I have meant to review this show for nearly three months, but one thing after another got in the way. Now, I have no excuse: What better time to talk about a show, after all, with a musical number called “Turkey-Lurkey Time,” than on Thanksgiving?
You could argue, I suppose, that, given its decidedly tepid opening notices, the continued survival of Promises, Promises has more to do with star power than anything else. But this would be a myopic misreading—just the type of thing that Gotham theater critics provide, without thinking twice.
I almost didn’t see the revival of the 1969 Burt Bacharach-Hal David musical adaptation of Billy Wilder’s classic 1960 corporate satire, The Apartment. Critical carping was so overwhelming that early on, I figured that, more likely than not, their negative judgment had to be more right than wrong.
But eventually I recalled that as a teenager, during a phase of reading plays as opposed to seeing them performed (the type of thing you do without money of your own), I had been struck, in an anthology of comedies by Neil Simon, by how funny the book he created for the show was. And by early September, given the circumstances of my life, I decided that I could really, really, really use a good laugh or two. So I went to the Times Square TKTS booth and, to my astonishment, not only found that I didn’t have to stand in line long, but that the show wasn’t sold out—and that it turned out to be quite good, in the bargain.
You could practically hear the condescension dripping from New York Times critic Ben Brantley’s review of the show back in April. The gist of it was—you’ll never guess!—that the show was “dated.” Its view of sexual harassment was retrograde, he sniffed. He also couldn’t resist a dig at the Times’ critic from the late Sixties, Clive Barnes, who hailed the show for bringing to the stage “the music of today.”
Just one problem with the review: damn near everything. To start with: maybe the show hadn’t been mounted on Broadway in more than 40 years, but what of it? Neither, before its recently closed production at Lincoln Center, had Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, which, by nearly every measure, is one of the half-dozen greatest American musicals.
The current production, now at New York’s Broadway Theatre, under the direction and choreography of Rob Ashford, is hardly perfect. It is, however, perfectly enjoyable, with much less to be ashamed of than Brantley.
We theater fans, according to the critical naysayers, are supposed to feel that we’re not really receiving an authentic version of the original show, since two Bacharach-David hits have been added to boost Kristin Chenoweth’s role as Fran Kubelik: “A House Is Not a Home” and “I Say a Little Prayer.”
But when have musicals—or their creators, for that matter—ever been so purist? None other than Stephen Sondheim (known, to a considerable portion of theater cognescenti, as “God”) has been known to take the chisel to a number of his shows, most prominently Merrily We Roll Along and Bounce. Moreover, a virtual cottage industry—the “revisal”—has sprouted up that has heavily changed the books of musicals. Why are texts considered objects for theater scalpels but not lyrics and music?
As it happens, the two added songs work unexpectedly well in their new context. Very casual Bacharach fans would be astonished to hear that “I Say a Little Prayer” was originally written as an antiwar song, during the Vietnam War era. The lyrics only hint at this in the most indirect way. As an expression of deep, ineradicable romantic longing in Promises, Promises, on the other hand, it works far better in this musical.
A secondary, sillier controversy broke out about the show after a Newsweek critic wondered how openly gay Sean Hayes could play the romantic heterosexual lead, C.C. (Chuck) Baxter. The short answer is: Easy! But let’s indulge the Newsweek fellow for a tad longer:
1) Theater and film require more willful suspension of disbelief than any of the other performing arts except, perhaps, for operas (and even that appears to be changing, as divas become far more aware of how they look on high-definition screens in cinemas). Does anyone familiar with Susan Sarandon’s romantic history find fully credible the idea of her playing a Roman Catholic nun in Dead Man Walking? And who on earth can accept, without considerable laughter, the concept of Denise Richardson--outfitted in tank top and shorts--as a nuclear physicist named Dr. Christmas Jones in the James Bond feature, The World Is Not Enough? Talk about straining credulity! Given all that, is Sean Hayes as a heterosexual really that outlandish?
You could argue, I suppose, that, given its decidedly tepid opening notices, the continued survival of Promises, Promises has more to do with star power than anything else. But this would be a myopic misreading—just the type of thing that Gotham theater critics provide, without thinking twice.
I almost didn’t see the revival of the 1969 Burt Bacharach-Hal David musical adaptation of Billy Wilder’s classic 1960 corporate satire, The Apartment. Critical carping was so overwhelming that early on, I figured that, more likely than not, their negative judgment had to be more right than wrong.
But eventually I recalled that as a teenager, during a phase of reading plays as opposed to seeing them performed (the type of thing you do without money of your own), I had been struck, in an anthology of comedies by Neil Simon, by how funny the book he created for the show was. And by early September, given the circumstances of my life, I decided that I could really, really, really use a good laugh or two. So I went to the Times Square TKTS booth and, to my astonishment, not only found that I didn’t have to stand in line long, but that the show wasn’t sold out—and that it turned out to be quite good, in the bargain.
You could practically hear the condescension dripping from New York Times critic Ben Brantley’s review of the show back in April. The gist of it was—you’ll never guess!—that the show was “dated.” Its view of sexual harassment was retrograde, he sniffed. He also couldn’t resist a dig at the Times’ critic from the late Sixties, Clive Barnes, who hailed the show for bringing to the stage “the music of today.”
Just one problem with the review: damn near everything. To start with: maybe the show hadn’t been mounted on Broadway in more than 40 years, but what of it? Neither, before its recently closed production at Lincoln Center, had Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific, which, by nearly every measure, is one of the half-dozen greatest American musicals.
The current production, now at New York’s Broadway Theatre, under the direction and choreography of Rob Ashford, is hardly perfect. It is, however, perfectly enjoyable, with much less to be ashamed of than Brantley.
We theater fans, according to the critical naysayers, are supposed to feel that we’re not really receiving an authentic version of the original show, since two Bacharach-David hits have been added to boost Kristin Chenoweth’s role as Fran Kubelik: “A House Is Not a Home” and “I Say a Little Prayer.”
But when have musicals—or their creators, for that matter—ever been so purist? None other than Stephen Sondheim (known, to a considerable portion of theater cognescenti, as “God”) has been known to take the chisel to a number of his shows, most prominently Merrily We Roll Along and Bounce. Moreover, a virtual cottage industry—the “revisal”—has sprouted up that has heavily changed the books of musicals. Why are texts considered objects for theater scalpels but not lyrics and music?
As it happens, the two added songs work unexpectedly well in their new context. Very casual Bacharach fans would be astonished to hear that “I Say a Little Prayer” was originally written as an antiwar song, during the Vietnam War era. The lyrics only hint at this in the most indirect way. As an expression of deep, ineradicable romantic longing in Promises, Promises, on the other hand, it works far better in this musical.
A secondary, sillier controversy broke out about the show after a Newsweek critic wondered how openly gay Sean Hayes could play the romantic heterosexual lead, C.C. (Chuck) Baxter. The short answer is: Easy! But let’s indulge the Newsweek fellow for a tad longer:
1) Theater and film require more willful suspension of disbelief than any of the other performing arts except, perhaps, for operas (and even that appears to be changing, as divas become far more aware of how they look on high-definition screens in cinemas). Does anyone familiar with Susan Sarandon’s romantic history find fully credible the idea of her playing a Roman Catholic nun in Dead Man Walking? And who on earth can accept, without considerable laughter, the concept of Denise Richardson--outfitted in tank top and shorts--as a nuclear physicist named Dr. Christmas Jones in the James Bond feature, The World Is Not Enough? Talk about straining credulity! Given all that, is Sean Hayes as a heterosexual really that outlandish?
2) The only way that Hayes might be regarded as unbelievable would be if he played Chuck in the same campy manner as he did Jack McFarland on Will and Grace. Such was not the case here, however.
3) Hayes is a marvel of comic timing and slapstick. Watch the several minutes of comic gold he spins with one prop--one of those Sixties office chairs meant more to be admired for their unusual shape than to be sat in--during Baxter’s scene with his lousy boss, Jeff Sheldrake. Hayes grins nervously, twists, slides, sinks, and finally collapses. He’s a worthy successor to two other comic masters who preceded him in the role of Chuck: Jack Lemmon, who originated the role of Chuck in The Apartment, and Martin Short, who performed in a 1990s revival of the show at Encores!
4) Hayes’ voice is overshadowed by his comic talent, but it shouldn’t be. It’s not just strong and certain, but able to meet the demands that Bacharach’s acrobatic score makes on it. Take the title song. In a memorable appraisal of Bacharach more than a dozen years ago in The Atlantic Monthly, critic Francis Davis noted how devilishly difficult the song “Promises, Promises” was: it “starts off in a 3/4 time too fast and [is] diabolically syncopated to be called a waltz and then changes meter twenty times, often after just one bar.” Yet Hayes handles it all with aplomb.
If there’s any actor miscast here, it’s Chenoweth. Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment played the role of Fran, the office worker who captures Chuck’s heart, in the most appropriate way: as a perky woman still too young and naïve to know when someone is breaking her heart. Given her age (early 40s) and a glamorous hairdo reminiscent of Bacharach’s ex-wife, Angie Dickinson, it’s difficult to view her Chenoweth's Fran as anything but wised-up in matters of the heart.
And yet, most people--and I would count myself among them--wouldn’t care a bit, anyway, that Chenoweth is not exactly suited for this role. By the end of her first song, I could only marvel how such a large sound could issue from such a remarkably petite woman. I suspect that I wasn’t the only member of the audience who felt this way. Hers is the type of voice any composer would clamor to have perform his or her songs.
One other cast member should be mentioned: Katie Finneran, in one of her last performances before she left the cast to have a baby. Her performance as a barfly of easy virtue is hilarious. The role, very funny in the Wilder film, becomes a sheer, giddy delight here.
If there’s any actor miscast here, it’s Chenoweth. Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment played the role of Fran, the office worker who captures Chuck’s heart, in the most appropriate way: as a perky woman still too young and naïve to know when someone is breaking her heart. Given her age (early 40s) and a glamorous hairdo reminiscent of Bacharach’s ex-wife, Angie Dickinson, it’s difficult to view her Chenoweth's Fran as anything but wised-up in matters of the heart.
And yet, most people--and I would count myself among them--wouldn’t care a bit, anyway, that Chenoweth is not exactly suited for this role. By the end of her first song, I could only marvel how such a large sound could issue from such a remarkably petite woman. I suspect that I wasn’t the only member of the audience who felt this way. Hers is the type of voice any composer would clamor to have perform his or her songs.
One other cast member should be mentioned: Katie Finneran, in one of her last performances before she left the cast to have a baby. Her performance as a barfly of easy virtue is hilarious. The role, very funny in the Wilder film, becomes a sheer, giddy delight here.
Promises, Promises, the only musical comedy from the Bacharach-David team, spawned two Dionne Warwicke hits: "Promises, Promises" and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again." The comic talents of Hayes and Finneran--and the magnificent voice of Chenoweth--were given ample room by the two composers, and it makes one sorry--Ben Brantley to the contrary--that they didn't try more stage productions before their collaboration came to an end after the disastrous musical film adaptation of Lost Horizon.
"Very casual Bacharach fans would be astonished to hear that “I Say a Little Prayer” was originally written as an antiwar song, during the Vietnam War era. The lyrics only hint at this in the most indirect way."
ReplyDeleteHUH?? It's even less subtle than Jimmy Webb's "Galveston" in that genre. It's difficult to miss that, while singing "We never will part," she (could be a he--though the "makeup" line is problematic--but all the versions I've ever heard have been by women) never mentions them doing anything together. She's praying during her "coffee-break time"; not getting on the telephone. And even for the late 1960s/early 1970s, she's clearly leaving an empty flat.
And as for Denise Richards--well, let's just be nice and say that Xmas may come more than once a year, but she was even less credible as a scientist than Elizabeth Shue in The Saint. Setting the bar that low seems at best problematic. Think Troy Donahue, or all those Rock Hudson "I'm having sex with Doris Day/Susan St. James/Elizabeth Taylor" roles as a closer to praising than suggesting abomination.