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| re: When Superman Briefly Flew on Broadway | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 07:24 pm EDT 08/12/20 | |
| In reply to: re: When Superman Briefly Flew on Broadway - Chromolume 06:20 pm EDT 08/12/20 | |
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| I think I've posted here about it seeming to me when I saw the show as an 8-year-old in May 1966 that "Ooh, Do You Love You!" got a really big response, more than "You've Got Possibilities." I like Lois's songs, except that they have too much of Lee Adams's penchant for rhyming the final syllables of three-syllable words. I remember Patricia Marand getting a nice laugh with "A guy with both feet on the ground." I hope this isn't just my imagination but there's no way for me to go back and check. :) But it is an odd show. Jack Cassidy as Max Menken got star billing, and that caused problems, according to Prince. Cassidy really didn't like it when his role started to get cut down after they opened badly in Philadelphia. They were cutting generally, but Cassidy kept suggesting new lines to replace the ones that were being cut and doing this in front of the cast, forcing Prince to say no in front of everyone. Which didn't stop Cassidy, who kept doing it (according to Prince). The actress originally cast as Lois, Joan Hotchkiss, was fired in Philadelphia, although nothing negative was said about her in any of the reviews I can find. When Prince revised and updated Contradictions as Sense of Occasion, he added later thoughts to the original chapters, putting those additions at the ends of the original chapters. One of the additions that struck me as strange was this: "I chose Patricia Marand as Lois Lane, and it was pluperfect casting." Strange just because she wasn't his first choice (or I assume she wasn't, although I suppose it's possible that they asked her and she wasn't available, and then she became available and they fired Hotchkiss). Anyway, Prince loved Linda Lavin's talent. With Max Menken getting star billing, and the show having two comic villains and being geared to comedy, it made sense to have those two numbers there (given Lavin's relationship with Max), and of course they were crowd-pleasers. Lavin was already favored by Prince, who kept giving her small bits when he took over A Family Affair, which seems to have been somewhat resented by some in the company. (I base that last on what a member of the company said at a talkback when Mufti did A Family Affair.) Lavin had just gotten raves for The Mad Show, which she left immediately for Superman. She was definitely an up-and-comer. Anyway, between the Philly opening and the Broadway opening they got rid of Lois’s rather lachrymose and self-pitying first song “A Woman Alone” (and Strouse adapted the melody with adjustments in Dance a Little Closer). Lois’s “It’s Superman” is an improvement (and I’m just realizing that this is similar to what had been done with “Lovely” during the Forum tryout). And where she had “I’m Not Finished Yet” was something listed as “I”m Too Young to Die,” which suggests that the lyric was replaced but the music remained the same. So one of her three solos was replaced, and another seems to have been reworked in a way that suggests she was made more defiant and less of a victim. And in a show in which no character is musically dominant, she gets three solos (all of them, admittedly, on the short side) and a duet in which she is equal to her partner and tells him that he’s all wrong about everything. And Patricia Marand was a marvelous singer. God, those orchestrations! No matter how often I listen to the cast recording, I never cease to marvel at them. |
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| re: When Superman Briefly Flew on Broadway | |
| Posted by: owk 12:19 am EDT 08/13/20 | |
| In reply to: re: When Superman Briefly Flew on Broadway - AlanScott 07:24 pm EDT 08/12/20 | |
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| There can never be enough said about the orchestrations, which Encores! restored, much to the pleasure of the audience. To me, "It's Superman" is the most underrated song in the show and completely establishes the intended satirical/bemused tone IF YOU ARE REALLY LISTENING. I think one of the show's principal challenges is that it is drawn in such primary colors that the audience doesn't tend to really listen to the subtleties of the material. Benton, Newman, and Adams were all working in a very mid-'60s groove, satirizing and celebrating things at the same time. It's a subtler version what Ashman was doing in Little Shop years later. But you have to listen. When the show descends to "It's Super Nice" we're invited to think that it's just Hullabaloo and a comic book. It has so much more to offer, but the tone doesn't really announce itself clearly enough for a typical audience to get it. And sometimes the show doesn't help. Still, a favorite of mine. | |
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| re: When Superman Briefly Flew on Broadway | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 07:42 pm EDT 08/12/20 | |
| In reply to: re: When Superman Briefly Flew on Broadway - AlanScott 07:24 pm EDT 08/12/20 | |
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| God, those orchestrations! No matter how often I listen to the cast recording, I never cease to marvel at them. Yes, they are really wonderful. (I seem to remember a long time ago out here extolling the wonderful quirky wind writing in "We Don't Matter At All" among other things.) It's a shame that the licensed version did so much rearranging - in particular, cutting all the strings and reassigning the most prominent string stuff to winds and brass. Just not the same at all. But it is an odd show. Jack Cassidy as Max Menken got star billing, and that caused problems, according to Prince. Yes - among other things, having a show ostensibly about Superman with an unknown character getting top billing instead of Clark/Superman does seem more than just a little crazy. ;-) Though it's also always been funny to me that Cassidy is essentially playing Kodaly again, just in a different setting. ;-) |
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| re: When Superman Briefly Flew on Broadway | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 08:41 pm EDT 08/12/20 | |
| In reply to: re: When Superman Briefly Flew on Broadway - Chromolume 07:42 pm EDT 08/12/20 | |
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| He became typecast as very narcissistic characters who were oily and in varying degrees unpleasant, which he could do and make them funny. In between She Loves Me and Superman, there was Fade Out—Fade In. And he also played such characters on TV. I was so used to thinking of him that way that I was very surprised when I heard the Lehman Engel Boys From Syracuse recording. No one sings "The Shortest Day of the Year" and "You Have Cast Your Shadow on the Sea" as tenderly as he does. He hadn't started his career playing those oily characters, but he sure became known for them. | |
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