50 Favourite Musicals: 25: A CHORUS LINE (1975) (Marvin Hamlisch, Edward Kleban)

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, Public Theater, NY

First seen by me: 1989, Shubert Theatre, NY

Productions seen: two

Score: Marvin Hamlisch, Edward Kleban
Book: James Kirkwood Jr, Nicholas Dante

Plot: On an empty Broadway stage, director Zack selects seventeen dancers for the final round of auditions to be cast for an upcoming musical which needs a chorus line of four women and four men.  Zack puts them through a rigorous physical and emotional work-out; he wants dancers for whom it's life itself... not just a job.

Five memorable numbers: DANCE: TEN, LOOKS: THREE, WHAT I DID FOR LOVE, NOTHING, AT THE BALLET, ONE

Like a lot of musicals on my list I came to the show first through the cast recording which can be a bit of a problem when you finally see the show: the score which flows naturally from song to song in your mind actually stops every so often: "wait, there are lines *during* the song??  Who knew!"  A case in point was A CHORUS LINE which was played continuously by someone who I used to work with.  I knew practically every breath that the cast took so when I finally saw the show - on Broadway which was like drinking wine in the country where the grape was grown - it was a shock to realize that the show was actually more like a play with music, so strong are the 17 main characters and the situation they find themselves in.  I found myself totally involved, quietly rooting for my favourite dancers to get the all-important job.  The imprint of director/choreographer Michael Bennett is all over the show but of course most of all in the great dance numbers - the exhausting "God I Hope I Get It" as the successful 17 are selected out of a general chorus cattle-call; the epic montage number which incorporates "Hello Twelve, Hello Thirteen, Hello Love" as all the dancers tell director/choreographer Zack of their years growing up and what lead them to become dancers, and Cassie's big solo number "The Music and The Mirror".  Cassie is Zack's former lover and former established dance soloist who left Broadway - and Zack - to try her luck in Hollywood, but now she's back and despite Zack's goading, desperate to get a job again on Broadway, even if it means being part of an anonymous chorus line: "God, I'm a dancer, a dancer dances".  It all culminates in the shiny and brash "One", the chorus' big number in the upcoming show, which reduces the individual dancers into a glittery, uniform ensemble - all moving and looking as one - but we now know what each of them has gone through to give themselves over to that collective unit, a chorus line.  A CHORUS LINE was Broadway's longest-running musical until overtaken by by CATS in 1997, and won nine Tony Awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and, for it's London production, the prize for Best Musical from both the Evening Standard Awards and the Society of West End Theatre Awards (which later became the Oliviers) - the first year the latter were awarded.  It is sad to think that from the eight people who made up the original production team only co-choreographer Bob Avian is still with us. 

Sadly most of the video available for A CHORUS LINE is from Attenborough's galumphing film version but here is the 2018 NY City Center gala production featuring some of Bennett's iconic choreography.

Ghost Light documentaries

I had two visits to the recent London Film Festival but in an odd twist, it was to see two documentaries that took Broadway legends as it's subjects: Marvin Hamlisch and Elaine Stritch.  With similar subject matter, it was also interesting to compare the two styles of documentary.

MARVIN HAMLISCH: WHAT HE DID FOR LOVE was directed by Dori Berinstein who was also the director of the wonderful SHOW BUSINESS: THE ROAD TO BROADWAY which chronicled the fortunes of four shows during the 2003-4 Broadway season.  Dori was at the screening and told us that she had finished editing it only a few days before.  Also in the audience was Maria Friedman who featured in the latter part of the film.

Dori Berinstein knew Hamlisch personally and her documentary is a loving tribute to the composer who in the space of three years won 3 Academy Awards (all in one night!), a Tony Award, the Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award.  His later Emmy Award made him one of only eleven performers who have won all these major performance honours.  A Julliard-trained pianist, he went from being a child prodigy to a career on Broadway and in films rather than into the expected classical concert halls.

Although shy when growing up, with his fame came a new bravura which made Hamlisch a popular chat-show guest on both sides of the pond which provides Berinstein with a wealth of footage, an odd occurrence for a composer.  She has also interviewed a wide-ranging group of artists that Hamlisch worked with over the years: Barbra Streisand, Liza Minnelli, Carly Simon, Ann-Margret, Quincy Jones, Tim Rice, John Lithgow, Carole Bayer Sager, Alan & Marilyn Bergman, Idina Menzel, Steven Soderbergh, Christopher Walken... they're all here.

Dori Berinstein covers his career in a fluid and involving style, from a cossetted Jewish upbringing to his Julliard years, and his stint as the FUNNY GIRL rehearsal pianist which led to his lifelong friendship with Barbra Streisand.  His moonlighting as a pianist at private parties led to meeting film producer Sam Spiegel and an entrée into composing for films but his first love was the Broadway musical.  After the massive success of A CHORUS LINE and the popular THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG Hamlisch found it difficult to keep up the momentum and the film covers his despondency over this.  Interviews with his wife Terre Blair give us an insight into the private man and his sudden death in 2012 is obviously deeply felt by her and colleagues.

 

Later on in the day, while crossing Waterloo Bridge, we bumped into Dori Berinstein so I took the opportunity to tell her how much I had enjoyed the film!  I also told her how much I had enjoyed SHOW BUSINESS and we had a lovely long chat about theatre in NY and London.  She was very interested in my memories of Hamlisch's musical JEAN SEBERG at the National Theatre which I had seen 5 times - never seeing the same show twice.  She said "I should have had you in the film"!  I was thrilled.

The second documentary was ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME, a film by Chiemi Karasawa on the unstoppable Broadway star.  The director was at the screening as well as Stritch's music director Rob Bowman and her friend Julie Keyes.  We arrived at the ICA in the middle of a torrential downpour so watching the film was a very clammy experience as the audience was a mass of leaking shoes and steaming clothes.

Karasawa's film is sometimes hilarious, sometimes queasy, always fascinating look at how an 88 year old woman is still pursuing a career in show business, despite failing faculties and beset by fluctuating blood sugar levels.

The film covers the year 2011 when Stritch had just finished appearing in the revival of A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC opposite Bernadette Peters, filmed her last appearance in 30 ROCK and started rehearsing for her cabaret turn SINGING SONDHEIM... ONE SONG AT A TIME at the Carlyle Hotel (where she was a resident) - a full schedule for even someone half her age.  I think it is telling that of her 5 Tony Award nominations, she managed to finally win for her one-woman show.  She is her best performance.

We watch as Stritch paces the show out in rehearsal with her patient m.d. Rob Bowman which is at times painful to watch as she grows more angry with each forgotten song lyric.  Bowman truly displays the patience of Job but, with a career that has already encompassed 5 Tony nominations, 8 Emmy nominations, working with Bela Lugosi, originating roles in musicals from Coward to Sondheim, Stritch has high professional standards that refuse to compromise to piffling things such as health and age.  She also keeps up a series of one-nighter appearances and it is during one of these out-of-town that she is hospitalised.  But she refuses to compromise: tickets have been sold for the Carlyle show as well as a one-nighter at New York Town Hall and she must deliver the goods.
 

When we finally see the shows it is a revelation: what to the audience are jokes about forgetting lines and the running order etc. are actually the truth.  Stritch even tells the Carlyle audience that the reason the show is called ONE SONG AT A TIME is because that's all she can hope to remember.  Needless to say the audience roars with laughter.  But having seen the rehearsals we know that it's not just a schtick, she is telling them the truth.  It comes as no surprise that, after another hospitalisation after her Carlyle shows, that she confesses that the only real love she has ever felt is the audience's.

Indeed the level of access the director has had at times seems intrusive but Chiemi Karasawa said afterwards that although Stritch was very disappointed with the film when she first saw it - "the honeymoon period was over" quipped Julie Keyes, "we've all been there" - now she is very happy with it, possibly because she has seen how positive the reactions are of audiences to it.  Karasawa said Stritch had given her notes on what to edit out but she hasn't touched it! 

As with the Hamlisch film, there are many fans of her work interviewed: Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, George C. Woolf, Cherry Jones, Hal Prince, John Turturro and the late James Gandolfini (who would have thought he would be the first to go?) all praise her.  Chiemi Karasawa said after it that the one person who wouldn't appear was Sondheim.  She said that they have a loving but wary relationship - we see his telegram on her opening night at the Carlyle excusing his absence but ruefully noting she can change his lyrics now.  Karasawa said that after his refusals to appear, she had been worried about using his music in the concert footage as the film's budget was miniscule but she said they managed to get all they wanted. 

Both these documentaries are highly recommended and worth seeking out.

All Singing! All Dancing! All Reviving!

Sorry for the hiccup in blogging - those Battersea dogs and cats can't do their own admin you know.

In an odd reversal for me, this year I have seen more new musicals than revivals.  One usually struggles to find decent first run musicals but this year it's the revivals that I am finding thin on the ground.  It's not looking any better for the rest of 2013, with only THE SOUND OF MUSIC and MISS SAIGON upcoming.  Like, no.

I had such high hopes for MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG at the Menier.  Great reviews bolstered the expectation that this production would be on par with previous productions I had seen - both of which had been hugely enjoyable and profoundly moving: the Guildhall School production from 1983 (my first Sondheim show) and the 2000 Donmar Warehouse production which was revived in concert form in 2010 to celebrate Sondheim's 80th birthday.

 To quote the last act closer: "Now You Know".

 

Stephen Sondheim's wonderful, loving score is one of my absolute favourites with such classics as OLD FRIENDS, GOOD THING GOING, NOT A DAY GOES BY and OUR TIME which tell the story of the fracturing of Frank, Mary and Charley's friendship over 20 years - told in reverse - and has always had the hidden tripwires that start my blubbing.

We saw it just after it had been announced that the production was transferring to the West End which might explain why they performed in such a self-aggrandising manner.  They mugged, they belted where belt was not required and they played the jokes with all the subtlety of the Three Stooges.  I really cannot understand what show the reviewers saw if they performed like this.

There was also the problem that the show was directed by Maria Friedman who somehow seems to have got the cast to sing in her style: declamatory with consonants being hit harder than a cow's arse with a banjo.  It made for an ugly sound, especially as they were all miked up - the Menier, remember, only has a 180 seat capacity.

Another downer was that they were using the re-written book and score which attempts to 'explain' the main character's Franklin's motivations.  Why?  It actually does the show a disservice as these additions feel so bolted on.  Franklin's motivations are there in the text anyway - the whole show is about how we change through the decades and friends become estranged through tiny betrayals and slights.

Of the central trio of friends, Mark Umbers as Frank and Jenna Russell as Mary gave the best performances, sadly Damian Humbley was just irritating as Charley.  The largely irksome supporting cast were regularly shown up by the subtle performances of Glyn Kerslake as the hapless Broadway producer Joe Josephson and Clare Foster as Beth, Franklin's discarded first wife.  Her emotional rendition of NOT A DAY GOES BY was a real highlight.  Josefina Gabrielle played Gussy, the temperamental Broadway actress with her usual clanging stridency.

 

This was a real disappointment although it seems to have done well enough in it's transfer to the Harold Pinter Theatre.  Nope... that doesn't work, it will always be the Comedy Theatre to me.

 

The big revival in February was A CHORUS LINE at the London Palladium in it's first West End appearance since it's original production at Drury Lane in 1976, winning the first ever Society of West End Theatre/Olivier Award for Best Musical.  The show has toured occasionally but it's a mystery why it has taken so long to play a West End theatre.

 

The production is a recreation of Michael Bennett's original production which always throws a little confusion into the mix.  Bob Avian was the original co-choreographer and now he is the director re-creating Bennett's legendary musical, Baayork Lee was the original 'Connie' and now she is restaging Bennett's choreography - so are we applauding his work or theirs?

I saw this archetypal Broadway show there in the early 1990s at the Shubert Theatre where it played for 15 years and have loved the original cast recording for years so I was curious if it would hold it's magic with this production.  Of course it did - and the front row of the dress circle also helped!

Here they all were again... the chosen 17 dancers who have survived the strenuous dance auditions to stand on the line and be quizzed relentlessly by the director/choreographer Zach.  He can't hire them all, he only needs 4 boys, 4 girls.  Although he is only casting for an anonymous chorus line behind the upcoming show's star he wants performers who have real personality and more than that, dancers who *need* to dance.

Who will get through? The testy latina Diana or quiet Paul? The cheeky Chinese Connie or the very gay and Jewish Greg? Brassy Val or mocking Sheila? The married couple Al and Kristine? Don the ex-stripper, cocky Mike or Ritchie who swopped basketball for dancing? And what of Cassie?  An ex-love of Zach's who has had success in the past and left him to try her luck as an actress in L.A.?

Played without an interval, we have two hours to get to know them and to guess who Zach will pick, who deserves it more?  The news that the production is coming off early was a real surprise.  Surely in this culture that loves nothing more than watching performers being eliminated from a race to a showbiz crown A CHORUS LINE should be able to find an audience.  It's very sad that this great show is not getting a bigger audience.

The cast certainly give it there all in the dance routines, if I have a criticism it might be that apart from the performers who have slightly higher profiles within the show, the others are a bit anonymous, you tend to remember them by the colour of their dance clothes rather than for any particular performing quality.



 But their are some fine performances: John Partridge is an odd choice as Zach, he doesn't really suggest a feared/revered director/choreographer but his anonymous quality does help with the character's sphinx-like watchfulness.  Leigh Zimmerman won the Olivier Award for Best Supporting Musical Performance and it was richly deserved.  As Sheila, the seen-it-all, danced-it-all glamour girl she steals scenes with her great comic timing and stylish dancing.  Scarlett Strallen, while not having the real natural charisma that Cassie should unknowingly exude, does a fierce solo on her big number THE MUSIC AND THE MIRROR and in the preceding scene with Zach, is touching in her recounting of her failed career in L.A.  

 

As Diana, the wary latina, Victoria Hamilton-Barritt certainly punches over her two big numbers NOTHING and the score's biggest hit WHAT I DID FOR LOVE.  As is usually the case the latter, which has too many supper-club associations when heard outside it's show context, within it makes perfect sense.  By the time this 11 o'clock number is sung in the show, we know how much the dancers have had to give up to be where they are.
 

The interesting thing about the song is that it is in fact the musical coda to what actually is the emotional heart of the show, Paul's speech about his unhappy family life while growing up gay and the redemption he found as a drag artist.  It's a wonderfully written speech - the standout moment in James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante's book - and Gary Wood gave a pitch-perfect performance.  There wasn't a dry eye in my seat. 

 

The design of Robin Wagner still thrills in it's simplicity, Theoni V. Aldredge's dance costumes are still excellently un-theatrical until the glittering finale and Tharon Musser's lighting design still gives expression to the action.

 

Sadly Robin Wagner is the only one of the original show's creators still alive.

 

Lyricist Edward Kleban died in 1987, book writers James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante died in 1989 and 1991 respectively, lighting designer Tharon Musser died in 2009, costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge died in 2010 and composer Marvin Hamlisch died in 2012.

 

But above all the show stands as a living monument to Michael Bennett who died in 1987.  It was his particular theatrical genius to take something so basically theatrical and turning it into something universal.

 

The show is running until 31st August and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  After all these years it really is One Singular Sensation.

 

 

Sad news to hear that Theoni V. Aldredge, designer of some of the most glamorous costumes seen on stage and screen, has died at the age of 78.She was nominated for 14 Best Costume Tony Awards and won three times for ANNIE, BARNUM and for the over-the-top glamour of the original 1983 production of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES seen here with star George Hearn and La Cagelles.Among the shows she was nominated for was the original 1981 DREAMGIRLS, the Tyne Daly 1989 revival of GYPSY and the original 1975 production of A CHORUS LINE.She won a deserved Academy Award in 1974 for her glorious costumes for THE GREAT GATSBY which saw a revival in the soft lines of 1920s fashion on the high street. She also designed for the divas of the day such as Faye Dunaway's power-dressing TV executive in NETWORK, Bette Midler's satin-and-tat schmatte in THE ROSE and... um... Valerie Perrine and The Village People in CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC!