Musical Misfires (eBook)

Three Decades of Broadway Musical Heartbreak

Thomas S. Hischak, Mark A. Robinson (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2020 | 1. Auflage
395 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-2931-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Musical Misfires: Three Decades of Broadway Musical Heartbreak looks at 151 musicals that did not run long enough to be considered hits. Such shows were once called flops but that is no longer an appropriate description. Some of these were superb pieces of musical theatre that, for one reason or another, couldn't find an audience, did not please the critics, couldn't pay the high weekly bills, or just were not right for the time and place in which they opened. Oft-overlooked gems like The Scottsboro Boys, Grey Gardens, Caroline, or Change, Steel Pier, and Tuck Everlasting are explored alongside such famous musicals as Shrek the Musical, Seussical, and Young Frankenstein that never reached hit status on Broadway. Musicals of all genres, from jukebox to horror shows, from 1989 to 2020 are included. Illustrated with forty-two photographs (most in color) and filled with backstage stories, reviews from the press, and commentary on why the musicals were not hits, Musical Misfires is indispensable reading for anyone who loves musical theatre, both its triumphs and it heartbreaks.

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Musical Misfires: Three Decades of Broadway Musical Heartbreak looks at 151 musicals that did not run long enough to be considered hits. Such shows were once called flops but that is no longer an appropriate description. Some of these were superb pieces of musical theatre that, for one reason or another, couldn't find an audience, did not please the critics, couldn't pay the high weekly bills, or just were not right for the time and place in which they opened. Oft-overlooked gems like The Scottsboro Boys, Grey Gardens, Sweet Smell of Success, Xanadu, If/Then, Caroline, or Change, Bright Star, Steel Pier, The Last Ship, and Tuck Everlasting are explored alongside such famous musicals as American Idiot, Victor/Victoria, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Sister Act, All Shook Up, Be More Chill, Shrek the Musical, Seussical, and Young Frankenstein that never reached hit status on Broadway. Juke box musicals, cutting-edge musicals, movie adaptations, teenage musicals, biographical musicals, history musicals, and even horror musicals are among the many genres included in this captivating journey of Broadway shows from 1989 to 2020 in search of success. Illustrated with forty-two photographs (most in color) and filled with backstage stories, reviews from the press, and commentary on why the musicals were not hits, Musical Misfires is indispensable reading for anyone who loves musical theatre, both its triumphs and it heartbreaks.

Textauszug

Chapter One

When Everything Misfires

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NICK & NORA

A musical mystery by Arthur Laurents, based on characters created by Dashiell Hammett and The Thin Man films; music by Charles Strouse; lyrics by Richard Maltby, Jr.

Directed by Arthur Laurents; choreography by Tina Paul

Cast included Barry Bostwick, Joanna Gleason, Christine Baranski, Faith Prince, Jeff Brooks, Debra Monk, Chris Sarandon, Michael Lombard, Yvette Lawrence, Remak Ramsay, Kip Niven, Thom Sesma

Tony Award nominations: Charles Strouse and Richard Maltby, Jr. (Best Score)

Opened 8 December 1991, Marquis Theatre, 9 performances

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Sometimes the road to Broadway can be fraught with myriad complications that seem to be an omen that a musical will misfire. Usually one or two big items refuse to work. Often the book is the first thing to be blamed; many times the director takes the heat. Once in a while there is an aborning musical that has everything go wrong. A show that had one of the more tumultuous journeys to an opening night on Broadway was the 1991 murder mystery Nick & Nora. This musical is such a colorful example of a major misfire that we devote an entire chapter to it, taking an intimate and detailed look at just how many things can blow apart for a musical that is Broadway bound. Plagued with infighting, changes in creative leadership and cast members, wild rumors leaking to the public, nosy journalists, a run-in with the City Consumer Affairs Office, and a story that refused to coalesce, Nick & Nora was one of those musicals where everything indeed went wrong. The musical was based on the characters of Nick and Nora Charles created by Dashiell Hammett for his 1934 detective novel The Thin Man, and perfected in the subsequent 1934 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film of the same name starring Myrna Loy and William Powell. They were a quirky married couple. He was a detective from the wrong side of the tracks, she was an affluent society woman, and together they playfully traded barbs, sipped cocktails, and solved mysteries. The charms of these two characters, the basic premise of their relationship, and the possibilities of the crimes they could solve together should have resulted in a scintillating musical comedy. So why didn’t it?

When Nick & Nora was early in its development, the producers secured renowned writer-director Arthur Laurents with playwright A.R. Gurney brought onboard to write the book. Gurney, a celebrated playwright for his sophisticated wit and his capturing of W.A.S.P. America in plays like The Dining Room and The Cocktail Hour, seemed like an ideal fit for writing the banter between Nick and Nora Charles. For a time, he worked with Laurents to outline a plot, but Gurney felt Laurents (who had written the books for two of Broadway’s greatest musicals, West Side Story and Gypsy), was aching to write the book himself and Gurney bowed-out of the project. This is likely where Nick & Nora took a turn for the worst. Director Laurents had little objectivity where book writer Laurents was concerned. As director, he struggled to see that the story only worked in fits and starts, refused to trim scenes that weren’t working, and often blamed the songwriting team of Charles Strouse (music) and Richard Maltby, Jr. (lyrics) for the problems. By 1991, Maltby and Strouse were already accomplished tunesmiths, Strouse having scored several musicals, including Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie, and Maltby writing lyrics for a handful of beloved Off-Broadway revues as well as for the Broadway musicals Baby and Miss Saigon. Yet Laurents regularly sent the team back to the drawing board to create new material, writing over fifty songs for Nick & Nora. Laurents’ vision for Nick & Nora was a musical that flowed from beginning to end, and the services of choreographer Tina Paul were employed to fill the musical with dancing. There was one major problem: the actors cast to play Nick and Nora Charles, Tony winners Barry Bostwick and Joanna Gleason, respectively, had been secured long before the musical was written. They were not exactly known for their dancing prowess, and neither were about half of the supporting players. As the musical evolved through rehearsals and previews, more and more of the dancing had to be cut until Nick & Nora was a musical with minimal choreography. What little there was, was sparsely populated. Even the “big” number “Everybody Wants to Do a Musical,” set on a Hollywood sound stage and sung by an actress who is about to star in a glitzy movie musical, had only two backup dancers.

To understand the Achilles heel in Nick & Nora, it is necessary to take time and space to relate the plot of Nick & Nora, one so tricky and complicated that one needed a compass and a roadmap to navigate it. Reviews of the original production and even books that discuss Nick & Nora tend to be very vague about the plot. So here it is in detail. Set in 1937 Hollywood, the titular couple (Bostwick and Gleason) from San Francisco and their wire-haired terrier Asta (Riley) are visiting Southern California for the wedding of one of Nora’s school chums. While staying in a charming, art deco bungalow at the Garden of Allah, another of Nora’s school friends, Hollywood actress Tracy Gardner (Christine Baranski), visits the couple, seeking Nick’s help in solving a murder. It seems that Lorraine Bixby (Faith Prince), the bookkeeper for the film’s producer, Boston banker Edward J. Connors (Kip Niven), has been murdered. The German-Jewish director Max Bernheim (Remak Ramsey), who is helming Tracy’s latest picture (the movie musical that will make her a star), was found standing over the dead body and has been arrested for the crime. Tracy is sure Max is innocent and is anxious to clear his name so that the movie can progress. Nick informs her that he has retired from gumshoeing but Nora, unable to let down an old friend, says she will take the case. Nick is dubious of his wife’s abilities but Nora insists that she has observed him for years and believes that this, coupled with her woman’s intuition, will make her an ideal detective.

The following day at the studio, Nora, with Nick in tow, meets Tracy and her attentive Japanese houseboy Yukido (Thom Sesma) who has a very thick, Asian stereotypical accent. They also meet Max, who has been bailed out of jail, and he shares his story about why he was at Lorraine’s that fated night. Months earlier, she had discovered that Max was embezzling funds from the picture’s budget, then blackmailed him for her silence. On the night she was killed, he was at her home making his latest payment to the “Bank of Lorraine.” When Max arrived, Connors was already there screaming at Lorraine, threatening to send her back to Boston upon learning of the embezzlement scheme. After Connors left, Max confronted Lorraine, worried that his career in Hollywood would be over. Lorraine pulled a gun on him then, frightened, ran into her bedroom. Max went home but returned to Lorraine’s to steal her accounting books. Not only were they missing but she was dead on the floor. As he was leaning over the body, Lt. Wolfe (Michael Lombard) from the Los Angeles Police Department conveniently arrived moments later and Max was arrested for Lorraine’s murder. Back in the present, Max also tells Nora that he was embezzling the money to help pay for medical care for his tubercular wife. Lt. Wolfe arrives to continue his investigation. It turns out Wolfe is a shoe fetishist who is taken with Nora’s elegant and expensive footwear (a recurring joke throughout the musical). He clearly doesn’t like movie people in general, Max in particular, and he is not happy that private detectives have been secured for the case. He does mention that he walked into Lorraine’s home to find Max standing over her dead body, and that he is sure the murderer was someone Lorraine knew because she had died with a smile on her face.

Also on set at the studio are the handsome film union boss Victor Moisa (Chris Sarandon) and his toady Spider Malloy (Jeff Brooks), both of whom Nick already knows as shady characters from his days sleuthing in San Francisco. The only person no one can seem to find is producer Edward Connors. Victor takes an immediate (and amorous) shine to Nora. He tells her that he has some information that will help her solve the case, but that she needs to come to his Laurel Canyon home in order to get it. Nick, however, prefers to have a drink with Spider, a known stool pigeon who regularly trades in information for the price of a cocktail. Spider tells Nick that he was at Lorraine’s on the night of the murder, serving as a lookout for Victor who was having Edward Connor followed. Connor owes money to Victor’s union (in other words, it was an extortion plot). Nick believes that there is more to the story, but is still resigned to not get involved with the case. Back at the Bungalow, he and Nora discuss what she has learned so far, but he points out important questions she forgot to ask, such as “Where is the murder weapon?” and “Was it in Max’s possession when he was arrested?” Suddenly, Maria Valdez (Yvette Lawrence), a Carmen Miranda wannabe, frantically enters. She is hysterical, clearly high on cocaine, and speaks mostly in Spanish with some broken English. Nora and Nick are able to piece together enough of what she is saying to realize that Maria is terrified, that she was at Lorraine’s on the night of the murder, that she is fearful the killer knew she was there, and that he or she will...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 26.8.2020
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Musik
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-2931-7 / 1098329317
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-2931-0 / 9781098329310