Well, dear readers, it is late and I am tired and therefore I shall write these notes in a hurry so I can get a good night’s beauty sleep. But first can I just say that farce is hard. Farce isn’t easy. Art isn’t easy, either, but farce REALLY isn’t easy. I say this because last night I went to the theater and saw a farce entitled Hotel Paradiso. Now, I happen to think Hotel Paradiso in Peter Glenville’s translation is a marvelous and very funny farce when directed with energy by a person who truly understands the nature of farce. You have to have incredible timing and pace, you have to make it as controlled and disciplined as ballet. No one should wander around on stage aimlessly. No one should make one move that isn’t necessary to the farce. Farce is choreography. Farce is fast. Farce is furious and frantic. And when all the stars are aligned then farce is fantastically funny. I once saw a production of A Flea in Her Ear that had the audience at the ANTA Theater in New York screaming with laughter non-stop for the entire duration of the show. The director was Gower Champion and his production and its great cast was so breathtakingly brilliant you really had no time to catch your breath between the huge laughs. Mr. Champion gave the show a physical production to die for, brilliantly designed in black-and-white so that one gag involving a pair of women’s bloomers would bring down the house, which it did (the bloomers were RED, the only color in the entire show – and when the bit happened, suddenly everyone stopped, went into reverse, the woman reversed off-stage and a moment later reappeared with black bloomers – it was one of the cleverest and funniest visual bits of humor I’ve ever seen).
This production of Hotel Paradiso was okay. But farce it wasn’t. There was too much meandering, the set was not designed to best show off the near misses and the door slamming. You can’t have actors in a farce tripping over lines. Yelling doesn’t equal funny or farce. It wasn’t terrible or anything and our very own Doug Haverty was fun as were a few others in the cast, but it was not a well-oiled machine and it has to be. At nearly three hours with two intermissions, you know the pace is not what it should be. But through all of it, I just sat there imagining what could be done with a revival with a great production and amazing cast – I think the show would be a huge hit on Broadway, frankly. And funnily, Doug and I had a meeting about this very play – about changing its time period and location (I’m not telling you what that would be – sorry – too many prying eyes here) and musicalizing it. There have been almost no true musical farces – the obvious is A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, but I believe our idea in transplanting the time and place is a really strong one and I think musicalizing this particular play would work really well. So, we may try our hand at it.
Peter Glenville’s Broadway production was a hit in 1957, but then you had Mr. Glenville’s expert hand and Bert Lahr, Angela Lansbury and an expert cast of farceurs. Mr. Glenville turned it into a film in 1966, starring Alec Guiness and Gina Lollobrigida. I think I started to watch it once, but I know I’ve never seen it all the way through so I think I’ll get the DVD and check it out.
Other than that, Saturday was okay. I was up early, did a three-mile jog, then had a Cobb salad and picked up no packages. Then I came home and relaxed until it was time for a two-hour work session for the Kritzerland show. That went very well – and I got to run in its entirety the number I’ll be doing and I LOVE doing it. We did the arrangement work on the put-togethers and whatever else needed our attention. I think this show is going to be pretty delightfully delightful – the songs are so melodic and catchy and beautiful and funny and clever, one after another. So, the musical director will now organize all his notes and be completely prepared for our first rehearsal.
Then it was time to see the show. There are two young sisters in it, and the mom wants to meet with me as they both sing and she’s heard from Doug about our Kritzerland shows – so I’m sure I’ll be lunching with the family soon. After the show, Doug and his ever-lovin’ Dorothy and I went to the Coral Café. I hadn’t eaten since eleven-thirty so I felt I could have a sandwich, so I had a great BLT-A and some cole slaw – a perfect late-night bit of food.
Keeping with our traversal of the Kritzer songs, here is the final one from Kritzerland, after which we’ll begin the five songs from Kritzer Time, along with the Benjamin Kritzer originals from that book (which of course I wrote when I was a young teen). This song has always been a favorite and I really liked Guy Haines just doing it simply with Grant Geissman on guitar.
Today, I shall relax, eat something light but fun, jog, maybe go to Mystery and Imagination Books for a party with George Clayton Johnson (not sure about going – we’ll see), and them I’ll come home and relax some more and watch a motion picture.
Tomorrow I’m up at six in the morning to announce our new release, which, for lovers of iconic classic films, will be a must-have. Then this week is meetings and meals, then the East Coast Singer arrives and we record her new album on the weekend. I’m very excited to be back in the studio and with a very big band of over thirty musicians (we decided not to do any overdubbing of instruments on this one). So, a busy little week.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, do a jog, eat, relax, maybe go to Mystery and Imagination Books, relax, watch a motion picture, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland were I shall have a dream in farce time. Meanwhile, here’s another What If video in honor of our doing the show nine years ago next month. This one is What If Stephen Sondheim, instead of writing Company, had written Bye Bye Birdie? And it goes something like this.