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December 15, 2007:

THE ELUSIVE BUTTERFLY OF LOVE

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I must write these here notes in a hurry because she of the Evil Eye will be here all too soon and I must hit the road, Jack, but then I’ll be back. So, I’ve got to compress these here notes, I have to make them compact and concise (compress, compact, concise – the three C’s). Therefore, let me cut to the chase, let me make tracks, let me get to the point. Of course, to get to the point you have to know the point and unfortunately I have no clew as to what the point might be. Speaking of the point, yesterday was a day with several points. I got up, and the next thing I knew it was already mid-afternoon. That is because I had to answer a lot of e-mails, make several telephonic calls, and also work on some music and lyrics. I finally took a drive, got the paltry mail that was waiting for me, did an errand or three, and finally went off to have an early pre-theater dining adventure. I then came home briefly, and then toddled off to the El Portal to see what was, in fact, not opening night of The Kid From Brooklyn, despite what I’d read. Opening night is tonight, peculiar since the show is then dark until next Thursday.

Last night, I saw a show entitled The Kid From Brooklyn, subtitled The Danny Kaye Story. I knew very little of this show, but I gather it began life as something completely different entitled Danny and Sylvia: A Love Story – with different writers and creative team, but the same actor playing Danny Kaye. This is apparently a completely different show, at least that’s what I can ascertain from reading the program. I suspect that this is a vanity production – its producing entity are the director and his wife and there are a lot of family members thanked in the program. Still, that’s a lot of money to raise, as the El Portal doesn’t come cheap, and even though it’s a cast of only four, there are stage managers, a band of five, and other things, although from the looks of what’s onstage, not a lot of the budget went to the set (?) or lighting. I don’t really have a problem with vanity productions if they deliver the goods. Unfortunately, The Kid From Brooklyn doesn’t. I found it a long, dull evening – the show ran two hours and ten minutes, which is a good thirty minutes too long, because basically it’s the same thing, the same scene over and over and over again. But, the most basic problem you have when doing a show about Mr. Kaye is that it should be funny. This show is not funny – in spades. There were a few sporadic chuckles, but not one of the “jokes” really landed (the attempts at humor are really feeble). The other problem is that Danny Kaye lives on through his film and TV appearances, so if you have an actor playing him that actor better be able to take the stage, give a star turn, and get the laughs Mr. Kaye got in his famous songs and routines. While Brian Childers is game, and while he every so often captures a vocal inflection or a stance, he’s too short (sorry, but he’s playing Danny Kaye, not Stubby Kaye), and, while he’s obviously a very talented actor, he’s not really funny. Almost every number save for Minnie the Moocher gets tepid applause. And Minnie gets a bigger applause because it involves audience participation, but even that was tepid, except for the many family members and friends who sang perfectly. Instead of being a joyous celebration of a comic genius, what we get is clichéd, turgid bathos, and then a song, and then more bathos, and then a song. It gets really tiresome having two actors play every other character in the show but for Danny and Sylvia. The director’s wife plays Sylvia, and she sounds as if she’s channeling Rita McKenzie doing Ethel Merman – I’m sure she’d say she doesn’t even know who Rita McKenzie is, but the vocal similarities are very close. The show also makes Sylvia a complete bitch and then expects you to feel something for her. The other two actors are adequate, playing everyone from Eve Arden to Gertrude Lawrence to Vivian Leigh to Laurence Olivier (and yes, Virginia, there’s a very coy allusion to Mr. Kaye and Mr. Olivier having been, well, closer than friends). The direction is from the walk here then walk there school – nothing interesting or magical ever happens. The writing by first timer Mark Childers (with the director) is, for me, the weakest part of the show. This entire team seems to hail from some theater back East, where they did lots of shows together, but to call this thing Broadway bound is such chutzpah it’s not even funny. No one on this team is ready for Broadway and if they EVER attempted to bring this in it would get slaughtered. The show was, if one is to believe the program, a big hit in Florida, and it’s blatantly designed to appeal to elderly Jewish audiences – last night’s audience was certainly that. And they do think it’s cute whenever the authors throw in a Yiddish word for no reason. At the end, about ten people really tried to give the show a standing ovation, and one woman, who’d come in ten minutes before the end of the show and sat behind me, shouted bravo very loudly during the curtain call. I muttered under my breath, “the mother.” At the end, the actors do a conga bit through the audience and as they passed me, the leading lady exclaimed “Mom” to the woman behind me. Bingo. And here’s the oddest thing – as I walked out to the lobby, there was the cast standing there in those awful mics that go down to the mouth, asking people to tell their friends to get tickets – very community theater. In fact, the director made a pre-show speech that was worse than community theater. And a special mention must be made of the atrocious sound – distorted, ugly, and, by the looks of the sound board, extremely cheap.

I don’t mean to be too harsh, but when you charge fifty bucks then you’d better damn well deliver (not that most of the audience paid fifty bucks – between the friends and family and Gold Star, I suspect the ticket price average is twenty-five bucks). I will close in saying I loved Danny Kaye – his comic genius was a huge inspiration to me as a young boy (my favorite childhood film was The Court Jester), so hearing the songs and seeing certain routines has a certain sort of charm, no matter what. But it’s like seeing a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a facsimile – it doesn’t have to be like that – one need only watch Robert Morse as Tru, or several other actors who’ve managed to inhabit the real-life person they’re playing, but also have their own star-power, to know it can be done. But you have to have the writing, and the structure, and that’s where The Kid From Brooklyn truly fails.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below whilst I keep looking for the elusive point. If I can’t find the point, then I’ll try to find the elusive butterfly of love.

I am entirely undecided about what I’ll be doing today. There are many things to choose from – I could see a DGA screening of Enchanted, followed by a screening of The Walker. Or, I could attend a birthday party for Kirby Tepper, but I’m really on the fence about that. I do have to package up three things in the morning and get them shipped, and then I suspect that my meal will be an early one, just in case I decide to try and do all three things. We shall see.

Tomorrow, I have nothing at all planned, my favorite kind of Sunday. Then, next week it’s the usual meals and meetings and working on the show I’m mentoring – then, come next Friday, I am through working for the rest of the year, save for doing little odds and ends. I’m giving myself two complete weeks off, during which I shall recharge Ye Olde Batteries, and get ready for beginning a new novel, prepping the Brain production, getting the mentored musical ready for a staged reading, and working on the two club acts I’ll be directing.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do some errands, hit the road, Jack, decide about the movies and the party, and also figure out just what to do with these three French hens that my true love left for me. Frankly, I was hoping for some Spanish hens or, at the very least, some Armenian hens, but no, I’ve got three French hens – and it’s a little cacophonous here – one French hen is singing Piaf songs, another is singing Jacques Brel, and the third is doing a rather good impression of Maurice Chevalier. Those darn French hens. Today’s topic of discussion: What are you favorite Danny Kaye movies and songs? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I keep trying to find that ever elusive point or, at the very least, that ever elusive butterfly of love.

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