Tuesday, November 25, 2003

Big Doofus

Ned Beatty is a tactless jerk.

Even if he's right (and for the record, I've not yet seen Cat, but he's right on about celebrity casting in general), why on earth would Beatty slam his co-stars while the show is still running? What possible purpose does that serve? What sort of performances are Judd and Patric going to give tonight after reading that their co-star gives them an "A" for effort, but thinks they don't have what it takes?

Director Anthony Page isn't much better. If he thought he could improve their performances, why didn't he take some time and do it? Hell, if he's got time to pick up the phone for an interview, he's got time to call Judd with suggestions.

Gentlemen, I hope you were both drunk. You should be ashamed.

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

They're Dropping Like Flies!

Good gravy, what on earth is happening with the Broadway season?!? First, Bobbi Boland bites the dust in previews, and now The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All is gone after one performance. Brutal. Perhaps the economy is hitting the pockets of investors harder than anticipated. Alternately, the producers could just be smart and pulling obvious duds out of the house before they have a chance to do long-term financial damage.

(By the by, those wanting the gossipy version of Farrah's non-debut should check out Riedel in the NY Post. Yes, I'm a hypocrite for referring you the Taboo-basher, but I also didn't buy the "whoops-this-house-is-too-big" line. John Leguizamo had no problem filling the stage with his ONE-MAN SHOW, Freak.)

Speaking of Taboo, it looks like the show might be as muddled as the pre-opening gossip suggested. That's a shame, as the premise had potential, and I've heard from multiple sources that the music is fantastic. I'm going to do my best to catch it before it closes...darlings.

Edited to add: This Time article not only dares to defend Taboo, but also asks the burning question: "How has Cats, the most successful musical in Broadway history (and an adventurous one in its day) come to be a synonym for mass-audience schlock?" I'm curious, too, as I find musicals like Miss Saigon and Jekyll and Hyde far more offensively bad than I ever found Cats.

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

Is Lieberman OK?

Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman demonstrated his appeal to a long-ignored minority group - musical theater lovers - with this charming rendition of "Oklahoma."

I hope his campaign speech emphasizes that the farmer and the cowman can, indeed, be friends.

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

A Final Comment: Matrix: Revolutions

Enough bytes have been sacrificed to the gods of The Matrix in the past few years, so I'm foregoing an actual review and just leaving you with this comment:

Why do all of Neo's conversations with the Oracle sound like every passive-aggressive relationship I've ever had?

Neo: Where is this going? Where does it end?
Oracle: I don't know.
Neo: You don't know or you won't tell me?
Oracle: I told you before, no one can see beyond a choice they don't understand. And I mean no one.
Neo: What choice?
Oracle: It doesn't matter. It's my choice. I have mine to make, same as you have yours.
Neo: Does that include what things to tell me and what not to tell me?
Oracle: Of course not.
Neo: Then why didn't you tell me about the Architect ? Why didn't you tell me about Zion and the Ones before me? Why didn't you tell me the truth?
Oracle: Because it wasn't time for you to know.*

No, I'm not angry. And you know what you did.

* Matrix dialogue taken from this site. You can even get it in German!

(Many thanks to Zcuinte, for the original observation. I'm not an entirely shameless joke stealer.)

A Related Rant

WARNING: CONTAINS MUSICAL SPOILERS. PROCEED AT OWN RISK.

After seeing The Boy From Oz, I've decided that it's time to prohibit the use of previously existing pop songs as the score (or part of the score) of musicals. Maybe I've been spending too much time with my Sondheim, who is a master of the specificity of the musical moment, but every time I hear a shoehorned pop ditty as a character's expression of her thoughts or feelings, I'm yanked out of the scene by the ridiculous inappropriateness of the lyrics.

For example, in The Boy From Oz, Peter Allen's mother turns to her son, emotionally devastated by his father's suicide, and sings "Don't Cry Out Loud." It's meant to explain the mother's philosophy of showing only one's good side to the world, and it's a lesson Peter takes to heart. However, the lyrics that Peter's mother sings are:

"Don't cry out loud
Just keep it inside, Learn how to hide your feelings
Fly high and proud
And if you should fall, remember you almost had it all..."

Given that Peter's about eight years old at that point, I'm curious as to what his mother means by "had it all." Is a prediction for his future? A statement about the inevitability of leaving childhood behind? And what about all of that stuff about Baby and the circus? Is lost love equivalent to parental suicide?

It's enough to make a musical junkie roll her nearsighted eyes.

A song meant to be sung by one adult to another can't just be spliced in as a ballad of motherly advice. These pop songs have an assumed narrator and an assumed audience. "Don't Cry Out Loud" is about the importance of maintaining your dignity when your plans for life fail. It is about moving on and not giving up. It is manifestly not about teaching your child to hide his childhood pain behind a mask of smiles and saucy jokes. That moment needs another song.

Another example: "Movin' Out." After Tony comes home from Vietnam, he and Brenda find themselves involved in a highly sexual, violent, mutually destructive relationship. This relationship is shown in a scene scored by "Big Shot." On one hand, the song is musically perfect for the choreography - the guitar and the drum beat highlight the sudden, aggressive moves of the two dancers. However, the lyrics tell another story:

"You went uptown riding in your limousine
In your fine Park Avenue clothes
You had the Dom Perignon in your hand
And the spoon up your nose..."

Really? These two broke kids from Long Island living in a crowded downtown apartment? Tell me more.

"They were all impressed with your Halston dress
And the people that you knew at Elaine’s
And the story of your latest success
Kept ’em so entertained..."

I think it's safe to say that Brenda's never had a Halston, and that neither she nor Tony knows anyone at Elaine's. The music suits the scene, but the lyrics make no sense. Actually, this lyrical incongruence is a problem throughout the show, for the simple reason that Billy Joel didn't write all of his songs with the same characters or the same narrator. Lyrically, "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" doesn't take place in the same world as "Big Man on Mulberry Street." (Nothing takes place in the same world as "We Didn't Start the Fire," a song that is all wrong for this show.) The music and the dancing work together wonderfully, but in order for the show to make sense, you've got to completely ignore the lyrics. That fact, more than the pure dance aspect of the show, makes "Movin' Out" not a real musical.

Don't even get me started on "Total Eclipse of the Heart" in Dance of the Vampires. I'll give $5 (virtual, of course) to anyone who can tell me by what a heart could be eclipsed.

I'm not against pop musicians composing Broadway scores - I've heard that the music for Taboo is quite good, and I'm looking forward to seeing it. (But who knows how I'll react to the inclusion of "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?") I'm just sick of someone taking existing songs, looking at the titles and thinking, "Yeah, that's close enough." Close only counts in hand grenades and horseshoes, buddy. Write some new frickin' songs.

Not the Boy Next Door

I'd thought I'd weigh in on The Boy From Oz from a slightly different perspective: as someone who knows very little about Peter Allen. (My knowledge of Peter consists of Legs Diamond, "I Go To Rio," and a friend's assertion that "he was Liza Minnelli's first gay husband.") I saw the musical on Sunday, so here are my ruminations:

1. Hugh Jackman is stunningly talented. He sings, he dances, he acts, and he makes the audience fall in love with him. Hugh takes command of that stage like he was born to it - I've seen very few actors with that degree of self-possession. (And if you'll join me in the shallow end of the pool for a moment, let me also point out that Hugh's even more attractive in person. Yowza.)

2. Turns out I'm not a big fan of Peter's songs. Most of the time, I think his music sounds like second-rate Barry Manilow. However, after the rousing patriotism of "I Still Call Australia Home," I wanted to be from Oz, too. Man, Hugh and the company knock that one out of the park.

3. What you've heard is true - the show itself is not that great. Here's the main problem: after spending two hours and change with Hugh-as-Peter, I still have no sense of who Peter Allen was, or why I should care about him. For the first act, the show sticks to the "then I said, then I did, then we went" formula of the biographical sketch, but it gives no motive for anything Peter does, including marrying Liza Minnelli. In the second act, Peter acquires his true love and a career, then loses both and dies, but even the dramatic reveals didn't tell me anything about what's going on inside his head. Because Peter is such a cipher in the first act, all of the emotional moments in the second act feel forced and silly, even when they're deadly serious.

There's a ghost of a good musical here, though, and you can see it at the end of the Act II. Peter, now dying, sings "Once Before I Go" to the audience, telling us that he'd "do it all again" and that he "loved us all along." Was Peter Allen's greatest love for his fans? Is The Boy From Oz the story of a man who can connect only on stage? If that's the case, then that aspect needs to be established sooner, and certainly before the final song.

4. They spent $9 million on this musical, and they couldn't come up with a decent representation of the Rockettes? What was up with the triangular mirrors?

I also happened to be present for the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS appeal where a woman paid $1,000 for Hugh's sweaty shirt. I think someone paid $5,000 for his towel. At least he knows what his pheromones are worth.

Friday, November 07, 2003

Yes, He Really Wants to Hurt You

I may be in the minority, but I don't want to see Taboo flop. I laughed my wee ass off at Charles Busch's Shanghai Moon, and I've always nutured a secret love for Culture Club. (Rosie O'Donnell I'm still out on. I'm still holding that television stint against her.) So I'm getting more and more annoyed with Michael Reidel from the New York Post, who's dedicating much of his recent column space to salivating over the imminent ruin of this musical. Dude, I know nastiness sells papers (you work for the Post, so you know), but I don't find much to be gleeful about in yet another tanking musical. Especially one that's been compared to the Titanic before it even opens. So much for the preview period, eh?

Today Boy George wrote back. Under the circumstances, he's fairly restrained. I'm not writing a word about the tutu.

Thursday, November 06, 2003

The King of Broadway?

Terry Teachout wrote a thought-provoking analysis of The Producers and its dismal box office performance. (For those of you who haven't been following, the New York Times ran an article last weekend on this same topic, which was followed by the announcement that Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick would be returning to the former Broadway hit on December 30th. The many producers of The Producers rejoiced, anticpating that $480 seats would sold like those proverbial hotcakes.)

Teachout blames the drop-off in attendance on the nature of Mel Brooks' borscht-belt humor, and he's mostly right - in the age of cartoon sex between Satan and Saddam Hussein, how shocking is a gay Hitler? However, he doesn't mention the weakness of the score or the lyrics, which to my mind remain the show's greatest liability. Brooks gets off a few good tunes, but I've only listened to this cast album twice, and I am a girl who likes her cast albums. The songs simply don't hold up off the stage. Combine the slight score with Brooks' old-timey jokes, and it's pretty obvious why audiences aren't flocking.

(At this point, I must confess that "Springtime for Hitler" makes me laugh every single time I think about it, but I was raised on shticky Hitler jokes. Please return to the rant.)

Producers producers: quit while you're ahead. Let Nathan and Matthew end the run on a glorious high note, and close the show. Its time has come...and gone.

By the by, Terry Teachout writes a kick-ass arts blog. He's well worth checking out. Reviews, opinions, and Edward Gorey limericks - who could ask for anything more?

The Theory of Bad Writing

Find the writers of literary theory to be pointlessly obtuse? Now you know: they're doing it on purpose.


Makes a recovering English major smile.