Well, dear readers, it is late and I must therefore write these here notes in a hurry because until they are posted the world is at a standstill and that can’t be good for the world. I have eaten some low-cal cheese and had a few Good and Fruity candies and I’m ready, willing, and able to write these here notes.
The reason for the lateness of the hour is because I attended the theater last evening and the show didn’t come down until ten-thirty and then we had to hang out and see friends and whatnot. I shan’t say too much about the show because one of my dearest pals directed and choreographed it and I know an actress in the show that I also adore. They do fine work. That is not the problem. The problem is this “new” musical has, in fact, been kicking around for two decades. I saw it in the late 1990s at the Tiffany Theater under a different title – my pal choreographed that production but didn’t direct it. It was a very bad show back then – bad book, especially, but mostly the lead character, lyricist Al Dubin, is a shmuck of a person from start to finish. He was a drunk, unfaithful, took dope, gambled his money away, and by all accounts was just no one you ever wanted to be around. So, hard to fashion a musical around such a character – some would say impossible. The songs, of course, feature some classic standards, so perhaps a stunning musical revue would be the way to go. But when you add the burden of telling this guy’s story, I’m just not sure how you make that work. The show has been through several book writers and the new ones most certainly don’t solve any of those problems. They try to make the character lovable, but he isn’t lovable, hence, the audience doesn’t care. They try to fashion a faux happy ending (in truth, Mr. Dubin died alone at fifty from too many barbiturates), and I suppose there’d be a way to do it if you actually set up the show differently. I could tell them at least one way to do it that would be easy, but these kinds of folks don’t want to ask those kinds of questions, and I completely understand that.
The show was at the Montalban Theater, which was my childhood theater when it was the Huntington Hartford. I saw my first professional play there when I was thirteen – The Tenth Man, and I was there very often throughout the years and it was my favorite theater in LA – I saw A Thurber Carnival, Beyond the Fringe, Stop the World, Rattle of a Simple Man, Hughie with Jason Robards, Jr., The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, and many, many others. It was eventually taken over by the Center Theatre Group who took its charming interior and made it industrial (and shame on them eternally for doing so), and it wen through several hands before becoming the Montalban. It’s not very much about theater there anymore, but it was fun to see an actual show there. Even with the industrial look and sickeningly colored seats it’s still a honey of a space. For this show, which isn’t selling well, the balcony is closed and the downstairs had maybe 200 people there, and I was told that most of that was paper. They have another two weeks to go and I wish them all well.
Prior to the show, I was picked up by the Pearls, and we joined pal Kay Cole at a Japanese jernt just south of the theater, called Kabuki, although with Barry and I present it could just as easily be called Jewbuki. The fook was really good. The FOOK? Well, the fook was really good and so, parenthetically, was the food. I had the combo chicken teriyaki and tempura – normally in these kinds of places the portions of both are VERY small, but here they were huge and really good. I’d definitely return.
Prior to that, I got about nine hours of sleep – it took me quite a while to fall asleep so I slept later than I should have. Then I did work on the computer and got some stuff organized in the home environment. I had a few telephonic calls, answered e-mails, and then got ready.
Today, I shall do some writing, eat, hopefully pick up some packages, and relax. One thing we’re trying to organize that we must organize today is doing a pick-up session of the recording of the LA show. My engineer sent me a sample mix of the end of act one and it sounds surprisingly great save for one little thing – you can’t hear the reed or the trumpet – they are getting hammered by the drums and when you try to turn them up the drumming just gets louder. So, we want to re-record the horns from start to finish – they play on about two-thirds of the songs and it will probably take three hours to do it, but it will make the mix much easier and make all the difference in the world.
Tomorrow I’m not sure what’s happening, then I have some stuff to do on the weekend, then on Monday a work session for the Kritzerland show, and then we begin our busy rehearsal week, plus hopefully doing the pick-up session.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, write, eat, hopefully pick up packages, and organize the pick-up session. Today’s topic of discussion: How would you dear readers solve the problem of having an unsympathetic character at the center of your musical? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, still enjoying the tastes of my dinner at Jewbuki.