Midmod Musings

Happiness walks in on tiptoe... then falls on its ass

Tonight, I saw for the first time the musical Flora, the Red Menace. By Kander and Ebb, the team who wrote Cabaret and Chicago, the original 1965 production earned Liza Minnelli her first Tony Award. I was excited to see this rarely produced show. The production, by Lyric Stage in Irving, TX, had received glowing reviews.

All I thought I knew about the show was its connection to Liza and the one gorgeous ballad, "A Quiet Thing." I've heard many a cabaret artist tackle this gem of a song, not to mention Barbra Streisand, and it is truly one of my favorite Broadway ballads. The lyrics are among the most beautiful show lyrics I know, expressing surprise at finding one's dream come true...

"When it all comes true
Just the way you planned
It's funny, but the bells don't ring.
It's a quiet thing.
When you hold the world
In your trembling hand
You think you'd hear a choir sing.
It's a quiet thing..."

I watched the first two thirds of the first act with eager anticipation, waiting to see how the drama unfolded, how the romance bloomed, leading us to this sweet, glorious expression of hushed awe when "happiness walks in on tiptoe." I was ready to swoon, even if our heroine had fallen for a stammering Commie organizer-slash-muralist.

Imagine my surprise to discover that the song is about getting a job at a department store.

Granted, the play is set in the Depression, and landing a job was important, and it was a good job...who wouldn't want to become a fashion illustrator moments after joining the Communist party to impress a boy?

But wow. Just... wow. You have no idea how depressed I am to have learned that it's a song about gainful employment. The story in my head all these years not knowing the show was so much...better.

A rose is a rose, but Patti LuPone is a Rose for the ages

     For me, Gypsy is to musicals what Macbeth is to Shakespeares. I've seen it so often that I am somewhat inured to its genius. I've seen the movie version, the tv version, a high school production (in which my sister was the balloon girl), the Tyne Daly production, and a couple of independent productions. But when  Patti LuPone brought her Mama Rose to the Encores series, everyone said she was fabulous and definitive. I lamented that I could not get to New York to see her. Then lo! The production came back to Broadway, and opened just in time for my current business trip to Manhattan. I snapped up an orchestra ticket and prepared myself for greatness.

     The lights went down at the St. James Theater, and the orchestra started the overture behind a scrim. This seemed to urge the sold-out house to talk even more loudly about their dinners and their hotels. (The absence of overtures from new musicals will kill the genre, I swear.) But then something magical happened: the trumpet came in, and everybody shut up. They sat rapt, as if they'd never heard a bawdy little tune like that before. (And from the conversation going on behind me -- "So what is this play about, anyway?" -- they had not.) The overture ended, the audience went wild. My expectations were shining like the top of the Chrysler Building. Oops, wrong musical.

     I have to be honest and say that the first 45 minutes of Act I were flat. Of course, when Patti Lupone comes storming down the aisle toward Baby June, everyone goes wild again. She freezes her pose on stage for what seemed like 2 minutes. But "Some People" did not thrill me - the pace was lugubrious, the big notes not so big. I worried that Patti was ill. No one around me seemed to notice. Then - God help us -- Baby June has to cover some major set and costume changes. I laughed the third time she came out with her high kick; I checked my watch the sixth time. (Though props to her for dancing on point!) Boyd Gaines seemed a little hammy in his lust for Rose during his first scene, but at least it made clear the sexual attraction that keeps him hanging around.

     But then Louise grows up, and is played by the marvelous Laura Benanti, and things definitely look up. From "Little Lamb" (yes, I said "Little Lamb") through "If Mamma Was Married" and "All I Need Is the Girl," we see a vulnerable, yearning, frightened, desperate young woman. And then Patti comes on with fire for "Everything's Coming Up Roses," giving us our first glimpse of her madness as she maniacally shreds June's letter and bangs on the scenery. It is a song about a mother's vengeance, and it scares the hell out of you. Act I ends, and insane applause ensues as Louise and Herbie cower upstage.

     Act II was perfect. I can't imagine it being better. Loved “Together Wherever We Go.” “Gotta Get a Gimmick” was sublime, with the ingenious idea that Electra is an ancient stripper who can barely move, so she relies on her lights. I laughed so hard I cried. And Alison Fraser as Tessie Tura was a delight. Gypsy's big striptease sequence was credible and fresh, despite the fusty old jokes. And then -- get some Heinz 57 for the scenery -- "Rose's Turn." After a chilling dressing room scene, where you see the mother in the daughter, Patti comes back on. Oh. My. God. It's an interpretation for the ages. Raw. Lewd. Vicious. Sad. I had goosebumps and tears. And then, she goes and breaks down when Gypsy tells her that all she wanted was to be noticed. It was wrenching and honest and thrilling. My hands still hurt from applauding.

     I am so gay.

Children's Theater for 40-year-old Gay People

Perhaps I felt something in the Zeitgeist last November when I blogged about Xanadu, the Olivia Newton-John movie musical that killed the genre of movie musicals (not to mention her film career). Little did I know that less than a year later, I would be in a Broadway theater watching Xanadu the musical, and having the time of my life.

Douglas Carter Beane, the playwright who wrote the musical's book, is some kind of genius. I've seen two of his plays -- As Bees in Honey Drown and The Little Dog Laughed -- and enjoyed them, but nothing prepared me for his astonishing feat with Xanadu. He managed to mock and celebrate 1980 simultaneously. From the atrocious short shorts worn by the lead character Sonny, to the hysterically exaggerated Australian accent adopted by Kerry Butler as his Muse, nothing was sacred and nothing was profane. Beane created a souffle of period in-jokes, ELO songs, high camp, and Olivia Newton-John references. The show breezed by (on roller-skates) in 90 minutes. As one character observed, "this is like children's theater for 40-year-old gay people." Exactly. If you're my age and even remotely fond of your youth, run to the Helen Hayes Theatre and see this show.

I was also delighted that Beane seems to have shared my particular pop cultural touchstones. Clearly an expert in Newton-Johniana, he also culminates the piece in a tribute to that other "classic" film of the early 80s, Clash of the Titans. I thought my sister and I were the only ones who remembered this movie. When we first got cable back in the day (remember when cable was a new idea?), Clash of the Titans was the featured film on HBO. We saw it at least a dozen times. We quote its cheesy dialogue to this day. ("Take me with you -- if only to the wells of the moon, just so I can be with you.")

Thank you, Mr. Beane!