Wednesday, January 29, 2020

RAGS at The Park Theatre - Bits and pieces...

My first trip to the theatre this year was to see a musical I had seen before - or had I?


RAGS opened on Broadway in 1986 and promptly closed after only four performances.  It's tiny run belies the fact that the show had a score written by Charles Strouse who wrote ANNIE and BYE BYE BIRDIE, the lyricist was Stephen Schwartz who already had GODSPELL and PIPPIN under his belt (WICKED was in the future) and the book was by Joseph Stein who wrote FIDDLER ON THE ROOF.

The cast included opera singer Theresa Stratas joining the combined Broadway experience of Larry Kert, Lonny Price and Judy Kuhn.  Although the audience didn't show up, the nominations did: RAGS received five Tony nominations but no awards and another five from the Drama Desk with Stratas winning it's Best Musical Actress Award.  The cast recording lived on after the show garnering a dedicated following (hello Guy!)


RAGS received several small-scale revivals during the 1990s and into the 2000s; I saw one of these at the Bridewell Theatre off Fleet Street in 2001 starring Sally Ann Triplett and found it pleasant but fairly forgettable.  In 2017 the show reappeared at Connecticut's Goodspeed Theatre, using a totally new book by David Thompson which ditched a character or two and refocused the story and this is the basis of The Park's production.  However, despite some fine work within the production, it has all been an exercise in rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic - RAGS is just that, scraps of ideas that when joined together shows it's loose stitching.

Despite the new book by David Thompson, the story is overshadowed with memories of Joseph Stein's earlier hit FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and plays like a sequel to that show. with it's tale of Russian Jews arriving in New York to begin a new life away from the dangers of the homeland's pogroms.


Rebecca and her young son David have bribed their way aboard a 'rag' ship sailing for New York from Russia and has made a friend with fellow-emigre Bella who tells her new-found friend that she is lucky as her father Avram is already in the city and can give her a home in the cramped apartment he shares with his brother and sister-in-law.  Rebecca and David have no arrangement and are quickly singled out by the immigration officers to be returned back to Russia but Bella and Avram pretend she is family and they start their life together on the Lower East Side.

Avram's brother Jack is an outsourced tailor who works for the flashy German garment factory boss Bronfman, who while visiting the apartment one day is taken with Rebecca's dress-making skills and, more importantly, by Rebecca herself.  Another visitor is Sal, an Italian-born union leader who hates the sweatshop conditions that his fellow immigrants have to work in, including Bronfman's factory.  Needless to say, Rebecca is soon caught between what the two men can offer her and her son.  Love also blossoms between Bella and the nebbish songwriter Ben, while Avram strikes up a relationship with street peddler widow Rachel.  For one couple, it ends tragically...


This new version of RAGS has, in total, nine lead and supporting characters to keep up with and that's when the problems start: in the first act alone there are twenty numbers (including reprises) that I suspect are expected to provide any depth and emotional resonance you are supposed to feel for the characters but sadly the score is so insubstantial that this does not work.  So you grasp for depth in the book scenes but apart from the characters of Jack and his wife Anna, and Avram and the widow Rachel, you have the relentlessly two-dimensional heroine Rebecca and her colourless rich and poor lovers, and the saccharine partnership of Bella and Ben.

I had to wait until halfway through the second act before my interest finally was engaged with "Three Sunny Rooms" a sly and tentative courtship number between the pursuing Rachel and the more hesitant Avram, but this was more down to the playing of two seasoned musical actors who could sock over the comedy but also mine the loneliness underneath.  After that we hit the Tragic Plot Twist but this was followed a rousing ensemble Union song and Rebecca's big Eleven O'Clock number so at least by the curtain you are a bit more willing to be generous in the applause.


Again I was struck how the The Park200 auditorium feels like a thinner Donmar Warehouse so it was interesting to see a musical there, my other trips have been to see plays.  Bronagh Lagan - in her production imported from Manchester's Hope Mill Theatre - at least kept the action moving and knew when to let the afore-mentioned supporting quartet shine while Gregor Donnelly's design made clever use of battered suitcases as a backdrop and a simple line of shirts to suggest tenement life - even if Owen was probably right in pointing out that the shirts surely would have been collarless in 1910!  Derek Anderson's lighting also was well done at achieving specific moods.

As I said earlier, RAGS became pure Dior whenever Jeremy Rose as Jack, Debbie Chazen as Anna, Dave Willetts as Avram and in particular Rachel Izen as, um, Rachel where onstage, socking their characters into the audience with top-spin.  In particular, Izen and Willets were exquisite in their scenes together - the "Three Sunny Rooms" number was delightfully handled and in their final scene, with his now-wife Rachel unable to shift Avram from all-encompassing grief, they both played it with a telling heavy sadness.


Carolyn Maitland certainly had a grave presence as Rebecca and certainly whacked the character's big ballad "Children Of The Wind" into the back wall of the stalls, sadly what she has not yet managed to get yet is an inner light that illuminates a real lead performer.

I suspect RAGS will continue to be tinkered with, re-cut and re-assembled until it's just THREADS - give me Ahrens and Flaherty's RAGTIME anyday.  But it was a nice way to slide into 2020's theatre going.


Saturday, January 25, 2020

50 Favourite Musicals: 6: CHICAGO (1975) (John Kander / Fred Ebb)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life.



First performed: 1975, 46th Street Theatre, NY
First seen by me: 1997, Adelphi Theatre, London
Productions seen: one

Score: John Kander / Fred Ebb
Book: Fred Ebb / Bob Fosse

Plot: Showgirl Roxie Hart shoots her lover when he says it's over and when her husband Amos refuses to back up her alibi, she is charged with murder.  In prison awaiting trial, Roxie realizes she is just one of the "merry murderesses" and, needing to get the public on her side, hires hot-shot - and corrupt - lawyer Billy Flynn who manipulates the press to say she's innocent.  However Billy's other killer client Velma Kelly wants some fame and press headlines too...

Five memorable numbers: ALL THAT JAZZ, NOWADAYS, THE CELL BLOCK TANGO, WHEN VELMA TAKES THE STAND, CLASS

Back-to-back Kander & Ebb musicals but why does CHICAGO rate higher than CABARET?  The 2002 film?  Hell no, it left me very under-whelmed.  The record-breaking revivals in the West End and Broadway?  Not particularly, with it's grating stunt-casting of washed-up pop singers and tv personalities...  No, CHICAGO is #6 on my list for Kander and Ebb's magnificent score, it's songs ripping through the show like Roxie's deadly bullets, as well as the hard-boiled book by Ebb and Bob Fosse.  CHICAGO was Gwen Verdon's baby; in the 1960s she saw the musical potential in the 1926 play by Maurine Dallas Watkins, a Chicago Tribune reporter who based her two lead roles on two actual acquitted murderesses, Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner. CHICAGO had already been turned into two films: a 1927 silent and William Wellman's 1942 ROXIE HART.  The latter is utterly fabulous - hard-boiled, funny, and cynical until the tacked-on happy ending - with fantastic performances from Ginger Rogers as Roxie and Adolphe Menjou as Billy Flynn.  Verdon's problem was that Watkins had become a born-again Christian and refused to issue the rights as she felt her work glorified sin!  But her death in 1969 gave Gwen her chance and she naturally turned to ex-husband and collaborator Bob Fosse to direct the Broadway premiere.  CABARET composers John Kander and Fred Ebb were chosen for the score which was a risk as they were currently on a one-in one-out run: since CABARET their shows were THE HAPPY TIME (flop), ZORBA! (hit) and 70 GIRLS 70 (flop).


The 1920s suggested to Fosse giving the show a vaudeville theme, with the songs presented as out-front numbers and choreographed some of his most iconic numbers.  Although estranged, Fosse and Verdon worked closely together during the rehearsal period although he became more and more demanding, seemingly trying to undermine her, no doubt due to her controlling stake in the production.  Inspired casting matched Verdon's daffy Roxie with the hard-edged sass of Chita Rivera's Velma and they were both matched against the abrasive Jerry Orbach as Billy Flynn.  The original 1975 Broadway production faced obstacles: a so-so reception from the critics undermined the box-office and with business touch-and-go, Gwen Verdon had to pull out for a nodes operation when her voice failed her - it turned out she swallowed a feather during the show's finale. While she recuperated, Fosse hit on the idea of replacing her with Liza Minnelli in her first stage work since winning the Oscar for CABARET.  She stayed with the show for over a month and the box office took off, although the situation grated on Verdon.  She returned to the role and the show ended it's run after two years.  In 1979 it opened at London's Cambridge Theatre with Jenny Logan, Antonia Ellis and Ben Cross which had a shorter run.  No Tony Awards despite 11 nominations and no SWET Awards despite 3 nominations left the impression that CHICAGO was a failed show.


In early 1990 I was given a tape of the original Broadway cast and became obsessed with the glorious score and vocal performances of Verdon, Rivera, Orbach and Barney Martin as hapless Amos Hart; I remember one night playing it over and over again until the songs were memorized, and could not understand how the show was not revived.  In December of that year, I got a further taste of it's greatness at an AIDS Benefit concert performance with the reuniting of Kander & Ebb's THE RINK stars Diane Langton as Roxie and Josephine Blake as Velma with Dave Willetts as Billy Flynn and Teddy Kempner as Amos Hart.  But it was in 1996 that CHICAGO's time arrived.  It was selected for the NY Encores! series of semi-staged versions of under-appreciated musicals.  In the post-OJ Simpson America, CHICAGO was seen to be horribly prescient in it's portrayal of corrupt justice and showbiz and was an instant success.  Producers Fran and Barry Weisler mounted a slightly revised version of Walter Bobbie's Encores! production, keeping the minimalist design which was mirrored in the stripped-down advertising design of black & white photographs with black & red text.  The revival starred Fosse muse Ann Reinking as Roxie (who also choreographed the show in Fosse's style), Bebe Neuwirth as Velma, Joel Grey as Amos Hart and James Naughton as Billy Flynn.  Winning 6 Tony Awards, the show is still running on Broadway where it is now the longest-ever running American musical on Broadway.  I saw this revival in 1997 when it opened at the Adelphi and loved it; Ruthie Henshall as Roxie, Ute Lemper (inspired casting) as Velma, Henry Goodman as Billy Flynn and Nigel Planer as Amos set the show running in London, eventually closing nearly 15 years later.  A further 21st Anniversary London production hung around longer than expected.  I saw it a few times but tired of the Weissler shtick of casting under-performing pop stars and tv celebrities in certain roles however it did mean I got to see the delicious Susannah Fellows as Mama Morton, a nice touch as her father Don Fellows had played Amos in the 1979 London production.  The stunt-castings of the revival did nothing to stop my love of the show which continues thanks to both the Broadway original and revival cast recordings - both of which capture the score's genius to perfection. 

I cannot decide between these so you are getting them both: The glorious original pairing of Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera ripping up the HOT HONEY RAG on the Mike Wallace tv show in 1975...



...and the 1997 Tony Awards broadcast with Bebe Neuwirth singing ALL THAT JAZZ and joined by Ann Reinking for the HOT HONEY RAG.  It's interesting to see where the choreography was tweaked for the revival.



Thursday, January 23, 2020

DVD/150: THE DAMNED UNITED (Tom Hooper, 2009)

Before his Best Director Oscar for THE KING'S SPEECH, Tom Hooper directed THE DAMNED UNITED which was sadly forgotten at awards time.


This meant Michael Sheen's extraordinary performance as football coach Brian Clough went unrewarded; inhabiting Clough's needling, sarcastic tone and bantam posture, Sheen is riveting.


Based on the 2006 bestseller, THE DAMNED UNITED focuses on Clough's 44 day tenure as manager of Leeds United in 1974 and the events that led him there.


The film contends that Clough bore a grudge against fellow manager Don Revie from 1968 when Revie's Leeds played at Derby who Clough managed.  Much to Clough's chagrin, Revie ignored him and left afterward.


Sacked from Derby for arguing with the owner, Clough with his close friend and coaching assistant Peter Taylor were hired by Brighton but Clough walked out when offered Revie's job at Leeds.


But mutual distrust between manager and players started the rot...


Shelf or charity shop?  THE DAMNED UNITED scores with Michael Sheen's wonderful Brian Clough, a palpable feeling of place and time, and marvellous teamwork from Timothy Spall as long-suffering Peter Taylor, Stephen Graham and Peter McDonald as the resentful Billy Bremner and Johnny Giles, Henry Goodman and Jim Broadbent as Clough's angry club owners and Colm Meaney as Clough's nemesis Don Revie.  One for the DVD limbo of the plastic storage box.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

DVD/150: THE NAZIS: A WARNING FROM HISTORY (Laurence Rees, 1997, tv)

This 1997 BBC series is still compulsive viewing:, a sober explanation of the rise and fall of the Nazi Party using contemporary footage and interviews with those who witnessed it. 


Starting at the end of WWI, Laurence Rees traces the rise of the National Socialist German Workers Party, alongside it's charismatic firebrand Adolf Hitler.


Rees shows how the Nazis took advantage of the Wiemar Government's crash when Germany was hit by the 1931 Depression; the public was ready to believe that communists and Jews were to blame.  President Hindenburg made Hitler Chancellor, believing he could be tamed by Government.  He was wrong.


Rees shows that, rather than being a well-run administration, the Nazi offices were rife with power battles, fighting to get access to Hitler by flattery or suggesting policies he would be in favour of.


A major contribution to it's success is the marvelous narration by Samuel West.

Shelf or charity shop?  An absolute keeper... a warning that is all too needed now

Sunday, January 12, 2020

50 Favourite Musicals: 7: CABARET (1966) (John Kander / Fred Ebb)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life.


First performed: 1966, Broadhurst Theatre, NY
First seen by me: 1986, Strand Theatre, London
Productions seen: four

Score: John Kander / Fred Ebb
Book: Joe Masteroff

Plot: Writer Cliff Bradshaw arrives in 1930s Berlin seeking inspiration.  Renting a room at Fraulein Schneider's boarding house, Cliff then visits the seedy Kit Kat Klub - presided over by the mysterious MC - and meets extravagant English performer Sally Bowles.  Sally moves in with Cliff the next day and their love affair grows alongside Fraulein Schneider's tentative relationship with Jewish shopkeeper Herr Schultz.  But the darkening shadows of the Nazis are closing in...

Five memorable numbers: CABARET, TOMORROW BELONGS TO ME, WILKOMMEN, WHAT WOULD YOU DO, PERFECTLY MARVELLOUS

CABARET has infiltrated people's imaginations for 54 years, largely due to Bob Fosse's iconic 1972 screen version with the brilliant star wattage of Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles.  It seems remarkable that the film was released only 6 years after the show's Broadway debut but it is a completely different entity to it's source.  Fosse dropped most of the score, any songs that were sung outside the Kit Kat Klub onstage were jettisoned to give his film a more realistic feel; a few sneaked through as background music and of course "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" provided a magnificent set-piece in a beer garden.  So a first-time viewer of the show who has a knowledge of the film - like me in 1986 - is thrown initially with the original storyline.   But CABARET has seen additions and deletions from it's score with almost every stage revival as tastes and directorial conceits change.


The first attempt to musicalize John Van Druten's play I AM A CAMERA based on Christopher Isherwood's GOODBYE TO BERLIN stories was by Sandy Wilson, writer of THE BOY FRIEND - just dwell on that for a minute - but the rights transferred to Harold Prince who decided his SHE LOVES ME writer Joe Masteroff could provide the book, with the score being written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, only their second musical.  The show opened at the Broadhurst Theatre, going on to win 8 Tony Awards including Best Musical.  This production included British actress Jill Haworth as Sally, Joel Grey as the MC, Lotte Lenya as Fraulein Schneider and Jack Gilford as Herr Schultz.  The production transferred to two other theatres before closing in 1969, and by then Prince had reproduced the show at London's Palace Theatre with Judi Dench as Sally (her musical debut), Lila Kedrova as Fraulein Schneider and Peter Sallis as Herr Schultz.  As I mentioned, I first saw CABARET when Gillian Lynne directed a revival at the Strand Theatre which felt off-kilter thanks to an over-emphasis on Wayne Sleep's MC to the detriment of Kelly Hunter's Sally, a real star turn.


Sam Mendes staged his acclaimed revival at the Donmar in 1993, starring Alan Cumming as the MC, Jane Horrocks as Sally and Sara Kestelman as Fraulein Schneider.  Setting it within the cabaret itself and ramping up the sleaze, songs were dropped while others were added.  In 1998 Mendes' production, now co-directed by Rob Marshall, made it to New York where it ran for four years, first at the site-specific Kit Kat Klub then, very appropriately, at Studio 54.  The cast was led again by Cumming with Natasha Richardson as Sally and both won Tony Awards as did the show for Best Musical Revival, losing other awards to THE LION KING juggernaut.  Mendes moving the MC to the centre of the production also meant he closed the show by stripping off an overcoat to reveal he was dressed as a concentration camp inmate.  Taking the sleaze and Nazis route, Rufus Norris directed a London revival in 2006 at the Lyric which starred Anna Maxwell Martin as Sally, James Dreyfus as the MC, Sheila Hancock as Fraulein Schneider and Geoffrey Hutchings as Herr Schultz.  No doubt feeling the need to top the Mendes final image, Norris had the MC joining the Cabaret dancers huddled upstage under a shower of Zyklon-B flakes and the sound of hissing echoing around the stage.  Hey Mr Director... we, the audience DO get the ending of the show.  One wonders how the next revival will end, it's almost like the directors are desperately covering up that they are actually directing a Broadway musical.

CABARET should be higher in the chart, it is at #7 only because it has suffered with misguided productions that the show struggles to overcome.

The obvious choice would be a clip of the Fosse film but I have gone with the original 1966 production at the Tony Awards - just look at the size of the cast - with Joel Grey's MC bidding us Wilkommen.... and who can ever refuse that invitation?




DVD/150: 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU (Gil Junger, 1999)

Standing between CLUELESS and MEAN GIRLS in my trinity of High School comedies, this film's smart arse tone becomes relentless but it is saved by a lightness of touch and a likeable cast delivering winning performances.


Riffing off THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, Cameron - recently arrived at Padua High - befriends nerdy Michael and falls in love at first sight with Bianca Stratford.  But there's a catch: Bianca's protective father will only let her date when her older sister Kat does - and Kat's sarcastic, opinionated attitude towards guys makes them stay away.


School bully Joey also has his eye on Bianca so Cameron and Michael decide on finding a brave soul to ask Kat out and they choose the class outsider, Australian Patrick Verona.


Kat is intrigued by Patrick's pursuit of her and secretly recognizes a kindred spirit, but the course of true love never ran smooth, especially for Seattle kids...


Shelf or charity shop?  This is a keeper for the script's zingers and the charm of Julia Stiles as Kat, Heath Ledger as Patrick, Joseph-Gordon Levitt as Cameron, Larisa Oleynik as Bianca, David Ktumholtz as Michael, and a special mention to Larry Miller as Mr Stratford and the scene-stealing Allison Janney as Ms. Perky, the pupil guidance counsellor.  One for the DVD limbo of the plastic storage box.


DVD/150: THE SECRET AGENT (Charles McDougall, 2016, tv)

A three-part series based on Joseph Conrad's novel which descends into ever-decreasing circles of death and betrayal.


In Victorian London, pornographer Anton Verloc lives above his Soho shop with his wife Winnie and her retarded brother Stevie.  Verloc is an ineffectual Russian informant having infiltrated a small circle of anarchists, the police know of Verloc but view him and the anarchists as harmless.


The Russians are bored with Verloc's inaction and demand he instigate a terrorist bombing at Greenwich Observatory - the only anarchist to agree is 'The Professor' who supplies Verloc with the bomb, believing that society needs terrorising.


Verloc uses hapless Stevie as a cover for the bombing while lonely Winnie is wooed by one of the anarchists Ossipon.


Dogged Inspector Heat arrests 'The Professor' but as he does, Stevie is killed when the bomb explodes accidentally.


Winnie is consumed with grief and becomes submerged in tragedy...

Shelf or charity shop?  A pervading air of dread and tragedy haunts McDougall's handling of Tony Marchant's adaptation for the BBC which loses Conrad's light touch but the excellent performances of Toby Jones and Vicky McClure as Mr and Mrs Verloc, Stephen Graham as the pursuing Inspector Heat and Ian Hart as the sociopath 'Professor' make it worthy of a place in my dvd limbo of a plastic storage box.



Thursday, January 09, 2020

DVD/150: OUT (Jim Goddard, 1978, tv)

Eight years ago, Frank Ross' gang were arrested breaking into a bank.  Now Frank is out...


Hugely successful when first broadcast, this Thames TV series now is a time capsule of late 70s South London; Jim Goddard captures the desperation and danger in dark streets and smokey pubs.


OUT provided a magnificent showcase for the late Tom Bell, the great 'outsider' of 60s British actors.  His Frank Ross has a terse, coiled tension as he seeks revenge on whoever stole him from his now insane wife and tearaway son.  He is simply stunning.


Trevor Preston's flinty non-PC revenge drama is Euston Films at it's most hard-edged and pure London.


...and what a cast!  Brian Croucher, Norman Rodway, Lynn Farleigh, Oscar James, Maurice O'Connell, Brian Hall, Peter Childs, John Junkin, Andrew Paul, Peter Blake, Bryan Marshall, Brian Cox, Norman Eshley, Lynda La Plante and Derrick O'Connor deliver memorable performances. 


Shelf or charity shop?  Frank Ross is out... and living on my shelf...