrne was her considerable equal, especially when their conflict came to a breaking point towards the end. Myself and many other theatregoers left the play quite stunned; a final revelation shocking us and leaving many of us with uncertainty as whether which one was to be believed.

Now the film. Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman pick up where these two great stage actors have left off. They are joined by Angela Bassett and Amy Adams (two rather exciting bits of casting, I must say). I’ve got to confess that while I’ll be seeing the film, I’m less than excited with at the casting of Streep and Hoffman. I hope come December they can change my mind.

"It’s simply that who else…?"

Sure, we’ve seen this before. But what the hell, life is a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death! With the recent glut of posts on Auntie Mame and Mame in the blogosphere, it just felt like the right thing to add to the mix. Figure it will tide us over ’til we get our revival. Angie and Bea recreated the song on the 1987 Tony telecast, complete with some of the original Onna White choreography, particular the burlesque bump-and-grind rideout from the “Bosom Buddies” reprise that unfortunately didn’t make it onto the original cast album.

I dedicate this one to my fellow bloggers…

Patricia Routledge, Patron of the Beatrix Potter Society

Who knew? Here she is on February 3, 2007 opening the kitchen at the House of The Tailor of Gloucester, a gift shop established by the Beatrix Potter Society to help provide income to keep up their museum.

It’s been a while since anything has been posted about this site’s favorite musical diva, and since there are no more Kitty monologues to be found online, I figured, why not?

Anyone got a cool $250 million lying around?

From Liz Smith in the NY Post:

‘I’M AS corny as Kansas in August!” sings Nellie Forbush.

THE FAMED Rodgers & Hammerstein Music Publishing business, run by Ted Chapin, has put itself on the market for a mere $250 million. This seems like as good a time as any, what with R&H a hit again at Lincoln Center in the brilliant revival of just one of their famous musicals, “South Pacific.”

But Chapin isn’t selling his other gold mine – the music of Irving Berlin.

"Dixit Dominus/Climb Ev’ry Mountain"

Okay, so everyone is well-versed in the blockbuster film adaptation that we’ve all grown up with. Julie Andrews twirling on a hillside is one of the most visible images of the American musical in our popular culture. However, the popular success of the original 1959 stage version cannot be forgotten in the mix. Directed by Vincent Donehue, the show was a star vehicle for seemingly ageless Mary Martin, who at 46 would be playing the young postulant Maria (and would famously beat out Ethel Merman for the Tony award).

The show proved more significant as Oscar Hammerstein’s swan-song to musical, as he would succumb to stomach cancer less than a year into the show’s run (and whose health impacted the out of town creative experience). The Sound of Music opened on November 16, 1959 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in NY to mixed notices. Many critics took the show to task for being too saccharine and steeped in operetta rather than following in the innovative footsteps that had defined the early era of Rodgers & Hammerstein through the 1940s and early 50s.

However, the appeal of the show was undeniable. Audiences flocked to see the musical adaptation of the von Trapp Family Singers, keeping the show open in NY for 1,443 performance. The London production, which opened in 1961 without any stars, would go on to become the longest running musical in the West End. Florence Henderson went out on the national tour. However, whatever success the musical had onstage was instantly eclipsed by the unparalleled success of the 20th Century Fox film, which would become the highest grossing film of all time, and win the Oscar for Best Picture of 1965.

In composing a musical steeped in Roman Catholicism, Rodgers found himself researching liturgical music at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY. My elementary school music teacher was a delightful nun who once told me in the seventh grade that she was one of those who sang for Rodgers. Of course that pushed her up a few stock points in my book. The chant settings he created are so impressive and authentic sounding, you’d have thought they were part of the original Gregorian hymnal. Ed Sullivan had the actresses playing the nuns appear on his 1959 Christmas special to sing a medley of their chorales, followed by a stirring rendition of the show’s first act-ending aria “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” by Patricia Neway. Take note of the critical analysis of the show by the reliably awkward Sullivan in his intro. Enjoy!

Quote of the Day

Steven Suskin weighs in on the New Broadway Cast Recording of South Pacific, as well as the archival video of the original London production with Mary Martin:

It can, however, be a dangerous thing to allow modern-day interpreters to restore material that the authors saw fit to cut; these decisions were usually made for a pretty good reason. Consider Hammerstein and Logan’s original ending, which appears in their preliminary script of Jan. 11, 1949 (about eight weeks before the first performance). As the Seabees prepare to ship out, Cable comes back from Marie Louise Island — alive! “Jeez, we all thought you was dead!” says Billis. “I have been, dead and buried. But they dug me up again” says Cable — who immediately arranges to go back to Bali Ha’i, with a priest, to marry Liat. Which would make for a rather different South Pacific, don’t you think?

Musical Theatre Zen: Jerome Kern Revisited

A couple months ago I first posted about the musical theatre zen, as I call it. You know, when you hear a musical theatre song that is just so resplendent it transports you emotionally. I introduced the term by using “All the Things You Are,” which might very well be my favorite song, as an example.

Another glorious Hammerstein-Kern number is “Some Girl is on Your Mind,” a showstopper that was first introduced in their musical Sweet Adeline in 1929. The musical, which ran for 234 performances at the Hammerstein Theatre, was written as a vehicle for Helen Morgan, who had only two seasons before made a huge splash as Julie LaVerne in the original cast of Show Boat. The plot is paper thin: it concerns Addie, who sings at her father’s beer garden in Hoboken and her journey to Broadway stardom, with the trials and tribulations of romance that she encounters on her rise to fame. The show was a huge critical success and audiences came out in droves, though the musical was short-lived as a result of the onset of the Great Depression.The endlessly melodic score featured the gorgeous standard “Why Was I Born?” (which offered NY audiences another chance to see Morgan singing a torch song atop a piano) among many others, but to me, this particular song is a genuine standout.

The song was recorded on John McGlinn’s Broadway Showstoppers album.

From Miles Kreuger in the liner notes:

‘By the middle of the second act, Addie has stirred the hearts of three young men: Tom Martin, who has turned his affection towards Addie’s younger sister; weather James Day; and the shy and kindly composer Sid. They are drinking at a table at the Hoffman House in the company of James Thornton, a real-life vaudevillian veteran back to the 1880s and composer of several major songs of long ago, including “When You Were Sweet Sixteen.” (Thornton played himself in this production).

Tom, Jim, and Sid are all thinking of Addie, whose voice drifts in and out. This quartet with male chorus is surely one of the most original and hauntingly beautiful variations on a drinking song in the entire literature of musical theatre.”‘

The featured singers included Cris Groenendaal, Brent Barrett, George Dvorsky, Davis Gaines and Judy Kaye as the haunting, offstage voice of Addie (who is actually singing a section from “Why Was I Born?” a song she sings in the presence of all the affected gentlemen). The orchestrations are once again from my favorite orchestrator, Robert Russell Bennett.

Mr. Kreuger isn’t wrong. While the show is considered to be considerably creaky (with its roots in soap operetta, its not hard to see why), the strength of the score is still admirable. When this song was performed in the Encores! concert presentation of Adeline in 1996, the audience practically tore the house apart. What’s fascinating to me is its idea and structure. You have three men singing of the same individual, each singing his own section, they are constantly brought together (assisted by the chorus) building to a soaring finish. However, the song doesn’t end with a musical button, but with a wistful coda that decrescendos to very soft and quiet final chord.

Listening to this and “All the Things You Are” back to back, I can’t help but feel that Mr. Kern is the greatest melodist in the history of musical theatre. A bold opinion, I’m certain, especially with the beloved Rodgers, Porter, Gershwin, Berlin, et al, et al, who have all contributed great scores and songs of terrific quality and beauty. However for me there is something extra special in the way Kern builds a phrase or takes you from one note to the next. It’s sometimes surprising, sometimes stirring and sometimes moving. You may disagree with me on that thought, and that’s okay by me – we all have our opinions for sure, but I do feel there is ample evidence to back me up.

You can hear for yourself. Here is Some Girl is on Your Mind. Enjoy.