50 Favourite Musicals: 20: GRAND HOTEL (1989) (Robert Wright / George Forrest / Maury Yeston)

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: 1989, Martin Beck Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1992, Dominion, London

Productions seen: five

Score: Robert Wright / George Forrest / Maury Yeston
Book: Luther Davis
Plot:  Berlin, 1928: the Grand Hotel's visitors and staff live lives of quiet desperation and within 24 hours, some will be changed forever:  the famous ballerina Grushinskaya is fighting age and falling audiences attended by her dresser Raffaela who secretly loves her, Baron Felix Von Gaigern is eluding his creditors with dwindling success, businessman Hermann Preysing has lied to his board of directors about a financial merger and needs to travel to the US to save it, temp secretary Flaemmchen is just surviving between jobs and discovers she is pregnant when assigned to Preysing as a typist, and the dying book-keeper Otto Kringelein - who knows all of Preysing's secrets - has left his sanatorium to check into the Grand Hotel for one last happy memory...

Five memorable numbers: LOVE CAN'T HAPPEN, WE'LL TAKE A GLASS TOGETHER, I WANT TO GO TO HOLLYWOOD, ROSES AT THE STATION, AT THE GRAND HOTEL

A musical which shows you should never give up.  In 1958, book writer Luther Davis and song-writers George Forrest and Robert Wright decided to follow their hit KISMET with a musical based on Vicki Baum's novel and the MGM film GRAND HOTEL, titled AT THE GRAND starring KISMET actress Joan Deiner (with her husband signed to direct) and the 1930s film star Paul Muni.   But Muni was unhappy, and despite his role being made bigger, he eventually quit and AT THE GRAND closed on the West Coast.  Whip-pan to 1988: director/choreographer Tommy Tune was given AT THE GRAND to work his magic on after his recent Broadway hit NINE; as he did with his previous show he totally revised it and when Wright, Forrest and Davis balked at his changes, Tune gave the score to NINE composer Maury Yeston to doctor it and add several songs of his own.  The book was also doctored by Peter Stone who refused a writing credit.

Tune's chic, minimalist production ran on Broadway for over 2 years, winning five Tony Awards, although not for score or book. I saw Tune's production in 1992 at the Dominion Theatre when it opened with Lilianne Montevecchi reprising her role as Grushinskaya but the barn-like Dominion did the production no favours and it closed after only four months.  I could see good things in it but it just didn't grab me.  I saw GRAND HOTEL again in 2000 at the Guildhall school performed by final year students but finally 'connected' with it when Michael Grandage directed a thrilling Olivier award-winning production at the Donmar in 2004 with Julien Ovenden as the Baron, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as Grushinskaya, Helen Baker as Flaemmchen and Daniel Evans as Kringelein.  Finally the show's strength was revealed in a smaller, more direct approach.  I felt more engaged with the characters and the hidden jewels in the score stood out more.  A further Guildhall production was followed by another chamber version at the Southwark Playhouse.  Staged as a traverse production, it was inventive and enjoyable but suffered at the end from a striving for profundity that was misplaced.  As with recent productions of CABARET, It's a bit of a lazy option to end any musical set in 1930s Germany with concentration camp imagery.  Although Forrest and Wright's score included such fine book numbers as "Maybe My Baby Loves Me", "Who Couldn't Dance With You?" and "We'll Take A Glass Together", it is Maury Yeston's songs that give the characters wonderful moments of clarity and depth: Flaemmchen's desperate "I Want To Go To Hollywood", Grushinskaya's sweeping "Toujours Amour" and more importantly The Baron's two solos "Love Can't Happen" and "Roses At The Station" are both remarkable compositions; it's Yeston's contributions that make GRAND HOTEL a show that suddenly touches your heart.

I was sorely tempted to post the wonderful Tony Awards segment of the late Michael Jeter and Brent Barrett stopping the show with "We'll Take A Glass Together" which illustrates how Jeter won a Tony Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role of Otto but that would not do justice to the rest of the score so here is a selection of songs from the 2018 Encores! staged concert.



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