Ma-ra-Ma-ra-Marathon

I have been listening to the original off-Broadway cast recording of Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. I don't know why. Shit's been real crazy lately, and my mood has more or less been "crazy, nonsensical French lyricism translated into crazy, vaguely ironic English? How about, yes, please?" The music and orchestrations are blatantly French modernist (think Aznavour, Gainsbourg, and Bertrand Bergalat), but the words incorporate references to atomic robots and burgers and fries and picture shows and Adolph Hitler's rise to power. The emotions of the singers run the gamut from complete apathy to screaming, sensationally overwrought pain. I can't explain it. Just listen to the freaking album, because I'd sooner recommend it than inflict it on any of my unsuspecting peers. The revival recording doesn't come out until October anyway, and, by then, most of the tracks will only be available on Itunes, because they couldn't spring for a two-CD set in their low, Off-Broadway thrift store budget.

This is the Greenwich Village "sensation" (well, Richard Jay-Alexander wrote the liner notes for this, so I can only assume he was there to appreciate it in 1966) conceived by a New York City record producer, a beatnik poet, and an Israeli acting teacher/director/mime that supposedly reduced Liza Minnelli to breathless tears. My parents saw it, too, during its original run, and they have countless copies of this in vinyl at the Gramercy thrift store. Since I'm not hip enough to count a turntable as some sort of necessity, buying this on CD in the basement of the Virgin Megastore (Why, God, Why?) has to suffice. I blame the fact that I'm so into oldies to actually give a crap about popular music for my not being up-to-date on the current trends. I have no clue about half the bands that exist today.

Which means that I am turning into my dad. Last night, I was sleeping and all I could think about was the revival recording of Man of La Mancha with Brian Stokes Mitchell as Cervantes and Ernie Sabella as Sancho Panza. I don't know why: It's my dad's favorite musical, right up there with The Most Happy Fella, Mayor (I shit you not..he really has the original record of this and there is no CD available. Basically, it was like the Avenue Q of the 80s), and Do Re Mi. This was a strange little curio from the late fifties-early sixties about a down-on-his-luck salesman (Phil Silvers in the original, Nathan Lane in the revival at City Center Encores!) who meets a sexy nightclub singer and gets embroiled in a wacky jukebox scandal. This has one of the greatest eleven o'clock ballads ever, "All Of My Life." Most of the other songs are instantly forgettable, because they're supposed to be wacky, exaggerated parodies of the kind of pop music that was coming out when Comden & Green were pretty much on their way out (Hey, just like in Singin' in the Rain!). And it was recorded to great effect with an all-star cast, so just take my word for it, listen to it, and impress your friends with your obscure knowledge of musicals, because mine pretty much begins and ends with Do Re Mi. And Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris.

Except not only is Jacques Brel a popular show right now (we did it at summer camp ages ago...I went to a really artsy camp), the revival currently packs 'em in at the Zipper Theatre Off-Broadway. And Jacques Brel also has a blog! And he's on MySpace! Yeahhhh!

I have no clue about the MySpace.

Since this is quickly becoming the obligatory post about "What CDs I'm currently obsessed with this week," I'll just elaborate.

I shouldn't like Frank Sinatra. He has mob ties. He is overrated. And he's Frank freaking Sinatra! The Entertainer of the Century! But that doesn't stop me for loving Come Dance With Me! for its sheer kitsch value. Mostly because the songs on this CD are Sinatra-ized showtunes (and I'm such a showtune purist I wouldn't even touch his Rodgers & Hammerstein and Comden & Green and Gershwin records with a ten foot dance belt). I'm a big booster of Kismet, which is a horrible musical, but the melodies stick with you because of its kitsch value, and I'd take Sinatra's swingin' "Baubles, Bangles, and Beads" over any of the original versions any day. It's almost like that song was screaming to be Sinatra-ized into a campy swing classic. I actually almost bought that CD opera reissue of the old Kismet highlights record with Gordon MacRae based on the kitschy cover art alone, but didn't because I am a very picky buyer.

Sinatra does "I Could Have Danced All Night," too. That's something I didn't think could translate to his style, but I guess he could do whatever the fuck he wanted to Rodgers & Hammerstein at that point in his career.

As for retro kitsch that isn't blatantly offensive in some respect, I really, really have a soft spot in my heart for Promises, Promises. I can't explain it. It's like the same way I feel about Big River. To me, Promises, Promises is the apotheosis of the perfect Broadway show: The music is provided by Burt Bacharach, Hal David did the lyrics, Neil Simon wrote the dialogue, Michael Bennett choreographed it, and Jerry Orbach starred in it. And it's based on the classic 60s movie The Apartment with all the stylistic trappings intact. Revive this! Now! I mean, sure, doing it at City Center Encores! with Martin Short is perfectly fine, but, based on those names alone, this show actually merits the big-scale revival it so richly deserves.

Anyway, this is a show where nearly every song is as hummable and memorable as "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" And it is. Basically, a corporate drone lends his apartment to the sleazy higher-ups who keep him employed in exchange for some fringe benefits. He lets them boink their mistresses in his pad, as long as he keeps their little secret (and if you listen to the CD, you can easily hear Eugene Levy playing the Edward Winter role as his boss). And then he falls in love with the innocent Miss Fran Kubelik (Jil O'Hara). There's some counterculture involved and the obligatory drug references, but you have to love any Broadway show where the overture sounds a lot like this: "Ba. Ba bop. Doo-wah. Ba ba ba ba ba dum!"

It's also what Bennett's muse, Donna McKechnie, did before leaving to do another retro kitsch show, Company. And, yes, she gets a big dance solo as Miss Della Hoya. Of course, you'd just have to imagine it for yourself. I imagine it was a lot like "Tick Tock."

And then...there's this. I don't know why I find myself pathetically and repeatedly going back to this CD. It will never be the funniest thing ever recorded. It's horrendously dated, and, to truly appreciate it, you have to have a mindset toward the time when Contact, Seussical, Dirty Blonde, and Jane Eyre were all on Broadway. But I suppose it's the nostalgia that keeps me playing it and makes Forbidden Broadway 2001: A Spoof Odyssey that much more appealing to me. I'll give a small, pithy example. Yesterday, I was home alone and cleaning and listening to "Would-Be Stars," which is a parody of the song "Wunderbar" from Kiss Me, Kate, and is about how the stars of Kiss Me, Kate in 2001, Brian Stokes Mitchell (Stokes again! Stokes alive! He's also in Do Re Mi, and that makes me positively...stoked) and Marin Mazzie, have names that are completely unrecognizable to mere mortals. And if you're like me and giggling like a dork at how stupid and inane that sounds, you will probably love this CD.

The highlights: "Sondheim's Blues," a song to the tune of "Buddy's Blues" from Follies about why Sondheim shows are never revived, to hilarious effect. It's this CD's damn fault I know the words to "Sondheim's Blues" better than the actual lyrics. And, yes, an epic parody of the biggest musical of 2001, Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida (again, you had to have been there...it was fantastically cheesy and misfired). It's a testament to how dead-on this show is when the white girl who plays Heather Headley on this actually went on to star as the villain in Aida just before it closed. And the guy who plays Cole Porter on the Kiss Me, Kate parody ("I'm the top, I'm the great Cole Porter...from this season on, no more new shows..." Again, you had to have been there) recently played the Caliph in Kismet at City Center Encores! opposite...Brian Stokes Mitchell and Marin Mazzie. Do you think at any point during the rehearsal process Stokes and Mazzie ever heard "Would-Be Stars"? Now, that would be hilarious. While I can only assume that the Great Stokes is not that easily offended, I hope he kicked the guy's ass for this.

City Center Encores! and imminent ass-kickings? It must be that time of year again.

Damn kids.