Word: broadway
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...following line spoken in theatergoing homes across America: "Hey, honey, let's grab the kids, fly to New York and catch that new musical The Dead!" Yet, oddly, a musicalized version of James Joyce's somber short story has been one of the most anticipated events of the off-Broadway season. A star-filled cast (Christopher Walken, Blair Brown, Sally Ann Howes) has perked up interest in what is either the most intriguing or the stupidest idea for a musical in years...
...earlier in the evening, thus throwing off the rhythm of the piece. (Another change: she sings the song rather than hears it.) What's more, Walken seems blandly disengaged as Gabriel, missing the psychological tension, singing indifferently and barely hinting at an Irish accent. Walken used to be a Broadway dancer, but here he's just a misstep...
...there is some fine acting in the mix, none of these characters is on stage long enough to provide more than a suggestion of local color. Indeed, since these minor players never develop beyond mere "snapshots," one wonders if The Last Hurrah might have been better realized as a Broadway musical, Ragtime style...
...quest for Broadway respect, Saturday Night Fever has done almost everything wrong. It's a big, splashy musical trying to replicate a hit movie, a pretty crass way to make a buck. Its director, Arlene Phillips, is better known for staging extravaganzas in Las Vegas. The show is loud and pushy and panders to the crowd shamelessly. Worse, it overcame critical hoots to become a smash in London, a feat it now has the audacity to think it can repeat in New York City...
Years before the Monty Python boys began flouncing about in frocks, Australia's Barry Humphries donned a dress as Edna Everage, Melbourne housewife. His "one-woman" London shows turned Edna into a British institution. In her hilarious Broadway debut, the self-dubbed dame sings a bit and muses about her family (Mum's in a "maximum-security twilight home"), but mostly she chats with the audience--or picks on it (though "caringly"). Humphries, a gloriously gaudy "megastar," has timing as sharp as a knife pleat...