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February 24, 2013:

I’M IN THE MOOD FOR OSCAR

Bruce Kimmel Photograph bk's notes

Well, dear readers, I come to talk about the state of the art. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, I, BK, come to talk about the state of the art – the art of musical theater – or, better yet, the non-art of musical theater. I suppose there were always templates for shows and we of a certain age probably look at those templates through rose-colored glasses. In the 1950s there was a certain kind of musical theater and one saw that template in just about every show, but some of those shows with that template still seemed fresh and fun – while there were the occasional musical that tried for something more, like West Side Story. That 50s template stayed for some of the early 1960s and then began to morph – Fiddler on the Roof, Gypsy, and shows like Anyone Can Whistle, which really tried for something different, even though it didn’t succeed. Some British shows of the era also had a different look and feel – Oliver!, Stop the World – I Want To Get Off. Then, in 1966 came Cabaret and that’s when the big changes began to slowly happen, all kind of culminating in Company in 1970. Then there was a new template – the Sondheim/Prince shows, shows with staging that constantly tried to push boundaries – A Chorus Line, Pippin, Chicago. So, we had that template for a while and then came the big Euro super musicals and they changed things and we had THAT template for a while.

Then we began to get a new phenomenon – shows based on recent films – suddenly that became the rage and the be-all and end-all of everything. Suddenly it was The Full Monty, Hairspray, Legally Blonde, Cry Baby, and on and on – and that was the new template. Just put a movie onstage, add a bunch of songs, and voila. Some did it better than others, but by the middle of that cycle every show began to sound and look exactly the same. It didn’t really matter who was in them because it wasn’t about that – it was about the cast tracks and the machine and the canned sound and the no more sets let’s just use LED screens and projections, and every opening number sounding and feeling exactly the same. There seemed to be not one organic thing happening in these shows – they were literally machines, even the best of them, which, in my opinion, was Hairspray. But even Hairspray didn’t get to me because it just seemed pre-fabricated and non-organic. So, why am I going on about it? Because last night I saw the nadir of this current template, a show entitled 9 to 5. I don’t need to talk about the production itself because that’s not my point here. My point is from the first sound and light cue you know exactly what you’re in for and the opening number delivers exactly what you’ve seen before in this template. The fact that it’s the kicky Dolly Parton title song from the film is helpful, but as soon as the template’s vocal harmonies kick in, it’s just the same old same old. All shows today have exactly the same kind of vocal arrangements – a lot of singing in fifths and loud singing at that. There is no subtlety in the orchestration – just blaring. And the usual ending of a one-beat note and a bump in the orchestra, accompanied by a blinding light cue, all designed to goose the young members of the audience into screaming and hooting and hollering as if they were at a pig-greasing contest. A simple visit to You Tube to watch the opening number of 9 to 5 will tell you the story – the screaming from the ten or fifteen idiots who think that the show is somehow about them is disgusting and nauseating.

The show then proceeds to put the movie of 9 to 5 on the stage, with a bunch of songs thrown in, none of which move the plot along one bit. They all sound exactly the same – at least six of them have exactly the same chord progressions – we have anthems, we have country, we have “sensitive,” all without subtlety and all of which tell you nothing you haven’t heard in the scene preceding the song. The poor actors are stuck with characters that were played by three iconic actresses in the film, so that’s pretty much what you get. You get Dolly, you get Jane, you get Lily. There’s simply no other way to play the male lead without coming off like Dabney Coleman. So, a film that tells its story compactly in 110 minutes gets stretched out to two-and-a-half interminable hours of scenes that never work as well as those in the film. It’s a whole lot of déjà vu. Well, you can fool some of the people some of the time and you can fool all of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time, and so 9 to 5 (note the musical’s change to numbers – the film’s title is spelled out – I’m surprised they didn’t make it even cutesier – 9 2 5) was not a success, losing most, if not all, its investment (the show closed after 148 performances). Naturally a tour was prepared – that, too, failed (big surprise). It wasn’t for want of Dolly Parton being a one-woman publicity machine, making the show all about her – so much so that some people must have thought she was actually in it, which, in the production last night, she was – on the LED screen at the end, telling the audience to go tell their friends how great the show is, and that if someone didn’t like it they should keep their mouth shut. That’s the level of the humor. The show is a relentless machine that keeps on truckin’ and moving along with a lot of flash, jokes that don’t land (even many of the film’s big laughs get lost in the machinery), and one similar song after another. Catch Me If You Can, another total Broadway failure, is now on tour – non-equity, I believe, and yet it still plays the Pantages (good job, Equity) and I’m sure it will still lose money because it’s a machine with no soul.

And that is, for the most part, musical theater today. Occasionally something interesting slips in, but with, I don’t know, fifty or sixty more of these movie things in development it’s hard to know how long the template will be with us. Something will eventually come along with a different look and a different sound and then we’ll have that for a decade or so – just about anything would be better than the tired template we have now. I simply don’t want to see these shows anymore – I don’t want to hear one-note endings followed by a high orchestra bump, big light change, and blackout. I don’t want to hear the same tired vocal arrangements and I certainly don’t ever need to hear these anthem-like numbers with singers screaming and amplified until your ears bleed. I’ll take the template of Li’l Abner any day. Old-fashioned? Sure. Fun? You bet? Fresh? For me, as fresh as the day it was written. When the most performed show in theaters around the country is Legally Blonde – well, if that’s what people want they can have it. End of rant about the state of the art.

I will say the cast and ensemble worked hard. I thought they were using the original choreography, but after seeing the You Tube clip, it was very similar but much more Rob Ashford-like, which, believe me, is not a good thing. My friend Beth Malone, who is a wonderful actress and singer, really went her own way with the Jane Fonda character, and she was fun to watch. The other two gals were also very good.

The drive to Fullerton was a four-star nightmare and I have to admit that being a claustrophobe, I went berserk in the car because the traffic on the Hollywood Freeway to the 5 was grotesque, and once I finished the transition and was on the 5 it made the Hollywood Freeway look good. I think I literally never went faster than five miles an hour – a drive that should have taken forty-five minutes, ended up taking more than ninety. Fortunately, I’d allowed extra time, but all that extra time was eaten up before I even hit Imperial Highway, which was still about twenty miles from the theater. I called and told the folks I was meeting to go on to dinner without me – we were supposed to meet at six and at six I hadn’t gotten past Imperial Highway yet. As soon as I got off the phone I saw that everyone in the far left lane (which is where I was) was suddenly moving over a lane – and that’s when we found the reason for almost thirty miles of five-mile-an-hour traffic – one stupid, sickening car stalled in the far left lane. Once we passed that there was no traffic at all. ONE car in ONE lane on a four-lane highway caused that problem. An SUV to be exact and so my hatred of those things went up by 1000%. I was able to get to the restaurant only twenty minutes late, so it was fine, but I was so agitated it wasn’t even funny.

But good company (Jenna Rosen and mom Heather) calmed me down and we had a nice, fun dinner and then walked back to the theater to see the show. Prior to all that, I’d have a light breakfast of matzo brei, did some errands and whatnot, picked up no packages and then saw the packaging for A Time for Singing. Reading through and proofing the notes, I was not happy with them at all. I’d interspersed the Shani Wallis material within the show history part of the notes and for me it kept clashing and seemed disjointed and schizophrenic. So, I completely restructured them – I pulled all the Shani reminiscences out of the show history part of the liner notes and moved them into their own “Shani Wallis Remembers A Time for Singing” section – that made everything work well. It took about an hour to get it smooth, and then I resent to the designer and I’m very happy with them now.

Well, why don’t we all click on the Unseemly Button below because I barely got five hours of sleep the night before and need a really good night’s beauty sleep.

Today is, of course, our annual Oscar Bash and all I can say is this is the only place to be for the Oscar show – from the red carpet to the show itself, the postings here are the most lively, dishiest posts on all the Internet. So, be there or be round. I’ll relax before the show, eat something light but amusing and maybe even jog if it’s nice outside.

Tomorrow is our first Kritzerland rehearsal, which I’m very much looking forward to. I also have a few other things I need to do, and then the rest of the week is meetings, meals, our second rehearsal, seeing a new musical, our stumble-through, then video and sound check and the show.

Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, maybe jog, relax, eat, and attend our annual Oscar Bash. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, but let’s just say it’s all things Oscar – your favorite Oscar memories and moments. Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall win the Oscar for Best Sleep.

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