Word: hamlisch
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...National Theater poached on Broadway turf with a vivid revival of Guys and Dolls that is still running in repertory. Less successful have been efforts by the company's director, Sir Peter Hall, to stage original, serious musical works. Last winter his collaboration with Composer Marvin Hamlisch on a dirge about Jean Seberg, in which the actress was seriously compared with Joan of Arc, fizzled at the stake. Now Sir Peter has devised an adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm. As in Jean Seberg, masks abound, with the actors simulating Orwell's heroic horses, quisling chickens...
...song on Broadway is an anthem of optimism, for those happy to leave the past behind. "Now." The word pulsates, over and over, to the rhythm of Marvin Hamlisch 's brassy tune. From MacLaine it reverberates to the back of the theater as a boast, a cheer and, in her mind, a Zen-like prayer to live by: let the bygone be bygone, savor the present, and allow the future to take care of itself...
...entertainment that she conceived-in classic show-business fashion, over lunch at the Russian Tea Room with Hamlisch and Lyricist Christopher Adler-has a spritz of autobiography, a soupçon of her movie roles, a dusting of philosophy and a big dollop of dancing. Virtually every word of dialogue MacLaine speaks is about herself, and that is just as she intends it: "Philosophically, celebrating myself is what I am into." Apart from her one-liners, there is one highly effective if overlong joke: she sings a Harold Arlen medley while the conductor and orchestra, supposedly influenced by the ghosts...
...beckoned. This April, however, she will make a rare appearance on the boards when she returns to her song-and-dance roots in a five-week stint at Manhattan's Gershwin Theater. The pocket-size review will feature four back-up dancers and an original score by Marvin Hamlisch (A Chorus Line, They're Playing Our Song). Says MacLaine: "I'll keep dancing and singing until my legs get as low as my notes." The fiery actress is currently basking in critical and popular praise for her portrayal of Aurora, the feisty Texas mother in Terms...
Hall, who in his Diaries had derided Hamlisch's A Chorus Line as "reeking of double Broadway standards," now pushes the pre-opening troubles aside and defends Jean Seberg as "an exciting piece of work about the danger of starmaking in Western society." He has literally cast Seberg as a modern Joan of Arc. He has staged Seberg's involvement with the Black Panthers as a khaki chorus line brandishing rifles to a rhythm-and-blues beat. The show climaxes with Saint Jean burning at the stake for her ideals, torch courtesy of the FBI. Jean Seberg opened...