50 Favourite Musicals: 42: KERN GOES TO HOLLYWOOD (1985) (Jerome Kern / various)

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: 1985, Donmar Warehouse

First seen by me: as above

Productions seen: one

Score: Jerome Kern / various 
Book: Dick Vosburgh

Plot:  Four singers explore the songs of Broadway and Hollywood composer Jerome Kern with a particular emphasis on songs that were used in the Golden Age of the Hollywood Musical.

Five memorable numbers: WHY WAS I BORN?, BILL, CAN'T HELP LOVIN' DAT MAN OF MINE, SMOKE GETS IN YOUR EYES, REMIND ME

Before the Donmar became a player, along with the Almeida, in the off-West End, mini-National Theatre stakes, it was the humbler Donmar Warehouse and staged an eclectic mix of plays, musicals and cabaret.  In 1985 David Kernan formed 'Show People' to put on shows that had evening and regular late-night performances so performers in other shows could catch them too.  In that year they staged two revue-style shows which followed the tried and trusted formula of SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM - cast of four with some occasional biographical detail to space the songs out - and both are on my Top 50 musicals list.  The first is KERN GOES TO HOLLYWOOD which was Kernan's idea to showcase the remarkable songbook of Jerome Kern, emphasizing songs written for or used in films.  Kernan brought together a trio of female singers which gave the production a sheen of pure class: Elaine Delmar, Liz Robertson and, in particular, the glorious 81 year-old Elisabeth Welch who was nominated for an Olivier Award.  The show transferred to Broadway the following year for a short engagement but long enough for Welch to again be nominated, this time for a Tony Award.  On the back of her success in KERN she returned the following year to the Donmar with her own show, luckily for posterity both were recorded.  I was lucky enough to meet her around the time of KERN and when I complemented her on the show she said her only regret was more emphasis was not placed on the lyricists who had been on the top of their game with Kern's music.  KERN GOES TO HOLLYWOOD was a fantastic show and could certainly do with being revived... but where would you find performers of such impeccable musical taste and class nowadays? 

There is no video footage of the show but here is Elisabeth Welch's glorious version of WHY WAS I BORN? - existential pain never sounded so lovely... and just for you Elisabeth, the lyricist was Oscar Hammerstein II.

THE KING AND I at London Palladium - Sher Quality

Constant Reader, as you might have noticed, I am currently running through my Top 50 Musicals but pity the new musicals that land in the middle of this exercise... I cannot include them in the list so they will have to sit in the anti-room, swinging their tap-shoes and twiddling their thumbs, waiting for the next go-round.  Rules is rules...  and remarkably that is where the 67 year-old THE KING AND I finds itself now I have finally seen it on stage.

I had always resisted seeing it onstage as I had a lingering dislike of Rodgers and Hammerstein's canon which was probably as much to do with perception as anything else, I simply had not seen any on stage, only the film versions of their biggest shows: OKLAHOMA, CAROUSEL, SOUTH PACIFIC, THE KING AND I and THE SOUND OF MUSIC.  But after seeing Bartlett Sher's wonderful revival of SOUTH PACIFIC at Lincoln Center, I decided it was time to have another look at them - and here we are again in the safe hands of Sher with his Lincoln Center production now residing at the London Palladium, which has twice before been the home for the show.

What THE KING AND I has always been is a star vehicle: Gertrude Lawrence's agent contacted Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1950 to see it they could adapt a book about Anna Leonowens who had been a tutor to the children of the Siamese King Mongkut between 1861 and 1867.  They were wary, not seeing how they could make the episodic book into a through-story and also had concerns about Lawrence's failing vocal power but after seeing the 1946 film ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM they saw how their show could be about the clash of cultures - the King wishing to open his country out to the West but reluctant to give up his absolute power - while the traditional musical love story could be relegated to the supporting characters of Tuptim and Lun Tha.

The search was on to find The King but none of the original choices were available - enter an actor who was concentrating on being a television director, Yul Brynner.  What was considered a supporting role suddenly took off with Brynner's magnetic performance and the show was a hit.  But tragically, Lawrence started to falter with the demands of the role and started missing performances regularly; she would recover but then be hit with another illness.  Despite hospital check-ups for the various ailments the doctors failed to diagnose that she had liver cancer.  She, Brynner and the show won Tony Awards in March of 1952 but her health continued to fail and she died in September 1952, one of her last wishes was for Brynner to be given star billing. 

Brynner's success in New York meant he could not appear in the London premiere which starred Herbert Lom opposite Valerie Hobson, and of course Yul Brynner went on to recreate his role in the 1956 film version opposite Deborah Kerr for which he won the Best Actor Academy Award; Brynner would finally play the King in London at the Palladium in a 1979 revival which he had already played on Broadway and a tour for three years.  He continued to play his iconic role on and off until four months before his death in 1985, even after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer two years before.  A limited engagement New York Center revival in 1960 gave Barbara Cook a chance to play Anna opposite Farley Grainger; she later said that, although she only played it for a month, it was her favourite role - she said the actress playing Anna is perfectly supported by both score and book.

This thought is certainly borne out by the extraordinary Kelli O'Hara who lights up the production with a luminous performance which fully justifies her Tony Award for it; her Anna is an intelligent, still-grieving widow who, while standing her ground to The King when she feels she is in the right, warms to his intellectual curiosity and belief in his country.  We had missed seeing her in SOUTH PACIFIC so it was a real thrill to experience her soaring, full-bodied soprano voice as she sang the standards "Hello Young Lovers", "Getting To Know You" and "Shall We Dance?"

She is joined by her Broadway co-star Ken Watanabe who was given a bit of a rough ride by the NY critics for his heavy Japanese accent but I thought he gave a winning performance, effortlessly bringing out the King's wily humour and curiosity as well as his imperious demands for respect.  It was a testament to both their performances that by the time of their climactic duet "Shall We Dance?" you can relax and just enjoy their obvious pleasure in performing together.  It's a role that is so identified with Brynner that Watanabe's success in the role is all the better for that.

It was announced that Ruthie Ann Miles would recreate her Tony Award-winning role as Lady Thiang but tragically she has hit by a dangerous driver in March, killing not only her 4 year-old daughter but her unborn child too. Miles is still credited in the programme as is Naoko Mori who was a glorious addition to the production, her version of "Something Wonderful" was one of the stand-outs and she made Lady Thiang a real presence.

I also liked Na-Young Jeon as Tuptim, the 'present' from the King of Burma to the King.  She too had real presence on stage and played the role was a keen pain; I particularly liked her singing of "My Lord and Master", which is one of my favourite songs in a score packed with classics.  One of the few failings of Hammerstein's book is the role of Lun Tha is so under-written: he literally runs on, sings a song with Tuptim, then runs off again - twice!  Dean John-Wilson ran nicely but that's about it.

As with SOUTH PACIFIC, Bartlett Sher's direction seemed to clear away all the accumulated clutter around the musical so the characters lived within the production, bringing fully thought-through lives onto the stage with them.  For such a lavish musical there are only 9 roles within it and Sher seemed to give them all - apart from Lun Tha - a space and a moment to make themselves known.  His production certainly had it's moments of lavishness - and of course the lengthy "Small House of Uncle Thomas" ballet in Act II - but Sher seemed to make the book numbers spring naturally from the action rather than signalling "Ok musical number, I'll hand over to the choreographer".

Sher is reunited with his SOUTH PACIFIC creative team and they all contribute to the show's success: Christopher Gattelli recreates Jerome Robbins' choreography well -  I even liked the potential interest zone-out of "Small House of Uncle Thomas" with it's fine central performance by Ena Yamaguchi!  Michael Yeargan's glorious Siamese court shimmers with gold opulence of the court without overdoing it and also gives us a memorable opening scene of Anna's ship coming into the Bangkok harbour against a turbulent sunset.  Catherine Zuber's costumes are pure joy and Donald Holder's lighting also give the production a glorious sheen.

THE KING AND I is playing until the end of September - do see it, it's Something Wonderful.

 

 

50 Favourite Musicals: 43: FINGS AIN'T WOT THEY USED T'BE (1959) (Lionel Bart)

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: 1959, Theatre Royal, Stratford East 

First seen by me: 2011, Union Theatre, London

Productions seen: two

Score: Lionel Bart
Book: Frank Norman

Plot:  1950s Soho; Fred runs a 'spieler' - a gambling bar/brothel - with his longtime girlfriend Lil, but their relatively peaceful life catering to brasses, pimps, bent coppers and ne'er-do-wells is threatened by the expansionist plans of a neighbouring thug Meatface...

Five memorable numbers: FINGS AIN'T WHAT THEY USED T'BE, WHERE DO LITTLE BIRDS GO?, THE CEILING'S COMING DAHN, POLKA DOTS, G'NIGHT DEARIE

Ex-con Frank Norman had originally sent his play to Joan Littlewood as a possible production for her Theatre Workshop company but Littlewood saw it's potential instead as a London musical and sent it to pop songwriter Lionel Bart - who had just written the lyrics for his first musical LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS - to see what he could come up with.  The musical took off like a rocket, straight from Stratford East into the West End where it ran for 886 performances and won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Musical.  Despite it's mundane - and now rather dated - storyline, Bart's music and vibrantly non-pc lyrics still burst off the stage with his unmistakable signature cocky cockney bravado.  After a muddled and clumsy Union Theatre production - nothing new there - there was a much better revival at Stratford East in 2014.  However which cast nowadays can compare to the sensational original cast recording. recorded live, which features Glynn Edwards, Miriam Karlin, Barbara Windsor, Toni Palmer, James Booth and Yootha Joyce?   That original production, by the way, was choreographed by Jean Newlove who was pregnant with her daughter, Kirsty MacColl...

Here is a trailer for the 2014 Stratford East revival, staged to celebrate Joan Littlewood's centenary..

50 Favourite Musicals: 44: PASSION (1994) (Stephen Sondheim)

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: 1994, Plymouth Theatre, NY
First seen by me: 1996, Queens Theatre, London

Productions seen: three

Score: Stephen Sondheim
Book: James Lapine

Plot:  In the 1860s, a young Captain in the Italian army is transferred to a remote outpost, leaving his mistress in Milan.  While there he becomes the object of obsessive desire for a withdrawn and sickly woman, his Colonel's cousin.  Her passion repels him but love is a strange thing...

Five memorable numbers: LOVING YOU, I WISH I COULD FORGET YOU, HAPPINESS, I READ, FINALE

Sondheim's deeply intense musical - based on a novel by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti and the Italian film adaptation by Ettore Scola - can leave you feeling claustrophobic at times; it is relentless in it's exploration of the mysterious power of love with hardly any humour to leaven it.  A remarkable chamber musical, it slowly ebbs into your mind as you watch Giorgio - a man who has always been in control of his love life - become enmeshed and undone by Fosca's unrelenting passion.  I had been swept away by the Broadway cast recording but was left somewhat cold by the London premiere where a torturous Maria Friedman and somnambulist Michael Ball rattled around the large Queens Theatre stage but subsequent smaller-scale productions have hit the show's emotional core, culminating in Jamie Lloyd's excellent Donmar production in 2010 which pared the basilisk-stare of Elena Roger's Fosca against the emotional fragility of David Thaxton's Giorgio.

Here the original Fosca, Donna Murphy, casts a spell with LOVING YOU, the score's emotional peak..

50 Favourite Musicals: 45: FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE (1990) (Louis Jordan / various)

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: 1990, Theatre Royal Stratford East
First seen by me: as above

Productions seen: three

Score: various

Book: Clarke Peters

Plot: Nomax, down on his luck and left by his woman, is is visited by the five guys named Moe who appear out of his radio and bring him back to happiness through the songs of jazz legend Louis Jordan.

Five memorable numbers: FIVE GUYS NAMED MOE, DON'T LET THE SUN CATCH YOU CRYING, I LIKE 'EM FAT LIKE THAT, SATURDAY NIGHT FISH FRY, CHOO CHOO CH'BOOGIE

Short on plot but big on joy, Clarke Peters' tribute show celebrates the back catalogue of Louis Jordan whose recordings span the 1930s big band jazz sound through the jump 'n' jive swing years to the early stirrings of rhythm and blues that led to rock & roll.  Starting at Stratford East - where I was lucky to see it - the show conga'd into the West End where it ran for over four years; on Broadway it ran for over a year.  In 2010 the show appeared again at Stratford East where I saw it again and had the great joy of meeting Clarke Peters.  MOE memories include sitting in the prompt-side box at Stratford East in 1990 with Ann Molloy and Suzanne Golden who memorably held the show up because she didn't have a lyric sheet in her programme - Peters had to go into the audience to find a spare one - and when I saw the West End transfer at the Lyric with friend Guy, on his last night in the UK before leaving to work in Brazil, we were seated next to Ben and Tracey from Everything But The Girl!

Here is Clarke Peters with a revival cast in 1998 appearing in the Cameron Mackintosh tribute show HEY MR PRODUCER! singing a medley of the title song, HURRY HOME, IS YOU IS OR IS YOU AIN'T MY BABY and DON'T LET THE SUN CATCH YOU CRYING...

50 Favourite Musicals: 46: COMPANY (1970) (Stephen Sondheim)

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: 1970, Alvin Theater, NY
First seen by me: 1996, Albery Theatre, London

Productions seen: two

Score: Stephen Sondheim
Book: George Furth

Plot:  Robert is single and living in New York; on his 35th birthday his best friends - five couples - throw him a surprise party which finally makes him confront his lack of commitment in relationships.

Five memorable numbers: BEING ALIVE, THE LADIES WHO LUNCH, BARCELONA, GETTING MARRIED TODAY, SIDE BY SIDE BY SIDE

As you all reel from the fact that a Sondheim musical is only at #46, I have to say that, although it's not my favourite of his shows, I think I enjoyed it more than the 'Variety' critic who reported after seeing it's 1970 Boston try-out "As it stands now it's for ladies' matinees, homos and misogynists."  Charmed.  I had to wait quite a while to see it and finally caught up with Sam Mendes' Donmar revival when it transferred to the Albery in 1996 with the extraordinary cast of Adrian Lester as Robert, the late Sheila Gish as Joanne, the unstoppable Sophie Thompson as Amy and such solid musical performers as Teddy Kempner, Paul Bentley, Clare Burt, Clive Rowe and Michael Simkins - a company as good as that can distract you from thoughts that the characters are all fairly annoying.  My main COMPANY memory is seeing Patti LuPone at the Leicester Square Theatre who ended her show with Joanne's coruscating solo THE LADIES WHO LUNCH and, at the song's climax, tossed her martini (aka water) into the audience - and over me.  Cow. Let's see if she can do it again in October when we see her play the role in Marianne Elliott's upsy-gender revival at the Gielgud....

Here is a remarkable performance of THE LADIES WHO LUNCH by it's originator Elaine Stritch - the performance is worthy of Beckett it's so unflinching..

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50 Favourite Musicals: 47: BLUES IN THE NIGHT (1980) (various)

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: 1980, Playhouse 46 NY
First seen by me: 1988, Piccadilly Theatre, London

Productions seen: two

Score: various

Book: Sheldon Epps

Plot: Three women sit in a run-down hotel waiting for the same no-good man to appear, and sing their lives through the classic blues and torch songs of the Golden Age of American jazz.

Five memorable numbers: BLUES IN THE NIGHT, ROUGH AND READY MAN, FOUR WALLS (AND ONE DIRTY WINDOW) BLUES, TAKE ME FOR A BUGGY RIDE, WASTED LIFE BLUES

Following on from similar jazz and blues revue-style shows like BUBBLING BROWN SUGAR and ONE MO' TIME, BLUES IN THE NIGHT changed the format from a night-club setting to a run-down hotel so the songs play more as a musical than an out-front recreation of a cabaret show.  Three women: an ingenue, a sophisticate and an older touring blues singer all interact with a man who seems to connect them through classic songs written by Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Ida Cox and Harold Arlen among others.  It's a simple format that works because of the exhilarating song choices and having a tightly-focused quartet and I still remember the pure pleasure when I saw it 30 years ago.  An atmospheric live cast recording immortalizing the excellent original London quartet of Clarke Peters, Carol Woods, Maria Friedman and Debby Bishop has kept the show alive for me and I look forward to seeing a new production next year with Sharon D. Clarke and Clive Rowe in Kilburn,

Here is a compilation of scenes from a 1989 tv version of BLUES IN THE NIGHT with Peters, Woods, Bishop and Friedman.  The video quality is a bit shonky but it does give a flavour of the show's fun...

50 Favourite Musicals: 48: HAIR (1967) (Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni, James Rado)

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: 1967, Public Theater NY
First seen by me: 1993, Old Vic, London

Productions seen: three

Score: Galt MacDermot / Gerome Ragni & James Rado

Book: Ragni & Rado

 Plot: A 'tribe' of hippies in New York assert their love of life and peace in late 1960s America but the Vietnam war looms ever closer...

Five memorable numbers: AQUARIUS, I GOT LIFE, HAIR, FRANK MILLS, THE FLESH FAILURES (LET THE SUNSHINE IN)

Odd for HAIR to be so low in my chart, particularly as Diane Paulus' 2010 revival was so wondrous but, for all the variety of the score, the book is showing it's age - and in particular, the lengthy and disjointed Vietnam drug trip in the second act stops the show dead, just when you want more of the members of the tribe that you have grown to like in the first act.  I got to know the score through the 1968 London cast album, but was totally bewildered by the disjointed Old Vic production by Michael Bogdanov in 1993; my only lasting memory of it was sitting in the back row of bleacher seats on the Old Vic stage with fellow First Call workers - as I watched Sinitta spiral down to the stage holding onto a strap with one hand while singing AQUARIUS, I had not noticed 1) that Paul J Medford had popped up behind us to sing the second verse and 2) that one of my colleagues had started a nose bleed - when the spotlight snapped onto Medford it also revealed Nigel covered in blood!!  That was the most dramatic thing in the whole show.  All was put right by the fantastic revival by Diane Paulus which we first saw on Broadway then visited 5 times when it transferred to the Gielgud Theatre but sadly it just didn't connect with a wider audience and closed early.  However I will long treasure the definitive performances of Claude, Sheila, Jeanie, Berger and Crissy by the wonderful Gavin Creel, Caissie Levy, Kacie Sheik, Will Swenson, and Allison Case who made me blub every time with her heartrending performance of FRANK MILLS.

Here that remarkable ensemble led by Gavin Creel and Will Swenson take over the Tony Awards with the title song - it won the Award that year for Best Revival...

HAMLET at the Globe - "To hold the mirror up to nature..."

Last week I found myself back in the dangerous corridors of Elsinore, this time via the bare stage of The Globe Theatre.  Yes folks, another week, another Globe visit...

So here I am again, seeing an actor taking on the challenge of Hamlet for the eleventh time - and who was following in the steps of Kenneth Branagh, Jeremy Northam, Ian Charleson,  Simon Russell Beale, Dan McSherry (indeed, who?), Jude Law, Rory Kinnear, Michael Sheen, Benedict Cumberbatch and Andrew Scott?  Michelle Terry, my first female Hamlet - apart from seeing Frances de la Tour doing a scene at a charity event - and a major challenge for The Globe's new Artistic Director.

HAMLET is presented by the same 12 actors who also appeared in AS YOU LIKE IT and I think the comedy succeeded more than the tragedy.  The same two directors are credited but there is no sense of direction during the play: people come, people go, with no sense of escalating tension for either Hamlet or Claudius.  Hamlet goes to England, he comes back from England...  people drop like nine pins in the final scene but with no real sense of mortality or that this is the climax of the actual play.

The directors' blocking and positioning of the actors on the stage, as with AS YOU LIKE IT, suggested it was possibly all worked out in the rehearsal room and just dropped onto the stage as is; there was a lot of traffic on the stage but none of it seemed to make any sense or helped with the dodgy acoustics in the round auditorium.  It was all a bit infuriating.

As I said, this Elsinore had gone minimalist and appeared to have no furniture to speak of at all.. and don't start me on the costumes or lack of them.  I was not totally surprised to read in the programme that they have brought their own stuff in to act in.  That might explain the light blue floaty dressing gown that Gertrude - the Queen of Denmark remember - wears in the closet scene:  they were obviously having a sale on at Primark.

There actually was one concept that worked: the scene with the players and Hamlet's staging of "The Mousetrap" - that never fails to get a laugh - is usually a problematic one because you have to see the play twice: once in mime, then the players act it out.  It can really try one's patience when you just want to get on with the plot, and also it's a bugger to focus on because you are too busy concentrating on watching Hamlet watch Claudius watch the play to see his reaction to the player king being murdered.  Here the players did the dumb show to set up what they were going to act but then vanished into the audience and the play was not shown, just the reactions front and centre of Claudius, Gertrude and Hamlet; loud and ominous percussion was played behind our first-level back-row to suggest the play.- which was effective but a bit-heart-attack inducing.

The casting, as with AS YOU LIKE IT, was ethnic and gender blind and created as many problems as with the comedy.  Surely an idea behind gender-mix-up casting is to possibly give a new slant on the role in question but here that was not in evidence apart from possibly within Terry's performance.  There were some seriously under-powered performances: James Garnon as Claudius made no impression at all as Claudius - he seemed to just point his elaborate hair-style at people (think Cameron Diaz in THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY) while Catrin Aaron was colourless as Horatio and Helen Schlesinger played Gertrude as if she had come into a room and forgotten what she was looking for.

The main problem was with the tipsy-tarty casting of Bettrys Jones and Shubham Saraf as Laertes and Ophelia respectively - if they had switched roles it might have proved more interesting and allowed them to give better performances, but no: Saraf brought no insights to Ophelia - just a man in a dress - and James was as lightweight and as vaguely irritating as she was in AS YOU LIKE IT in yet another male role.  I have enjoyed her performances in previous productions but in these two plays she has proved that she is a lousy man.  Shubham Saraf did redeem himself briefly as a very characterful Osric.

The fine Jack Laskey was reduced to playing Fortenbras and the player who recites the Priam speech - but even he was defeated with being placed over at one side of the stage in that scene and his speech went for nothing.  But credit where credit is due: Colin Hurley was a dull Ghost but seized his laughs as the Gravedigger, Richard Katz was a suitably irritating Polonius - while missing any suggestion of threat in his relationship with Ophelia - while the indispensable Pearce Quigley and Nadia Nadarajah made a good Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Above all else, it was Michelle Terry's show; she played with a solid authority and spoke the lines with great intelligence - oh, and that speech?  She played it kneeling at the front of the stage, holding an audience member's hand and asking him "To be or not to be?" which was a very nice touch, it somehow personalized it, as if Hamlet was asking his opinion.  Sadly she was given no help with the absurdly ugly costumes she had to wear and ultimately, a lot of the production was not up to her level.

I will have to ponder where Michelle Terry sits in my pantheon of Hamlets, but I know that her interpretation did not move me as others have; it is possible for this to happen even within a shonky production - Andrew Scott is a good example - but here I suspect Terry was unwilling to out-shine the ensemble - she didn't even get a solo bow!  This strikes me as a rather false humility, after all, as the Globe's artistic director she nabbed the role for herself.  Despite all the failings of the production, I have to admit that I was pleased to have seen it and I still have high hopes for Michelle Terry's tenure.