Dearest BK, AOL and you are on one helluva bum trip (flashback to the 70s!) and I think you should change servers. When I was given my first computer in 2001, I had no idea what to do, and I was thinking AOL. Everyone told me that AOL stank and that I should use Time Warner Roadrunner. Since I already had Time Warner Cable, it made sense and the package offer 1001 channels. I'm very happy with the service except for the fact I cannot get off this damned site and watch 1001 channels!
DR Bevan, your post came in at 5 am or so? Are you partying too hard in the Midwest? Is it spring break? I'm back to a normal schedule, which means up between 6:30 and 7:30, thank God!
DR Dan, yes, Omarossa was the perfect villainess, but I got so sick of her defensive "I'm black, so if you're calling me a moron or lazy, it's because you're a racist" act. With those camers checking on her every move, she would never have won because her act was too apparent to Trump and the producers, but I wish they'd kept her around to let her hang herself some more.
DR Jane, I hope you don't hate me for tonight's "Wonderfalls."
DR RLP, "Playing it Straight" is so moronic; I haven't seen such butch overacting since a Tom Cruise press conference, and the poor lady has such bad gaydar sher'll end up with either a bad marriage or "Hag of the Year" award.
Let's get to the good stuff: Today's Topic
1. THE MIKADO, original cast, just to see what's been haunting Gilbert and Sullivan for the past 100 years
2. BABES IN TOYLAND (1903), first of all, it's a form of entertainment - the extravaganza - long lost, and all those women-as-boys roles still look peculiar, but an amazing cast: Bessie Wynn fresh from THE WIZARD OF OZ, who did one more show for Victor Herbert and moved into vaudeville, Mabel Barrison who became a big star singing "I Can't Do the Sum" who died 9 years later at the age of 31, and William Norris, who was in the original cast of Romberg's MAYTIME and whose last role was Merlin in Rodgers & Hart's 1926 CONNECTICUT YANKEE.
3. DEAREST ENEMY (1925), Rodgers & Hart's first hit, with Helen Ford who also starred in PEGGY ANN and CHEE-CHEE for them and Flavia Arcaro (love that name!) who played the comic mother role in the American premiere of THE CHOCOLATE SOLDIER in 1908.
4. SHOW BOAT (1927), because the original production was the Mt Everest of musicals, great score and lots of great performers including Edna Mae Oliver.
5. ANYTHING GOES (1934), with that cast! Merman, Gaxton (another CONNECTICUT YANKEE actor) and Victor Moore!
6. BOYS FROM SYRACUSE (1938), Rodgers & Hart, any other reason? Yep! George Balanchine dances. But the same team also did BABES IN ARMS and I MARRIED AN ANGEl and I would have killed to see any of them.
6. Too many in the 40s: BRIGADOON, ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (because Bernadette was so pathetic), and KISS ME, KATE, but I'd choose OKLAHOMA! because to me the score is still the freshest Rodgers & Hammerstein and will always be evergreen. It was must been sheer delight.
7. the 50s: Three main ones:
THE GOLDEN APPLE, an off-Broadway show with one of the best casts ever and a fascinating score.
THE THREEPENNY OPERA, Charlotte Rae, Jo Sullivan, Bea Arthur and Lotte Lenya in a great translation by Marc Blitzstein; this must have been such a kick in the ass for all those pathetic McCarthy witch hunters!
CANDIDE: Irra Petina and the great Barbara Cook in the strangest piece ever conceived as a "comic operetta." The 1973 revival and all after have screwed up the score, and Richard Wilbur's lyrics were written for Hellman's characters so that "You Were Dead, You Know" loses some punch when Candide knows that Cunegonde's no longer his virgin (her "now let's talk of you" in the original show is a conniving whore's turning the subject so he doesn't know the truth).
By the late 60s I was coming to New York to see theatre, so there's not much I haven't seen. One show was PROMENADE (1969, maybe?), because it strikes me as a CANDIDE written by an absurdist like Ionesco.
The one show I regret missing in the 1980s was OH BROTHER! because it's one of the funniest scores I can think of. While the word of mouth was excellent, the show closed 3 days after opening because of lousy reviews over how unfunny the situation was in the Middle East. How true . . .
