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.     

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'The Mystery of Edwin Drood': Poised To Be First Hit of the Season

What a time it’s been lately, thanks in no small measure to Hurricane Sandy barreling  through the region. 

We watched from our third story window as the corrosive salt waters of the East River rose to a height of five feet outside our building, drowning every car in sight and wreaking havoc with everything else that lay in its path. In its wake, we were without electricity for ten days and still live with the mess. 

Yet we know full well how fortunate we have been when compared with those whose lives were turned upside-down, whose homes were badly damaged or even destroyed, and who still wait for relief.  Our warmest thoughts and wishes go out to all who have yet to begin to recover. 

Theatergoing was moved to a backburner, but getting back to this blog is part of my own effort to regroup.

After a slow start, and a temporary halt, I am happy to be able to report that Broadway may very well have its first bona fide hit of the season with the highly entertaining, exceptionally well-performed revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a quirky musical that takes audience participation to new and delectable heights.

Drood, winner of multiple Tony Awards in1986 for its creator Rupert Holmes (best book, best music, best lyrics, best musical), is based on the unfinished novel of the same title by Charles Dickens, who died before completing it. It is the unfinished nature of the work that Holmes latched onto, and the thing that makes the show such a crowd-pleaser.

Because Dickens offers up a plot that is so convoluted and melodramatic as to defy any suspension of disbelief, there really are only two ways to play out the story:  straightforward or with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

If you saw the version that was shown on PBS’s Masterpiece Theater some months ago, you got an attempt at telling the story in a straightforward way.  The best that can be said about it is that you could more-or-less follow the tale through to the ending that the writer Gwyneth Hughes created for it. 

Fortunately for audiences in the Roundabout Theatre’s Studio 54, Mr. Holmes’s version is played as a pure romp, framed as a musical production by a company known as the Music Hall Royale.  

Under director Scott Ellis’s deft hand, the actors move in and out of their roles, sometimes portraying the characters in the melodrama The Mystery of Edwin Drood, sometimes stepping out of their roles to play directly to and with the audience.

I don’t quite know how to begin to explain the plot, but let me give it a shot. 

Young Edwin Drood and the sweet Rosa Bud have been engaged to be married almost since birth.  Edwin’s uncle John Jasper, who is also Rosa’s music tutor, is madly in love with his pupil and is consumed with jealousy.  To make matters worse, his mind is addled to the breaking point by the laudanum-infused wine to which he is addicted.

He is, assuredly, capable of doing great harm.  And, indeed, he becomes a prime suspect when Edwin goes missing and is presumed dead.  Yet is Jasper the villain he seems to be?

The story grows quite complicated as it turns into a whodunit, with tangential twists and turns galore, not to mention characters who show up and disappear for no apparent good reason.  

And while Jasper is the obvious suspect, there are others, especially Neville Landless, a Ceylonese native with a hot temper who has shown a serious dislike for Edwin and who was with him when he was last seen alive. 

Beyond that, at least plot-wise, I think I will step back and let you discover it for yourself.

Since the author left his story unfinished, there comes a point (announced in mid-song), where Dickens’s voice disappears and anything can happen.  Freed of the constraints of pre-determined plot points, the last 45 minutes is just jolly good fun.

Mr. Holmes has opted to let the audience vote on several key issues, including the identity of the murderer.  

This isn’t a shout-out vote, but an actual count of hands by members of the company, who spread out into the various sections of the audience so that every vote matters. 

In addition to choosing the killer, the audience determines the secret identity of one of the characters, and selects a pair of lovers to give the show its romantic/happy/comic ending. 

The game actors are first-rate through-and-through, with special nods to Will Chase as John Jasper, Stephanie Block as Edwin Drood (the role is written for a woman to play), Betsy Wolfe as Rosa Bud, Andy Karl as Neville Landless, Jessie Mueller as his sister Helena, and the incomparable Chita Rivera as Princess Puffer, proprietress of the opium den that John Jasper calls his home away from home. Kudos, too, to Robert Creighton, for his great comic turn as Durdles; the audience loves him.  

  

But if the show belongs to anyone, it is Jim Norton as the character known as Chairman.  Norton understands better than anyone on stage how to ringmaster a music hall production, how to win over an audience, and how to tell the corniest of jokes with the polished skill of a lifelong seller of blarney. 

Musically, The Mystery of Edwin Drood is definitely a mixed bag.  Many of the numbers are serviceable, if not memorable.  But there are enough winners to satisfy, including a wonderful patter song, “Both Sides of the Coin,” modeled on Gilbert and Sullivan, which Mr. Norton and Mr. Chase play off one another in a tongue-destroying way.  Other first-rate tunes include the haunting and creepy “Moonfall,” which Jasper has supposedly written for Rosa to sing; “The Wages of Sin,” performed by Ms. Rivera and which includes audience participation; and the triumphant “The Writing On The Wall,” sung by (sorry, it wouldn’t be cricket to tell you).

With multiple possibilities in Act II, the cast seems to be having a blast, and their pleasure is definitely contagious.  A shout-out needs to go, too, to the stylish contributions of choreographer Warren Carlyle, set designer Anna Louizos, and costume designer William Ivey Long.

At the start of this review, I noted that The Mystery of Edwin Drood may be the first hit of the season.  That does depend a lot on audiences showing up and participating. Studio 54 is a little off the tourist path, and, despite the success of its original run, not a lot of folks would have heard of the show.

So I’m suggesting another form of audience participation, which is this:  If you see it and like it, spread the word.  It will take word-of-mouth to keep the show going, especially now when things are at sixes and sevens post-Sandy.

So, go.  Enjoy.  And it’s OK to reveal all (except, perhaps, the final number), because every performance will have a different set of solutions.

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