ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: A Home Run For Roundabout and a Grand Slam for Kristin Chenoweth

Move over, Helen Mirren, and prepare to be deposed. It’s true you are doing a lovely job portraying Queen Elizabeth over on 45^th Street, but look out for upstart Queen Kristin Chenoweth, the glittering star of the Roundabout Theatre Company’s sublime revival of the Comden and Green/Cy Coleman screwball musical comedy On The Twentieth Century at the American Airlines Theatre in the heart of Times Square.

Ms. Chenoweth is riveting in a role that fits her talents as if it had been created for her, though she was but 10 years old and living in her native Oklahoma when On The Twentieth Century opened on Broadway in 1978. Its star, Madeline Kahn, unfortunately withdrew after a couple of months into the run, citing damage to her vocal cords.

Heaven forefend such a fate befalling Chenoweth, an operatically-trained coloratura soprano whose singing is put to grand use with Coleman’s score, one that pays tribute to comic operas and the operetta style associated with the likes of Sigmund Romberg. On The Twentieth Century allows Chenoweth to combine her ability to knock off those High Cs—as she amply demonstrated in her performance in the New York Philharmonic’s concert version of Candide in 2004—with her keen sense of physical comedy, on great display in The Apple Tree, another Roundabout production in which she starred two years later.

So it’s Cunégonde meets Passionella, a combo punch that results, to borrow a quote from Candide, in creating the best of all possible worlds for anyone who longs for that magical blend of star power and production values that makes for a perfect Broadway musical. 

Chenoweth plays a 1930s Hollywood superstar at the top of her game, who meets her egomaniacal match in Oscar Jaffee (Peter Gallagher). Jaffee is the theatrical impresario who discovered her when she was barely eking out a living as a rehearsal pianist, a moment we visit in flashback. Goodbye Mildred Plotka; hello Lily Garland.

Together, the pair embarked on a whirlwind of theatrical successes and a torrid love affair, both of which ended when Lily jumped ship and headed out to Tinseltown. Now Jaffee is down on his luck.  With four flops in a row and facing a mountain of debts, he is fleeing aboard the train known as the Twentieth Century Limited. Much can happen in the 16 hours it takes to get from Chicago to New York, and Jaffee intends to make things happen. It seems he has arranged to be ensconced in the stateroom next to the one in which Lily Garland is staying. His troubles will be over if only he can get her to sign a contract with him.

This is the basic set-up that encompasses Act I. Not only do we get to know Oscar and Lily, we meet the show’s significant supporting players as well. There are Oliver (Mark Linn-Baker) and Owen (Michael McGrath), Oscar’s loyal managerial team; Bruce (Andy Karl), Lily’s hunka-hunka plaything, whose slim movie career is dependent on his good looks and on keeping Lily interested in him; Letitia Peabody Primrose (Mary Louise Wilson), an eccentric and evangelical woman of wealth who offers to back Oscar’s next production, an epic about Mary Magdalene in which he hopes to star Lily; and a show-stopping quartet of tap dancing porters (Rick Faugno, Richard Riaz Yoder, Phillip Attmore, and Drew King) who undoubtedly will have their own fan base as the run continues.

All of the elements come together in the grand meteor shower that is Act II. No plot spoilers here, but kudos to the book’s writers, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who found a way to bring every wild tangent back to the central story of Oscar and Lily. The writing partners adapted the musical from the 1934 Howard Hawk film (titled Twentieth Century), which starred John Barrymore and Carole Lombard as Oscar and Lily. But even before that, there was a play of the same title by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht. As it happens, Hecht also penned some of the Marx Brothers movies; that is the kind of madcap mentality we can see at work here.

Although this is not a show that is filled with hummable hit tunes, Cy Coleman has given us multiple musical highlights, where the songs themselves join in glorious harmony with the performances and with director Scott Ellis’s inspired staging. A couple of highlights from Act I are the catchy title song, the splashy “Veronique,” performed by Lily in her very first musical as Oscar’s protégée, and “Repent,” sung by Ms. Wilson’s character with a twinkle in her eye as she relishes a sinful past that predated her current religious fervor. 

In Act II, almost every song is a winner—from the dancing porters’ opener “Life Is Like A Train,” to an ode to Letitia Primrose'’s money (“Five Zeros”), to a number about trying to get Lily to sign a contract (“Sign Lily Sign”). There is also a hilarious chase through the train (“She’s A Nut”), a grand production number that has Lily debating with herself over what kind of role she should take in order to further her career (“Babette”), and the final duet between the crazed couple when Oscar is pretending to be on his death bed (“Lily/Oscar”). 

And while Kristin Chenoweth is the undisputed top banana, everyone else more than rises to the occasion. Peter Gallagher, who suffered from a voice-damaging infection through much of the preview period, is in fine fettle, giving a John Barrymore-worthy performance as Oscar. Andy Karl shows great comic chops as Lily’s boy toy, and Mary Louise Wilson is splendid as the kooky Letitia Primrose. The production is blessed as well with David Rockwell’s art deco set design and William Ivey Long’s period costumes. The only quibble: the orchestra is rather scaled back for such a full-throttled production.     

Somewhere in Broadway Heaven, Betty Comden and Adolph Green are grinning from ear to ear, with two of their shows delighting audiences in theaters residing on the same block of 42^nd Street – On The Town at the Lyric and On The Twentieth Century at the American Airlines. There could not be a happier coming together of great American Broadway musicals at their best.     

Feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to share your own theater stories by posting a comment.

                                    

‘Little Me’: A Fun-Time Romp from Encores!

Little Me, the 1962 Neil Simon/Cy Coleman/Carolyn Leigh musical, is probably not a rare undervalued masterpiece that needs to be lovingly restored to appreciate its true worth. But the current joyful production by Encores! is as welcome as a cup of hot chocolate laced with whipped cream during these snowy, icy, sleety, bitterly cold days and dreary nights that have been the hallmark of this winter in New York. 

Little Me is a laugh-filled show with TV sketch comedy roots (Simon famously launched his career writing skits for Sid Caesar, who starred in the original Broadway production) and a tuneful score, with music by Coleman and lyrics by Leigh. 

The story unfolds through the frame of depicting the writing of the memoirs of the fictional stage, screen, and television star Belle Poitrine, as told to “Patrick Dennis,” the pen name of the author of the book on which the musical is based (as well as the author of the more highly successful Auntie Mame).   

But even though Belle’s life story provides the shape for the show, the musical rises or falls on the strength of the male lead, who portrays 7 different men in Belle’s life, most of whom die before the end. 

With the Encores! production, we are most fortunate in that the shoulders on whom this task falls belong to Christian Borle, who has a keen and mischievous sense of comic timing reminiscent of Groucho Marx or Charlie Chaplin (this was even truer of Borle’s performance as Black Stache in Peter and the Starcatcher). 

Borle runs on and off the stage, going through quick costume and personality changes throughout the entire show. (This includes the requisite gag where he has to “ad lib” a cover-up for an incomplete change in appearance). The best of these characterizations is that of Fred Poitrine, the terribly nearsighted and socially inept World War I doughboy, who endearingly sings “Real Live Girl” to Belle, and marries her just in time to legitimize the ensuing birth of her daughter before he marches off to his untimely death by paper cut. 

As good as Borle is, this is far from a one-person show, which boasts wonderful performances from the entire cast, including Rachel York as the young Belle; the marvelous Judy Kaye as the older Belle; Tony Yazbeck as George, the boy-next-door turned hotshot nightclub owner (he delivers a terrific “I’ve Got Your Number”); Harriet Harris as the snobbish mother of Noble, Belle’s one true love; and Lee Wilkof and Lewis J. Stadlen as Belle’s agents, the Buchsbaum brothers. Stadlen, who most recently appeared with Nathan Lane in The Nance, is another theatrical stalwart who took the world by storm when he gloriously pulled off the multiple-roles acting feat by playing five characters in the acclaimed 1974 revival of Candide.   

This production also boasts outstanding work by the singers and dancers of the chorus.  And might I add, the choreography by Joshua Bergasse is so creative it is a wonder to me he has not become a major Broadway fixture. 

With Little Me, Encores! is entering its 21^st year of producing short-term revivals of Broadway musicals, and it almost seems to top itself year after year.  Minimalist set designs have become increasingly clever (the sinking of The Gigantic in Little Me could give Titanic: The Musical a run for its money at the concert production at Avery Fisher Hall later this month), and the eschewing of script-in-hand performances by the cast is becoming more and more de rigueur. 

A shout-out to director John Rando and music director Rob Berman, as well as to everyone involved with this production.  They should all join Belle in raising a glass and singing:  Here’s to us, my darling my dear/Here’s to us tonight!

Feel free to tell you friends about this blog, and to share your own theater stories by posting a comment.