A Chain of Musicals: GUYS AND DOLLS

To purchase the complete JAY/TER studio cast recording of GUYS AND DOLLS, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, then you might like Guys and Dolls.

The robust musical comedy style of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a key feature in what is commonly called – and rightly so, I think – a perfect example of this particular form of musical theatre. And, along with Lorelei and Elle, this show gives us another iconic blonde: the long-suffering showgirl fiancé, Adelaide.

Based on Damon Runyon’s now classic short stories, Guys and Dolls features a marvelous Frank Loesser score embedded in a witty book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. The show tells the story of Sarah, a chaste missionary dreaming of love, who is the subject of a bet between Nathan Detriot, who needs $1000 to pay for a venue for his floating crap game, and Sky Masterson, who is a high-flying gambler who is known for taking on unusual bets. Also thrown into the mix is Miss Adelaide, who has been engaged to Nathan for 14 years and is dying to get married. Highlights from the score that help this delightful tale unravel include “I’ll Know”, “Adelaide’s Lament”, “Luck be a Lady”, “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat” and “If I Were a Bell”.

Guys and Dolls is a great show. Of the three musicals that my high school mounted in my time there, it was the only one that I was in – as the Hotbox MC and a dancer in the Havana sequence. Later on, I choreographed another high school’s production and once again enjoyed being around this show’s great score, which contains a number of Broadway standards and not a bum note to be seen. It’s certainly a show I would like to revisit sometime in the future. The other thing that is really great about Guys and Dolls is its book and the way that it brilliantly crafts not only the four leading characters, but also the supporting characters that make the world of “Runyonland” come to life so vividly on stage. Besides two cherished original productions on either side of the Atlantic, the show has been adapted for the silver screen, been re-conceived as for an all African-American cast in 1976 (with some fantastic new arrangements), and received fantastic revivals in the West End and on Broadway in 1982 and 1992 respectively. In 2009, the show returned to Broadway and bombed. It’s often said that Guys and Dolls is impossible to mess up, but here the show was sunk by a director whose concept destroyed the very fibre of the show’s being and whose cast, although great in other roles in other media, probably shouldn’t have been playing these roles on that stage at that point in their careers.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on Guys and Dolls. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

A Chain of Musicals: GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES

To purchase the film version of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES on DVD, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like Legally Blonde, then you might like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Legally Blonde and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes are two musical comedies about two iconic blondes. Just as Elle Woods is represents a certain aspect of womanhood in the last quarter century, so did Lorelei Lee in the era in which she was introduced to the world.

With Joseph Fields and Anita Loos working on the book and Leo Robin and Jule Styne working on the score, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes ended up being a popular musical of the late 1940s. Set in the 1920s, the show tells the story of Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw’s journey on an ocean liner bound for France. After a number of romantic onboard hijinks involving a missing tiara, a fiancé back home, a couple of socialites and a team of olympic sportsmen, everyone arrives in Paris where, with two detectives thrown into the mix, more hijinks ensue. This being a musical comedy written in the 1940s, everything leads up to a great big happy ending with all the intrigues unraveled and everyone paired off with the right partner. Highlights include “A Little Girl From Little Rock”, “I Love What I’m Doing” and “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is not my favourite musical comedy, even of its era, but that’s not the point of this month’s column. Certainly, dear reader, you may enjoy it; after all, that’s what we’re doing here. I’ve never been a big Carol Channing fan myself, so recordings of her takes on the songs don’t do it for me and its really only the film version (which features additional songs by Hoagy Carmichael & Harold Adamson, one of which is featured in the clip below), with Marilyn Monroe, that springs to life for me. That said, I think the show is a solid one and is worth a listen or a look, should you have the opportunity. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes has been back to Broadway twice, first in the form of a “revisal” entitled Lorelei (broader and crasser than the original with a too-old Carol Channing once again playing the lead role) and then in a transfer of a Goodspeed Opera House production (which lasted a mere 8 performances with KT Sullivan as Lorelei). Perhaps there’s some life in the old girl yet: just please don’t revive it with Channing once again in this second decade of the twenty-first century. Maybe a production will come along yet that pushes this show up in my esteem.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

A Chain of Musicals: LEGALLY BLONDE

To purchase the Original London Cast Recording of LEGALLY BLONDE, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like Hairspray, then you might like Legally Blonde.

While the most obvious common feature of Hairspray and Legally Blonde is their poppy scores, the two shows are also both (more or less) great coming-of-age stories with everything revolving around two super young women characters. Both shows are also all too easy to write off as being pop trash cotton candy musicals, but both offer more than what the eye might first perceive.

Legally Blonde, adapted by Heather Hach, Laurence O’Keefe and Nell Benjamin from the hit film of the same name, tells the tale of Elle Woods, blonde extrodinaire. Dumped in favour of a serious career by her boyfriend, Warner, who is off to Harvard, Elle launches a plan to get him back by following him to law school to prove just how much she has to offer. Warner doesn’t change his ming, but Elle finds a new direction for her own life at Harvard as she faces the immense challenges of becoming a lawyer who exhibits both sense and style. Highlights include “Serious”, “So Much Better”, “Omigod You Guys”, “Blood in the Water” and “Take it Like a Man”.

Legally Blonde was Laurence O’Keefe’s follow-up piece to Bat Boy and brings to life the promise shown in that earlier musical. Where Bat Boy is almost smothered by its own cleverness and by all of the ideas that float around in its score, Legally Blonde is tight and focused with an emotional core that prevents it from being simply a bit of silliness and allows the show to come together in a way that Bat Boy never quite does. The show is high-energy, has a memorable score in the way that a good old-fashioned nouveau musical comedy should and manages to blend dance into the proceedings in an era when many musicals forget what an important element of storytelling dance can be in musicals. (In that respect, Jerry Mitchell’s choreography for the original production never feels bland or generic in the way that Rob Ashford’s dance has in the recent revivals of Promises, Promises and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.) The show was screened on MTV during its original Broadway run. While no plans for a DVD release have surfaced as yet, wouldn’t it be great to be able to pick up this show on Amazon for your own personal collection? Ah well, a boy can dream.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on Legally Blonde. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

A Chain of Musicals: HAIRSPRAY

To purchase HAIRSPRAY on Blu-ray, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like Dreamgirls, then you might like Hairspray.

While Hairspray is a considerably lighter show than Dreamgirls, the two have some commonality: race relations and music play a huge role in each musical, there is a crossover in some of the musical styles used in each respective score and, more superficially, both shows star a plus-size leading lady to great effect.

Hairspray is the musical version of the classic John Waters film starring Ricki Lake as plump, wannabe TV dancer, Tracy Turnblad. As in the film, Tracy wins a role on The Corny Collins Show and becomes a hit. But how will things turn out when she tries to get the show racially integrated? Will everyone still love her? Or will everyone turn their backs on her (as they do Huey, in Memphis, the show we featured in this column a few days ago)? Will Velma Von Tussle, the show’s racist producer, burst Tracy’s Bubble? And will true love conquer all if teenage heartthrob, Link Larkin, has to pick between Velma’s daughter, Amber, and Tracy? Highlights include “Welcome to the Sixties”, “I Know Where I’ve Been”, “Without Love”, “You Can’t Stop the Beat” and “I Can Hear the Bells”.

Hairspray might appear light and fluffy on the surface, but it has a core that belies its shiny exterior. The show really comes into its own as the racial integration plot gains momentum and the emotional climax of that particular narrative strand, the anthemic “I Know Where I’ve Been”, is incredibly moving. It’s perhaps the part of the adaptation that moves furthest from the style of the original film – but that’s why the musical works. Mark O’Donnell and Thomas Meehan’s adaptation works well and keeps the piece moving – although I’ve yet to be convinced that having Motormouth Maybelle speak in rhyming couplets justifies itself as a mode of dramatic language in this show – and Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman have yet to top themselves in creating a musical for the Broadway stage: Fame Becomes Me‘s bits and pieces were entertaining enough, but it was only a revue, and Catch Me If You Can was disappointing. Perhaps the pair need to step out from behind the shadow of the faux musical, as Michael John LaChiusa termed it, and try something truly original.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on Hairspray. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

A Chain of Musicals: DREAMGIRLS

To purchase DREAMGIRLS on Blu-ray, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like Memphis, then you might like Dreamgirls.

The link between these two shows is perhaps one of the clearest we’ve had this month. Memphis and Dreamgirls cover similar thematic territory, with certain points in regard to the history of popular music sung by African-Americans brought to the fore in the narrative of each. Both shows also fierce leading ladies and the creation of Felicia owes something to the influence of Effie and Deena. The other neat little tie between the two shows is that both are loosely based on real-life stories, with the names of those involved altered just enough to avoid the trouble that an outright depiction might have brought.

Dreamgirls is the story of Effie, Deena and Lorrell, three singers with a dream of making it big in the music industry. Effie is the driving force and has the biggest voice of the group and makes all the calls until the shady Curtis Taylor, Jr, takes over management of the group. Taylor starts affairs with both Effie and Deena, then makes Deena lead singer of the group and eventually dismisses a pregnant and moody Effie from the group. Effie’s life falls apart, but she slowly puts things back together… and as that happens, Curtis’s actions come back to haunt him as Deena realises the kind of man he really is. Highlights include “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going”, “One Night Only”, “Dreamgirls”, “I Am Changing” and “It’s All Over”.

Dreamgirls might be known to many thanks to the high profile film starring Jennifer Hudson as Effie, Beyonce Knowles as Deena and Anika Noni Rose as Lorrell, with a cast that also included Eddie Murphy and Jamie Foxx. But before that, Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen’s show was a smash hit on the stage, directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett, with an electric Jennifer Holliday as the original Effie. That original stage show is also held together by a great deal more music than what remained in the film – indeed, it is music that holds the stage together and the film never quite negotiated how to bridge the gap between speaking and singing was once almost all of the linking material has been cut and replaced with dialogue. Recent tours have lamentably fiddled with the score to incorporate “Listen” from the film (with a simply awful new set of lyrics), which is a pity. Even so, Dreamgirls has a great score and the show will transport you to the whirlwind era of R&B acts like The Supremes, The Shirelles, James Brown and Jackie Wilson – without naming a single one of those groups.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on Dreamgirls. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

A Chain of Musicals: MEMPHIS

To purchase MEMPHIS on Blu-ray, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like The Boys in the Photograph, then you might like Memphis.

The Boys in the Photograph and Memphis both deal with the effects of prejudice, although in different specific situations, and in both shows there are violent consequences for the characters, with characters getting beaten up close to the end of the first act in both shows. Both shows also feature a score that is heavily influenced by popular music, although this is of course what Memphis is all about.

Set in the 1950s, Memphis introduces us to Huey Calhoun, a character based on Dewey Phillips who was one of the first white DJs to play black music on the radio. Behind the mike and in his daily life, he is something of a hillbilly on amphetamines, but his crazy persona attracts the attention of Felicia Farrell, a singer he met at a black underground Rock and Roll bar called Delray’s. On the segregated streets of Memphis, the pair face a great deal of trouble – but what happens when the opportunity to for both of them to grow their careers into the national arena is what takes us to the final curtain. Highlights include “Everybody Wants to be Black on Saturday Night”, “Love Will Stand When All Else Falls”, “Someday”, “Say a Prayer” and “Change Don’t Come Easy”.

Memphis is a emotional powerhouse of a show. It’s a show that catches you almost off guard. You watch the story, you listen to the songs – and then all of a sudden you’re crying at the end of the first act. Although the second act never quite matches the emotional journey of the first act, the show still offers a fine experience for its audiences. The score by Bon Jovi’s David Bryan works well with Joe DiPietro’s book, although the lyrics aren’t perfectly crafted at times (lots of half-rhymes) and there are times when the are inexplicable lapses in logic when it comes to the line between what’s diegetic and what’s not – a border that has to be negotiated in any musical that deals with performance. Perhaps it is most jarring in the opening number when Felicia, while singing on stage in the number, “Underground”, starts to narrate her life story. Better handled are the appearances of the singers when Huey plays his records, but this remains one aspect of the show that wasn’t interrogated thoroughly enough by its writers. Don’t let that put you off though: with a good cast and a solid staging, as it had in it’s Broadway premiere, Memphis is a solid piece of entertainment.

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on Memphis. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…

A Chain of Musicals: THE BOYS IN THE PHOTOGRAPH

To purchase the original London Cast Recording of THE BEAUTIFUL GAME, as THE BOYS IN THE PHOTOGRAPH was originally known, click on the image above.

In January, Musical Cyberspace is going to work through a chain of musicals. This is how it works: each day I will discuss, in brief, a musical linked to the previous day’s musical by some kind of common ground. It follows then, that if you – dear reader – liked the previous day’s show, then you might enjoy the current day’s show. Comments, as alway, are welcome!

If you like West Side Story, then you might like The Boys in the Photograph.

The Boys in the Photograph is the reworked version of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Ben Elton’s, The Beautiful Game, Like West Side Story, it deals with two groups in conflict with one another and both shows use dance significantly. (West Side Story uses dance more successfully, of course, but the aspirations are there in The Boys in the Photograph – but the show has never had a visionary director-choreographer like Jerome Robbins to help it along in any of its incarnations.)

The Boys in the Photograph deals with the Catholic-Protestant divide in Northern Ireland, the IRA, a romance that is doomed from the start because of those things (although the new version unsuccessfully tags on a happy ending in the final scene) and – of course – soccer and the way it draws the community we see on stage together. Highlights include “God’s Own Country” and “Let Us Love in Peace”, “Clean the Kit” and “All the Love I Have”. When the show was still The Beautiful Game, there was also “Our Kind of Love”, a song written the first time that Lloyd Webber announced a Phantom of the Opera sequel. When that idea was was abandoned, the song became the centrepiece of The Beautiful Game. When Love Never Dies was eventually written, it was shifted – with new lyrics – back into the realm of the Phantom.

The Boys in the Photograph is the weakest musical we’ve showcased this month. The show was met with mixed reactions in its original version. Reviews for the new version were more positive, though not a set of raves by any means. So this makes it one of those shows that has been revised after its original run, but one which has not managed to surpass the traps of bad lyrics and book problems so as to achieve the total effect of its potential. Even so, its well worth a listen, particularly if you are interested in the craft and discipline of lyric-writing. Sometimes it is easier to learn about something when the mistakes are obvious. In what Elton has written, they most certainly are. (For an in depth, track by track look at the cast album, see here.)

So, now it’s time to share your thoughts on The Boys in the Photograph. And what shows would you suggest to fans of this show? See which one we’ll feature here tomorrow…