Latest celebrity couple: Lukern
You know that annoying habit we have of combining couples' names to form one idiotic name – you know, Brangelina, TomKat, Bennifer.
Well, I have a new one. After last night's 42nd Street Moon salon saluting the work of Jerome Kern, I'd like to introduce you to Lukern. There's no more beautiful soprano on Broadway than Rebecca Luker's, and as the evening's host, Greg MacKellan, pointed, nobody short of Richard Rodgers had Kern's gift for gorgeous melody. So when Rebecca meets Jerome, beauty ensues. Hence, Lukern.
West Side represent!
To quote one of the Jets, “Dig this and dig it the most.” The most compelling drama at Wednesday’s opening of West Side Story wasn’t happening on the stage of the Orpheum Theatre. It was a few blocks away at the giant theater known as AT&T Park, where the Giants were routing the Texas Rangers in Game 1 of the World Series.
The Orpheum stage crew thoughtfully announced the score before the show started and then shared the news of the Giants’ win before the show resumed after intermission.
The Giants delivered an impressive score Wednesday night, and so did West Side Story. Under the baton of John O’Neill the 19-piece orchestra conveyed the irresistible pulse of Leonard Bernstein’s music and gave the entire evening the sort of dramatic heft and unbelievable beauty that only occasionally appeared on stage.
Just play it cool, boy! The enduring sound of West Side Story
What is it that makes West Side Story so incredibly intoxicating, even 53 years after its premiere? There's no denying the power of Jerome Robbins' athletic and gorgeous choreography or the simplicity and (occasional) corniness of Stephen Sondheim's lyrics (his first for a Broadway show). And Arthur Laurents' book, which puts a 1950s spin on Romeo and Juliet, is about as solid as Broadway books come.
But it's the music, Leonard Bernstein's astonishing music that elevates West Side Story to legendary status. Combining classical with jazz with show tune, Bernstein concocted a highly original sound that has yet to be bested on the Broadway stage. This is a score for the ages, one equally at home in the symphony hall as in the high school auditorium. How many scores can fit as comfortably in both spaces? Aside from Bernstein's own Candide (which he was working on in tandem with West Side Story), not many.
We'll have the chance to revisit the score this week as the most recent Broadway revival comes to town as part of the SHN/Best of Broadway series.
A funny Megan Cavanagh happened on the way to this Forum
Anybody's enjoyment of the 1962 Stephen Sondheim/Burt Shevelove/Larry Gelbart musical farce A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum depends largely on the actor playing Pseudolus, the lie-spouting slave and comedy motor at the center of the show.
Zero Mostel originated the role – did anyone have a bigger comic motor than Zero? – Phil Silvers played it in 1972 and Nathan Lane and Whoopi Goldberg took turns in the most recent Broadway revival in 1996. I've seen several productions of Forum and experienced what the Romans used to call Pseudolus annoyaolus, which is to say, the actors in the role were working so laboriously to be funny that I never laughed. It's not surprising that Pseudolus breaks a sweat, but I really don't want to.
The 42nd Street Moon production of Forum now at the Eureka Theatre is the first where I didn't grow to dread the ever-expanding machinations of Pseudolus, who never met a lie he couldn't enlarge. The reason is simple: Megan Cavanagh. She's doing a little gender bending to play the scheming slave, and she's marvelous. The old vaudevillian aspect of the role doesn't escape her, nor does she belabor it. She's a natural comic, so she doesn't have to force the laughs. And she's absolutely charming. She has grace where other Psuedolii have goals. She makes you laugh while they want to make you laugh.
Gaggles of gays ruffle feathers in La Cage
The irony surrounding Friday's opening-night for La Cage aux Folles at San Mateo's Broadway by the Bay was sweet. Audience members showing up for this glitzy gay musical fairy tale were not able to park in the parking lot of the San Mateo Performing Arts Center (aka San Mateo High School) because there was a football game going on.
That's right: it was the classic collision of quarterbacks and drag queens.
And I think the drag queens won – at least they were more entertaining.
Dreamgirls is a flashy dream
Dreamgirls, as a movie, seemed apologetic that it was a musical at all. Set in the Motown-ish world of a Supremes-ish girl group, the story lends itself to abundant music without straining credibility. But on the Broadway stage, the music world was only a façade – the real music came from the musical, you know, when people actually sing about how they feel.On screen, when Dreamgirls had to start singing about emotion rather than just sing, it got sheepish. Oh, please don’t mind us. We’re just going to emote for a minute. We’ll get back to the flashy editing and glitzy Beyoncé moments before you know it.That’s not how Dreamgirls should live. This is a show that needs to be seen on the stage. The touring production of Dreamgirls now at the Curran Theatre (under the auspices of SHN) – the tour that opened last year at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theatre – is dazzling in many ways, but it truly gets that this is a performance work that needs to move and sing and only stop long enough to pour on the diva moments.
Goode shines Light, Frankenstein lives
If you need proof of how lively and diverse the San Francisco theater scene can be, let me direct your attention to two wildly different shows I've seen recently. One is about as old fashioned as it gets, while the other is wonderfully experimental.
For sheer retro-musical theater pleasures, Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein – at the Golden Gate Theatre until July 25 – is a prime example of Grade B goods. There was a time on Broadway – think the 1950s and early '60s – when these kinds of shows populated the Great White Way. Taking the term "musical comedy" to heart, these shows have no objective other than to please its audience for a couple of hours. A few laughs, a few hummable tunes, and we're done.
With The Producers Brooks fulfilled a lifelong passion to create a musical theater blockbuster. Now Brooks is settling into his groove with Young Frankenstein, an extremely faithful version of his classic 1974 movie (co-written with star Gene Wilder). As a recycler of his own material, Brooks sticks to the formula that worked for the movie and supplies songs that, while not as catchy as those in The Producers, are appealing.