See-Dee Binge!

I am currently battling a Sween-ey Stomach Flu.

I did not get to go to the Flea Market.

I made the time for one good hour of an improv show, and then it was back to the sickbed.

Although, one thing I did want to post on the blog but didn't get a chance to was this most random piece of street garbage found yesterday in Murray Hill: An understudy slip announcing that "At This Performance of The Wedding Singer, the role of Robbie Hart, usually played by Stephen Lynch, will be played by Kevin Kern."

Anyway, on the way home from UCBT, I stopped off at a Chelsea street fair and somehow had the energy to splurge on some very cheap (and very intriguing CDs).

Dames at Sea: Original Off-Broadway Cast Recording (1968) was the first one I jumped on based solely on the cover art. Look at this! And it stars Bernadette Peters, who was only seventeen at the time, but you knew she was destined for greatness. Dames at Sea is a very broad, tongue-in-cheek spoof of old Broadway musicals like 42nd Street, even though it's a live stage show with very few props and sets, and only six actors, based on the essential plot of 42nd Street (the movie) that actually predates 42nd Street (the Broadway musical). The liner notes extensively summarize both the plot and why the show worked: It was such a hit at the tiny Bouwerie Lane Theatre that stars like Noel Coward and Ethel Merman legendarily schlepped down to the Village to see what the fuss was about. Anyway, we all know the story: Small-town girl fresh off the bus from Centreville, Utah meets the Navy boy of her dreams and replaces the lead in a Broadway show after she loses everything but her tap shoes. If you can believe this, and appreciate the humor, it's the show for you...who is to say, me. Every single line is played with the utmost sincerity, no matter how preposterous it sounds. These kids really love what they do!

The original production used only a piano, but this version has a full orchestra conducted and arranged by Jonathan Tunick, giving it the feel of a real Broadway show that could actually be playing right now. Because I couldn't help but think of The Drowsy Chaperone every time I've listened to this so far. Did the Chaperone crew really crib that much from the people who did this show? Well, the characters in Dames at Sea are more overtly based on the real people (one character screams Gene Kelly, and you don't exactly get to see him tap-dance on the CD) who starred in backstage musicals. On the other hand, just try not to be reminded of "Message from a Nightengale" based on the hilarious "Singapore Sue." The similarities are all too much. But its spoofy DNA is everywhere. Especially in the finale, "Let's Have a Simple Wedding," where, natch, every single character gets married in a fantastically/ironically huge ceremony. Think of it as "I Do, I Do in the Sea."

The lyrics? Rhyming "Richard Arlen" and "Spanky McFarland"? Genius. Reminds me of another brilliant lyrical insight, this one from Forbidden Broadway Cleans Up Its Act!: "Doug Sills gets impaled on a foil, and Mandy Patink will drink castor oil."

And there's more than a little of Sutton Foster going on with young Bernadette. I guess the cast of Dames at Sea didn't really go on to much after that, except for Bernadette, because Lord knows whatever happened to David Christmas, who gets a hilarious pre-Follies number called "Broadway Baby" that more than vaguely seems to recall "All I Need is the Girl" from Gypsy.

Well, there's also Steve Elmore, who is perhaps best known as Paul in the original cast of Company. He's the guy who gets to sing, "Todayyyy is for Amyyyy, Amy I give you the rest of my life, to cherish and to keep you, to honor you foreeeeveeeerr...Tooooodaaaayyyy is for Aaaaaamy, my heavenly soon to be wiiiiiiife..." Man. If I was a guy? I'd seriously harbor a secret fantasy to play Paul. He's a nothing role, but he gets to sing that line. Which is something I've been torturing a lot of people with for quite some time.

In all seriousness, Elmore's fine, because he gets to play two great character roles. In the first act, he's basically Julian Marsh. In the second, he's the naval captain who gets a great solo turn with "The Beguine," which is (I'm paraphrasing the liner notes here) "perhaps the most romantic song ever written about Pensacola, Florida." It's your typical salsa/Latin pastiche number, which is perfect for any period spoof. It's also great because, every time I hear him singing it, I keep hearing "Todaaaaay is for Aaaaamy..."

Which is hilarious, because, look who played Paul in the last revival of Company.











Moving on...

The Scarlet Pimpernel: Original Broadway Cast Recording has to be heard to be believed. Granted, I never really "got" Wildhorn aside from "low-rent American Andrew Lloyd Webber." Just that he's made a lot of concept albums that, apparently merit full-scale Broadway musicals that get constantly reworked...which has pretty much changed my conception of him into "postmodern Jim Steinman."

Okay, I'll admit that, in high school, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy was one of my favorite reading assignments ever. How could I not be morbidly curious about a concept album of a musical based on the novel?!? As long as they keep the humor intact. And, I ask you, is there a more wonderfully cheesy opening number as bombastic as "Madame Guillotine" (in which an anonymous mob of angry French people sing about how justice will be served when it cuts off your head)?

Among the most listenable songs on the album: "Storybook," which is the big group waltz/ascot-gavotte set at the lavish Act II costume ball; "The Creation of Man," which is the wacky comedy number where the Pimpernel and his men sing about how they're going to disguise themselves as dandy fops in order to carry out their mission; and "Falcon in the Dive," which is the villain's token "I'll get you yet!" manifesto song. As performed by Terrence Mann, it could not be more vengeful...or unintentionally hilarious. I mean, if that is their true intention. Doug Sills (who, by the way, hasn't been impaled on a foil just yet) sounds pretty commanding as the Pimpernel and, if you don't believe me, you can check out this old commercial for Pimpernel that promises "Lotsa laughs!" So, this is the guy who turned down John Wilkes Booth in Assassins and Sir Galahad in Spamalot? Lotsa laughs. And I wonder whatever happened to him...or Wildhorn, for that matter. Because a lot of his music sounds freakishly similar, as well as similarly freakish, just based on this and Jekyll & Hyde.

According to the liner notes, Pimpernel was really an attempt to bring "popular music" into the legitimate Broadway theatre. Hence, the concept albums. And the constant revisions. And the synthesizers, they are a-plenty. At least there are enough real instruments to balance out the chaos (they even added some extra strings just for the album). Understandably, a lot of the actors in this show don't act anymore. Although, there is a minor chorus member listed in the liner notes named Sutton Foster.

Side note: I couldn't help but think of David Koechner and Mark McKinney as the dandy fops from "Saturday Night Live" when I first listened to "The Creation of Man" (mm-ooh-hoo-hoo nyeesssss). So you know it's quality.

Barbra Streisand: Back to Broadway is an album my parents would probably scold me for not buying. Because we are a Barbra family. She's pretty much staked her claim as our favorite singer, and we always manage to catch all of her TV specials ("Great Performances" is re-airing Color Me Barbra and My Name is Barbra, although I suspect it will take several months before they get to my parents' hometown affiliate). But I really didn't like this as much as I thought my DNA would dictate. Neither her duets ("One Hand, One Heart" with Johnny Mathis and "Music of the Night" with Michael Crawford...oy) nor her Sondheim covers ("Everybody Says Don't" from Anyone Can Whistle, "Children Will Listen" from Into the Woods, and "Move On" from Sunday in the Park With George) could ally me with her side of apparent good, as the arrangements are all very syrupy and eighties-ish. Remember: This was the voice that made "As If We Never Said Goodbye" from Sunset Boulevard a huge hit on the pop charts. Also, "Send In The Clowns." Again.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I've been too desensitized by my love of oldies and classic rock to truly appreciate the Barbra in all her capacity. The arrangement for "Luck be a Lady" sounds a little too "Pills and Soap" for my taste.

Strictly "Bring your mother" material for me. I look forward to either pawning it off as a present for a beloved relative or chucking it in the trash unnoticed.

And, finally we have Annie (1999 Television Film Soundtrack), which sounds fundamentally wrong, but there would be no better time to buy this and be reminded of Victor Garber's brilliance before his post-"Alias" TV show got cancelled after one episode. Of course, they also had the Godspell soundtrack for that, but I'm partial to this, because Annie was probably the first movie musical I ever saw and, for all of its flaws, it was catnip to any showtune-loving five-year-old.

The TV movie basically rectified any cinematic flaws John Huston might have wrought on the original by using some pretty "duh" devices. First of all, Garber's Daddy Warbucks, shaved head and all. If his delivery of the line "Yesterday was plain awful" in "I Don't Need Anything But You" doesn't convince you he's a way better choice than grumpy old Brit Albert Finney was, maybe his studied reading of the opening lines in "NYC" will. Also, original Annie Andrea McArdle (who was denied a role in the first movie) has a nice little cameo as the Star-to-Be. Most of the dated references are changed, but this is an updated version of the original show. Updated in the sense that they included both versions of "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile." Also? The girl who plays Annie is not annoying. If you've ever seen the TV movie, Netflix it post-haste. I am telling you, this is the best TV-movie remake of a classic Broadway musical, because it truly does everything right. Yes. Better than Bye Bye Birdie, South Pacific, Cinderella, Once Upon a Mattress, The Music Man, and Gypsy combined. I never understood why Michael Eisner was so crazy about these, but now, I guess I do. Huston's Annie is thus stricken from the record.

Annie's hair never once touches a perming device. That's devotion.

Anyway, the cast reads like a who's-who of musical theatre in the late nineties. You've got Audra McDonald as Grace, Alan Cumming as Rooster Hannigan, and Kristin Chenoweth as Lily St. Regis. And then there's Kathy Bates as Miss Hannigan, who actually outshines them all (...well, maybe not Audra). The songs that were cut essentially contextualized the show as being set during the Depression ("We'd Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover" and "A New Deal for Christmas"), but this is the happy optimistic late-nineties Annie that features someone named LaLanne as one of the orphans and Daddy Warbucks proposing to an African-American Grace, so who's to complain about political incorrectness at this point? And, Punjab aside, if you really want to know how politically incorrect Annie probably was going to be, listen to Charles Strouse's original cut song demos on the Annie original cast recording...especially the one that's basically a parade of offensively dated racial stereotypes. Leapin' lizards! Those tracks would make even the creators of "Message from a Nightengale" blush.

Anyway, a worthy purchase. I'd totally raise a daughter on this one.

And into the fire we goooo...