In the wake of the flop of Glory
Days on Broadway, died-in-the-wool musical theater mavens turn their
attention to other shows that have had embarrassingly short runs on "The
Great White Way." We may even re-read portions of Ken Mandelbaum's
indispensable great read, Not Since Carrie: 40 Years of Broadway Musical
Flops (click
here to buy).
Sadly, most of the legendary flops went unrecorded. One exception to the
no-recording rule is this four-performance show that opened and closed
October 15 - 17, 1987 at what was The Ritz until its name was changed to the
Walter Kerr Theatre. Not only has the score been recorded. It has been
recorded twice. An album was released (on this same label) shortly after the
failure of the show with its composer/lyricist Brian Gari singing most of
his songs with a few other artists, but not with the size orchestra used in
the theater. That record earned at least one review as dismissive as those
that greeted the show itself, but, somehow, Gari convinced the label to take
another crack at the score, enlisting some of the finer names in the musical
theater recording business to sing appropriate songs in their original
arrangements. The cast is impressive, the arrangements zippy, but the score
is undistinguished and the musical backing is synthesized rather than
performed orchestrally - and that makes all the difference in the world. |
Storyline: A piano bar pianist who wants to
break into standup comedy falls in love with a would be ballerina. Their
on-again, off-again affair is no more successful than his career.
The cover gives equal prominence to composer/lyricist
Gari, book writer Allan Knee and orchestrator Larry Hochman. Orchestrator?
Doesn't the word imply that you will hear an orchestra if you play the disc?
On Broadway, Mr. Hochman's work was played by a pit orchestra of ten with
two of them playing keyboards. This recording uses electronic "midi" files
and sounds very much like the vocals are supported by Casio keyboards from
Wal-Mart. It is a pity, for the arrangements seem to have a vibrancy that
would be impressive if played by an orchestra.
Vocally, the package is impressive. There's a raft of
personalities familiar to fans of musical theater score recordings. From Liz
Callaway to Jason Graae, Howard McGillin to Karen Ziemba, and Mario Cantone
to Tony Roberts, they all seem to be here. Chip Zien takes some of the songs
for the standup comic. Liz Larsen does the same for some of the ballerina's
numbers. The material is passed around to the likes of Brian D'Arcy James,
Rupert Holmes, Martin Vidnovic and Sal Viviano. They all do their usual fine
job.
So, how is the score itself? As might be predicted for an
introspective musical comedy of the late 1980s, the melodies are melodic in
a number of different modes and the lyrics self-consciously clever. Not all
of those lyrics seem to have been polished sufficiently and some stanzas seem to be included to
accommodate a rhyme the lyricist likes a lot, but there are nice touches
here and there. The catchiest single number, ironically enough, is one that
was cut before the show opened. "Nothing's Changing This Love" is a lilting,
joyful song delivered with just the right light touch by Jason Graae. Still,
as a whole, the score is not the stuff of repeated
listening but definitely the kind of disc a musical theater maven treasures
when thoughts turn to flops.
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