THE DEARTH OF MUSIC

 

If you are among those who thought the musical theatre suffered an irreparable blow with the demise of Stephen Sondheim, let me introduce you to This is Me… Now, a visual extravaganza for Netflix, conceived by and starring Jennifer Lopez. It is a major music video that advances the form in at least in one sense… taking it from being a visual interpretation of one “song” to an entire album of “songs.”

Note the quotation marks on “song” and “songs.” I am of the wrong generation for this kind of music… or, for that matter, this kind of choreography.

I am not too old, however, to appreciate J.Lo’s looks, her body, or her sensual approach for this work that she has chosen. It is just the pretense that this whole Superbowl-halftime-thing is an actual art form that has me shaking my head in despair.

Let’s go back. The art direction (meaning, in this case, the sets), spectacular. Decent special effects, an all-star supporting cast in stuff that borders on the silly, and J.Lo, soaking wet, scantily clad, rolling around in the muck and mire. Folks used to get arrested for this kind of thing.

Not too deeply buried in this display is J.Lo’s homage to Hollywood, her childhood fantasies, and her advocacy for psychotherapy. It is an odd movie… even with a lot of credits it only (mercifully) runs for just over one hour. It is a long time to watch anything with one’s jaw open, but I found a remedy for that.

Immediately after completing the 60 plus minutes on Netflix, I quickly switched over to YouTube where for more than an hour and a half I watched film clips from old Hollywood musicals until happily satiated.

Fred & Ginger, Gene Kelly, Doris Day, Rita Hayworth, Cyd Charisse, Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, Debbie Reynolds, Danny Kaye, Fosse & Verdon. Now… that’s entertainment. And a cure for just about anything, including This is Me… Now.

It was NOT the musical that took me on my recent trek to New York City. I went there to see Tyne Daly in Doubt, the play by John Patrick Shanley. Health concerns took my friend and former colleague out of the play but there was no abandoning the trip. My long-time pal, Joe Feury, was displaying his most recent art work as a benefit for Ukraine and I was bound to show up for that. You want to talk about star-crossed… Joey’s beautiful and Academy Award winning spouse, Lee Grant, took a fall at the event and fractured her hip. Not to worry. Lee has been doing Pilates and Yoga for years and, as a result, is recovering faster than any of us believed possible. Of course, dinner at their home had to be canceled so what with no Tyne Daly on stage and no Lee Grant at home there were nights to be filled and, predictably, we chose the musical theatre.

Too bad. It meant missing two apparently great straight play presentations, Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People and a Shanley play that I have never seen but have been told is terrific, Brooklyn Laundry. It proves, once again, that even so-called pros at the game need to do their homework before launching into the Big Apple.

The musical theatre did allow me to catch up with last year’s Tony winner, Kimberly Akimbo… a worthwhile couple of hours spent in the theatre with a couple of stand-out performances from Victoria Clark and Bonnie Milligan and one of the more understandably dysfunctional families ever presented on stage.

And then there was Days of Wine and Roses… admiration of this (I think) ill-conceived venture may depend on one’s level of musical education. It far exceeded mine, forcing me to now confess my lack of appreciation for the discordant. Remember Henry Mancini’s Academy Award winning theme song from the 1962 motion picture of the same name starring Lee Remick and Jack Lemmon? Well, fuhgeddaboudit. You will find nothing so melodious in this stage version featuring the often-fabulous Kelli O’Hara and the always-reliable Brian d’Arcy James.

Both these folks can sing, and the composer seems to know this by allowing them a pretty note at the end of each “song” which they are allowed to hold long enough for what I suppose is meant to be some kind of dramatic effect. That one final note is the closest you will get to a melody the entire evening.

The play is one hour and forty-five minutes and there is no intermission. The reason for this is at least two-fold: first, it is an easy bet that liquor sales would be way down during any interlude at this show and, I would guess of even greater importance, is the suspicion that if there were an intermission, half the audience would not return for the second act.

So far two musicals back-to-back and I cannot remember two notes that could be strung together from either or both combined. That was also true for our third musical, but at least Water For Elephants had its moments of promise… not so much in the musical idiom… but it was, I thought, staged beautifully, and performed expertly. Kudos to the director, especially with the stampede sequence near show’s end. Unlike the movie of the same name, this newly opened show is a fine theatrical tribute to the excellent Sara Gruen novel of the same name.

Finally, my wife and her gal pals all but dragged me to The Notebook… based on the super sentimental motion picture starring Gena Rowlands, James Garner and a then very young, and new to all of us, Ryan Gosling. I never read the book, but I remember the movie had its impact even on someone who usually thinks of this kind of thing as rather treacle-like.

There are no great songs. No “Some Enchanted Evening” or “If Ever I Would Leave You”… and that is a shame because they would really work here. Still, the music that is there serves the show and its characters well even if it will not make the “Ah, yes, I Remember it Well” song list a few years hence. It is okay. The show works. And there is not a dry eye in the house (including either of mine).

It was a good night in the theatre and a lovely surprise for me. The first actor on the stage, the show’s leading man… is Dorian Harewood, one of the stars of my long-ago series, The Trials of Rosie O’Neill. I have not seen Dorian in over thirty years, and it was a thrill to find him back on Broadway.

There was another self-serving benefit for this old guy. For years I could not go to a Broadway show without seeing an actor up there on the stage that I had worked with either on Cagney & Lacey or some other show of mine. The mini bios in the Playbill almost always had a mention or two of an actor’s credits which included a show produced by me. That hasn’t happened in a long time… one of the disadvantages of living too long.

I confess, it made me feel a lot more relevant to see the bio of the number one actor in the play… there in the number one position in the Playbill… and among the listed credits of which he was proud, The Trials of Rosie O’Neill.

After the show, the crowd at The Notebook’s stage door proved too difficult for me to navigate and so I missed congratulating Dorian in person. On the plus side, there was, in that sizable and enthusiastic crowd, proof positive just how entertaining this show is.

What a concept. But apparently it is not as obvious as one would think. The very basic, fundamental thing… no matter who you think you are now… is to make sure that if nothing else, a show must be entertaining… should be on page one of every producer’s notebook.

 

Barney Rosenzweig