Monday, December 29, 2008
Road Show by Stephen Sondheim & John Weidman
Road Show has had an unusually public (and apparently tortuous) development process. The various titles suggest the different emphases the creators and various others have thought of it:
In his book The American Film Musical, Rick Altman succinctly sums up the formula for all musicals: 1) people fall in love with one another; or 2) someone has a transformative experience leading to a new level of thinking or understanding. Most musicals are no. 1, but a work like The Wizard of Oz falls under no. 2. Many combine both (in a Shirley Temple film Shirly has the experience, but it's usually the adults who fall in love). Although Altman doesn't say it, I feel one should not look at the genre cynically. Rather, creators of these shows found early on that to achieve the maximum cathartic effect on the audience, the most elemental plots are best - subjects that nearly everyone can relate to. It apparently boils down to these two ideas.
The problem with Road Show is that it doesn't use either. There is nothing about love, and neither of the protagonists ever reach a new level of understanding. One could say that the journey is what matters (hence the title), but the journey does not add appreciably to what we first see of the brothers. In fact, the brothers' childish fight at the drama's outset foreshadows their later relationship - they were "born to fight" and continuing so until they die. Whatever drama Sondheim saw in the story is not carried over in his creation.
The choice of showing the final state of the brothers' relationship at the outset (when they've already died) dissipates the possibility of building up tension over the course of the show. Once the flashback begins one sees that the antipathy after they're dead was already present at the beginning--a situation that does not really change over the course of the show. So there's no transformative development there, and therefore not much reason to see it dramatized.
Clearly the interest is not in the brothers themselves but their allegorical implications. It would appear that Wilson Mizner stands for greed, opportunism, cheating - all those characteristics which are evil and are a part of United States history. What about Addison? He unwillingly falls in with some of his brother's schemes, and then seems to be unavoidably drawn into them, leading to both their downfalls. Presumably the viewer should be drawn into Addison's world, although with minimal character development that is very hard to do. We see someone who is trying to escape his brother and never succeeds. Perhaps Addison stands for what the ordinary person thinks of themselves: trying to always escape evil but never fully being able to.
(I'm thinking of Morton Gould's Billion Dollar Baby which has a vaguely similar theme. In that show, the "evil" protagonist in the form of a gold-digger is provided with more deeply drawn character. We see how she becomes more opportunistic - and smile in satisfaction when she is given a final comeuppance due to the 1929 stock market crash - something that never happens in Road Show.)
So Road Show has inherent structural problems that can't be solved without substantially changing the story. What about the music?
I've always had problems with Sondheim's relationship to music. He feels music exists to help tell the story (no problem there), but that it should always be subserviant to the text. In so doing, I've felt that Sondheim violates what music is about. However you want it to function, music tells its own story, with or without text. To fully work with it, one must realize how music achieves this through respecting what the music wants to do and how it wants to behave.
I find it telling that the best part of the show was removed from it: the song "A Little House For Mama" (as heard on the cast recording of Bounce). Within it one can feel something for Addison - it seems to be the way of letting the audience achieve some identification with Addison, because he reaches out to a mother that never offered love. It makes us identify with him.
For me, the best song conceived for the show is You. The point of the song is to show both how Addison becomes a star architect and how his friend and business partner, Hollis Bessemer, becomes his lover. But more than that, the gradual build up to a tremendous climax strongly suggests that, at one point, this song might have been the finale of act 1 (although typical musicals of today introduce an element of doubt prior to the act 1 curtain - a cliff-hanger). It's so infrequent that Sondheim allows music to breathe this way - to allow itself to grow and provide a strong foundation for the parallel narrative, of the growth of Florida real estate, of Addison's aspirations, and the growing "friendship" between Addison and Hollis.
- Gold - suggesting the show's core is the pursuit of money
- Wise Guys - underscoring Sondheim's stated idea that the show is like a modern version of a Bing Crosby-Bob Hope movie
- Bounce - suggesting that the relationship of the Mizner brothers is the central point
- Road Show - puts the emphasis less on the brothers' relationship than what happens to them
In his book The American Film Musical, Rick Altman succinctly sums up the formula for all musicals: 1) people fall in love with one another; or 2) someone has a transformative experience leading to a new level of thinking or understanding. Most musicals are no. 1, but a work like The Wizard of Oz falls under no. 2. Many combine both (in a Shirley Temple film Shirly has the experience, but it's usually the adults who fall in love). Although Altman doesn't say it, I feel one should not look at the genre cynically. Rather, creators of these shows found early on that to achieve the maximum cathartic effect on the audience, the most elemental plots are best - subjects that nearly everyone can relate to. It apparently boils down to these two ideas.
The problem with Road Show is that it doesn't use either. There is nothing about love, and neither of the protagonists ever reach a new level of understanding. One could say that the journey is what matters (hence the title), but the journey does not add appreciably to what we first see of the brothers. In fact, the brothers' childish fight at the drama's outset foreshadows their later relationship - they were "born to fight" and continuing so until they die. Whatever drama Sondheim saw in the story is not carried over in his creation.
The choice of showing the final state of the brothers' relationship at the outset (when they've already died) dissipates the possibility of building up tension over the course of the show. Once the flashback begins one sees that the antipathy after they're dead was already present at the beginning--a situation that does not really change over the course of the show. So there's no transformative development there, and therefore not much reason to see it dramatized.
Clearly the interest is not in the brothers themselves but their allegorical implications. It would appear that Wilson Mizner stands for greed, opportunism, cheating - all those characteristics which are evil and are a part of United States history. What about Addison? He unwillingly falls in with some of his brother's schemes, and then seems to be unavoidably drawn into them, leading to both their downfalls. Presumably the viewer should be drawn into Addison's world, although with minimal character development that is very hard to do. We see someone who is trying to escape his brother and never succeeds. Perhaps Addison stands for what the ordinary person thinks of themselves: trying to always escape evil but never fully being able to.
(I'm thinking of Morton Gould's Billion Dollar Baby which has a vaguely similar theme. In that show, the "evil" protagonist in the form of a gold-digger is provided with more deeply drawn character. We see how she becomes more opportunistic - and smile in satisfaction when she is given a final comeuppance due to the 1929 stock market crash - something that never happens in Road Show.)
So Road Show has inherent structural problems that can't be solved without substantially changing the story. What about the music?
I've always had problems with Sondheim's relationship to music. He feels music exists to help tell the story (no problem there), but that it should always be subserviant to the text. In so doing, I've felt that Sondheim violates what music is about. However you want it to function, music tells its own story, with or without text. To fully work with it, one must realize how music achieves this through respecting what the music wants to do and how it wants to behave.
I find it telling that the best part of the show was removed from it: the song "A Little House For Mama" (as heard on the cast recording of Bounce). Within it one can feel something for Addison - it seems to be the way of letting the audience achieve some identification with Addison, because he reaches out to a mother that never offered love. It makes us identify with him.
For me, the best song conceived for the show is You. The point of the song is to show both how Addison becomes a star architect and how his friend and business partner, Hollis Bessemer, becomes his lover. But more than that, the gradual build up to a tremendous climax strongly suggests that, at one point, this song might have been the finale of act 1 (although typical musicals of today introduce an element of doubt prior to the act 1 curtain - a cliff-hanger). It's so infrequent that Sondheim allows music to breathe this way - to allow itself to grow and provide a strong foundation for the parallel narrative, of the growth of Florida real estate, of Addison's aspirations, and the growing "friendship" between Addison and Hollis.
So it's a great disappointment to find that in Road Show "You" has been musically disected presumably to achieve greater narrative cohesion. Instead of that marvous gradual crescendo of sound and pitch, now there are occasional parenthetical interjections of recitative-like passages which significantly reduce the musical effect. No doubt Sondheim or the producers/director of the current production thought it would be enhance or clarify the narrative, but it totally kills the musical effect. It's a pity that, whoever was responsible, miserably failed to perceive "You" as a musical unity.
I find myself asking what is the point? Is the show a statement about society and the folly of capitalism? Or is it really just about two brothers whose exploits happen to intersect with some of the issues today? I prefer to believe the former, if only because the show appears so minimal if it's just about the brothers. But nowadays, the idea of "message" shows (be they stage, movie, or opera presentations) seems quaint since it's an idea that was popular in the 1930s and went out of fashion with World War II.
It's a pity that the show's song, formerly named "Bounce," has now been changed to "Waste." I can't help but feel it might be an indication of where all the effort in this show has lead.
Labels: Bounce, musicals, Road Show, Sondheim
Monday, February 11, 2008
Applause (Encores! at New York City Center)
APPLAUSE - February 7, 2008 at the Encores! series at New York City Center.
(Expanded notes of a message origianlly posted to Castrec-L)
The evening began with an announcement that Christine Ebersole, despite having missed many rehearsals and still suffering from the flu, had agreed to appear. It's possible that the announcement explained why the performance seemed somewhat disorganized. Certain characters, such as Karen and Buzz Richards (Kate Burton and Chip Zien) did well, no doubt because of their own independence of Margo (not to mention extremely self-reliant actors). Unfortunately Margo's boyfriend, Bill Sampson (played by Michael Park) seemed amorphous. I understand that without a Margo to rehearse, he must have felt lost - but something would have been better than nothing. Park seemed to merely say the words, and look confused, especially during scenes of act 2, where the relationship with Margo is reaching a showdown.
I figure that I must give Ebersole some slack. Having seen her in a number of things over the years, I saw that she was going light. She held herself well if somewhat restrained. At the outset her voice was a little shaky (she never hit any of the uppe notes on the "But Alive" motive that goes through her first song). But by the end of the act she sounded more secure. Frankly, if she was going to go on, she must have been in fairly good shape. Many on the Castrec-L list claimed that she was too nice a person, and therefore was miscast. She's nice, but she also can exude a certain toughness, even meanness when she wants to. That wasn't in evidence here, so maybe its lack was a result of recovering from illness. I felt she could have been a little tougher, but otherwise she presented a different view of the Margo character, one that could elicit sympathy.
The main thing that struck me about the show (as a work) was how lousy it was. A number of people around me left during intermission, and what I heard of the audience's post-curtain talk was not at all flattering.
I think the main problem is the source material. ALL ABOUT EVE is so legendary that any derivative is going to pale in comparison. (How could Charles Strouse/Lee Adams have the hubris to consider the line "Fasten your seatbelts - it's going to be a bumpy night" for a song? Repeat that line once and it looses its effect. Repeat it multiple times and it looses meaning and because a trivial game.)
The film is the story of Eve as told by Margo and Karen. (I wonder if it was Mankiewicz's intention to continue telling the story also from Bill Sampson's and Lloyd Richard's point of view - though considering the love interest, probably not.) As colorful a character as Margo Channing is, she's only the first half of the film. The second half is narrated by Karen, which necessarily demotes Margo to a participatory (rather than narrating) character. Strouse/Adams chose not to do this in the musical but instead to keep Margo as the lead character, unfortunately with not enough material to compensate for what wasn't written.
But the main issue in adapting the film to stage is that the film is really a psychological story about relationships. That doesn't make for good drama, despite the fact that it's externally about the stage. For the musical, Strouse/Adams chose to make it a vehicle for the Margo character. That's a fundamental misreading of what the story is about. Margo is a victim, so automatically she's really secondary to Eve. Eve is the person who really undergoes change. The change is not really a character change -- she always is an extremely self-interested person--but one of how she relates to the audience, who discovers her true character only gradually.
The film is very good in having dual and conflicting threads - is Margo a bitch or is there truth to what she says? Is Eve good or bad? I think the viewer is held in suspense for some time before the answers become clear. It's not an even a consistent progression that gets you to the conclusion. Somehow, with the addition of songs and the reduced ability to intercut scenes, that progression has to be sacrificed in favor of musical theater's typical set pieces (i.e. the songs are a climax to almost each scene). That holds up things and offers a much more choppy progression of scenes and development.
Unlike the movie, in APPLAUSE, I found myself wondering about Eve only by the end of act 1. (In the movie, doubts are voiced much earlier, by Birdie (Thelma Ritter) immediately after Eve's initial recollection, with the syrupy but great music suggesting there's something more going on here -- "Nothing but the dogs lapping at her rear end." And of course, you know something is "about" Eve from the very start of the film, before the flashback.) There is nothing in the musical to clue you in.
So in the musical, what is the character of Margo? The body of the show seems to indicate someone not much different from the film. However, her expository song "But Alive" seems to indicate something else: Someone without cynicism, someone who enjoys life, who is just starting on a journey, who is ready to face all of life's challenging with enthusiasm. It sounds like Maria as she's about to join the Von Trapp family in THE SOUND OF MUSIC. The song has a nice (even catchy) tune but for the wrong character in the wrong musical.
The title song "Applause" is the one song I knew prior to seeing this production. None of the leading characters play a part in it - it is solely reserved for the chorus of theater gypsies. It's not organic. This song has the right sound and right lyrics - but it should be for the leading characters. It would have been more appropriate if this song had more of an expository function, or resolved a difficulty that arose in the course of act 1. But it doesn't, and thus feels like a throwaway number. Intellectually we know it relates to Margo and Eve, but they're never given a chance to hear or relate to it.
In the second half of ALL ABOUT EVEN, the narrative moves away from Margo as a narrating character as it dwells on the growing maturation of relationship between her and Bill, which creates a counterpoint to Eve's abortive attempts to steal away boyfriends and husbands. Even Karen and Lloyd have development, which allows Karen to mature, especially when she realizes the horror of the trick she's played on Margo.
Act 2 of APPLAUSE is a terrible problem. There is no character development of the two couples. Thus it becomes one very long drawn out wait for Eve to be unmasked. When that wait is interrupted by song, it means you have to wait longer and it made me dislike the show all the more. I liked the idea of the song "Inner Thoughts," but it's more appropriate to the original film's idea (where one hears the inner voices of the protagonists Margo and Karen among them). The rest of the songs of the act seemed very uninspired. If the chorus got a nice tune from the title song in act 1, their act 2 song "She's No Long a Gypsy" seemed a clinker.
A few changes to the story I liked - I thought it was a great idea to make the Thelma Ritter character (Margo's dresser) into a gay man (played well by Mario Cantone, but I would have liked more queeniness/bitchiness - that would have led us on to Eve earlier). Of course the danger would have been in upstaging Margo but, I'm all for letting people use the best of their talents.
Unfortunately there was not much to applaud on this Encores! presentation.
(Expanded notes of a message origianlly posted to Castrec-L)
The evening began with an announcement that Christine Ebersole, despite having missed many rehearsals and still suffering from the flu, had agreed to appear. It's possible that the announcement explained why the performance seemed somewhat disorganized. Certain characters, such as Karen and Buzz Richards (Kate Burton and Chip Zien) did well, no doubt because of their own independence of Margo (not to mention extremely self-reliant actors). Unfortunately Margo's boyfriend, Bill Sampson (played by Michael Park) seemed amorphous. I understand that without a Margo to rehearse, he must have felt lost - but something would have been better than nothing. Park seemed to merely say the words, and look confused, especially during scenes of act 2, where the relationship with Margo is reaching a showdown.
I figure that I must give Ebersole some slack. Having seen her in a number of things over the years, I saw that she was going light. She held herself well if somewhat restrained. At the outset her voice was a little shaky (she never hit any of the uppe notes on the "But Alive" motive that goes through her first song). But by the end of the act she sounded more secure. Frankly, if she was going to go on, she must have been in fairly good shape. Many on the Castrec-L list claimed that she was too nice a person, and therefore was miscast. She's nice, but she also can exude a certain toughness, even meanness when she wants to. That wasn't in evidence here, so maybe its lack was a result of recovering from illness. I felt she could have been a little tougher, but otherwise she presented a different view of the Margo character, one that could elicit sympathy.
The main thing that struck me about the show (as a work) was how lousy it was. A number of people around me left during intermission, and what I heard of the audience's post-curtain talk was not at all flattering.
I think the main problem is the source material. ALL ABOUT EVE is so legendary that any derivative is going to pale in comparison. (How could Charles Strouse/Lee Adams have the hubris to consider the line "Fasten your seatbelts - it's going to be a bumpy night" for a song? Repeat that line once and it looses its effect. Repeat it multiple times and it looses meaning and because a trivial game.)
The film is the story of Eve as told by Margo and Karen. (I wonder if it was Mankiewicz's intention to continue telling the story also from Bill Sampson's and Lloyd Richard's point of view - though considering the love interest, probably not.) As colorful a character as Margo Channing is, she's only the first half of the film. The second half is narrated by Karen, which necessarily demotes Margo to a participatory (rather than narrating) character. Strouse/Adams chose not to do this in the musical but instead to keep Margo as the lead character, unfortunately with not enough material to compensate for what wasn't written.
But the main issue in adapting the film to stage is that the film is really a psychological story about relationships. That doesn't make for good drama, despite the fact that it's externally about the stage. For the musical, Strouse/Adams chose to make it a vehicle for the Margo character. That's a fundamental misreading of what the story is about. Margo is a victim, so automatically she's really secondary to Eve. Eve is the person who really undergoes change. The change is not really a character change -- she always is an extremely self-interested person--but one of how she relates to the audience, who discovers her true character only gradually.
The film is very good in having dual and conflicting threads - is Margo a bitch or is there truth to what she says? Is Eve good or bad? I think the viewer is held in suspense for some time before the answers become clear. It's not an even a consistent progression that gets you to the conclusion. Somehow, with the addition of songs and the reduced ability to intercut scenes, that progression has to be sacrificed in favor of musical theater's typical set pieces (i.e. the songs are a climax to almost each scene). That holds up things and offers a much more choppy progression of scenes and development.
Unlike the movie, in APPLAUSE, I found myself wondering about Eve only by the end of act 1. (In the movie, doubts are voiced much earlier, by Birdie (Thelma Ritter) immediately after Eve's initial recollection, with the syrupy but great music suggesting there's something more going on here -- "Nothing but the dogs lapping at her rear end." And of course, you know something is "about" Eve from the very start of the film, before the flashback.) There is nothing in the musical to clue you in.
So in the musical, what is the character of Margo? The body of the show seems to indicate someone not much different from the film. However, her expository song "But Alive" seems to indicate something else: Someone without cynicism, someone who enjoys life, who is just starting on a journey, who is ready to face all of life's challenging with enthusiasm. It sounds like Maria as she's about to join the Von Trapp family in THE SOUND OF MUSIC. The song has a nice (even catchy) tune but for the wrong character in the wrong musical.
The title song "Applause" is the one song I knew prior to seeing this production. None of the leading characters play a part in it - it is solely reserved for the chorus of theater gypsies. It's not organic. This song has the right sound and right lyrics - but it should be for the leading characters. It would have been more appropriate if this song had more of an expository function, or resolved a difficulty that arose in the course of act 1. But it doesn't, and thus feels like a throwaway number. Intellectually we know it relates to Margo and Eve, but they're never given a chance to hear or relate to it.
In the second half of ALL ABOUT EVEN, the narrative moves away from Margo as a narrating character as it dwells on the growing maturation of relationship between her and Bill, which creates a counterpoint to Eve's abortive attempts to steal away boyfriends and husbands. Even Karen and Lloyd have development, which allows Karen to mature, especially when she realizes the horror of the trick she's played on Margo.
Act 2 of APPLAUSE is a terrible problem. There is no character development of the two couples. Thus it becomes one very long drawn out wait for Eve to be unmasked. When that wait is interrupted by song, it means you have to wait longer and it made me dislike the show all the more. I liked the idea of the song "Inner Thoughts," but it's more appropriate to the original film's idea (where one hears the inner voices of the protagonists Margo and Karen among them). The rest of the songs of the act seemed very uninspired. If the chorus got a nice tune from the title song in act 1, their act 2 song "She's No Long a Gypsy" seemed a clinker.
A few changes to the story I liked - I thought it was a great idea to make the Thelma Ritter character (Margo's dresser) into a gay man (played well by Mario Cantone, but I would have liked more queeniness/bitchiness - that would have led us on to Eve earlier). Of course the danger would have been in upstaging Margo but, I'm all for letting people use the best of their talents.
Unfortunately there was not much to applaud on this Encores! presentation.
Labels: Charles Strouse, film adaptations, Lee Adams, musicals
