On Stage
KANFER, STEFAN
On Stage VERSE IS BETTER By Stefan Kanfer "Extraordinary, how potent cheap music is," said the leading lady in Noël Coward's Private Lives. The playwright was more accurate than he knew....
...On my knees, Mrs...
...And it's a lot cheaper to get into...
...In the field of composition and bright, surprising verse he did have two rivals, men who could create melodies and lyrics that beguiled audiences all over the world...
...Now we're in between the devil and the deep blue sea Has anybody seen our ship...
...Hair slicked back, dressed in a smoking jacket, Groener creates an impression rather than an imitation of the Master...
...in Sir Noel's day he had no peer in the manufacture ofbittersweet stage and film comedy, in metronomic timing or sly direction that could coax laughter from a pause or a lifted eyebrow...
...But all Cole Porter and Irving Berlin could do, poor chaps, was write songs...
...Not to be outdone, Gertie sings "I Love America": All delegates From the Southern States Are nervy and distraught In New Orleans The wrought iron screens Are dreadfully overwrought...
...Had he chosen to, he probably would have become proficient at that as well...
...There are moments, particularly when Forbidden Broadway goes after corpulent musicals like Les Miz or Cats, that this little show seems worthier than the prey it stings...
...We've been on shore For a month or more, And when we see the Captain we shallget "what for" Heave ho, me hearties Sing Glory Hallelujah, A lady bold as she could be Pinched our whistles at the "Golden Key...
...Worthington, Please, Mrs...
...To the tune of "Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious" he offers a resume: Superfrantic, hyperactive, selfindulgent Mandy When I get hysterical the critics think I'm dandy When they cast a lunatic I always come in handy Superfrantic, hyperactive, selfindulgent Mandy...
...They make one of the oddest couples in show business history...
...And his co-star, aided by Tony Walton's clinging costumes and Michael Lincoln's lighting, makes the most of her small, true voice and a fortune in cheekbones...
...The art is alive and clicking at the Stardust Theater, a club-like locale where the latest edition of Forbidden Broadway offers the sharpest lampoons in town...
...Then again, there may not have been much more than what the eye and ear perceived...
...Nonetheless, he has the diction down to the last diphthong...
...Lawrence was, pure and simple, the best legitimate theater comedienne ofher generation...
...Satirist Gerard Alessandrini is at it again, with his own brand of musical judo葉aking the biggest shows in town and throwing them over his shoulder, he uses their own weight to undo them...
...Under the inspired direction of Phillip George, a quartet of bright young performers有ori Hammel, Josh Prince, Ellen Margulies, and Michael West用uts an electrical charge into every skit...
...And together, they deliver a bang-up version of "Has Anybody Seen Our Ship" in close Cockney harmony: Has anybody seen our ship, The H.M.S...
...Though he outlived her by 21 years, he was never quite the same after she died unexpectedly at the age of 54 in 1952...
...Coward was a man who mastered playwriting, songwriting, singing, acting, direction, production要irtually every aspect of show business except costume design...
...Peculiar...
...Or would it...
...Coward is the only man I ever heard pronounce the "d" in Wednesday, and the one lyricist who could properly articulate the rhyme of "vodka" and "squad car...
...Worthington, Don't put your daughter on the stage She's a bit of an ugly duckling You must honestly confess, And the width of her seat Would surely defeat Her chances of success, It's a loud voice, and though it's not exactly flat, She'll need a little more than that To earn a living wage...
...The two brash kids grew up in British music halls, cracked the West End in the late '20s, then appeared in a series of Coward's elegant comedies starring "Noël and Gertie," usually as querulous lovers...
...As for Twiggy, if the onetime stickfigure supermodel has not gained an ounce since the '60s, she has acquired considerable technique as a performer...
...If Love Were All is quick to show his comic side...
...For a little while We shall stand Hand in hand...
...Coward, in one of his most autobiographical songs, wrote, "I believe that since my life began, the most I've had was just a talent to amuse...
...The melody purling in the background was "Some Day I'll Find You," and since its publication in 1929 Sir Noel's tune has earned more royalties than his drama...
...Worthington, Don't put your daughter on the stage...
...But creating plaintive verse and melodies was only one of Coward's cornucopia of gifts...
...this, however, is no vanity production...
...Her husband, Leigh Lawson, is the show's director...
...Allesandrini's greatest enmity is reserved for a favorite target, Mandy Patinkin, this time starring in his Yiddishkeit show, Mamaloshen...
...Groener, a veteran of Crazy for You, Sunday In The Park With George and other Broadway musicals, proves an intelligent and gifted interpreter of the Coward oeuvre, even providing a smart tap dance or two...
...Worthington...
...After all, it would not do to have a gadfly stronger than its host...
...Has there ever been a wittier, wickeder portrait of the stage mother than "Mrs...
...If Love Were All uses that number and 18 others, plus snippets from the plays to construct a double portrait of the author and his muse...
...Particular attention is paid to the singer's falsetto rendition of "I Have a Little Dreidel," a number he has brought to Broadway "to pummel to death...
...Yet their work, like that of the parodist, the costume designer Alvin Colt, and the set designer Bradley Kaye, is usually done with affection...
...But I like America, Every scrap of it, All the sentimental crap of it And come what may Give me a holiday In the good old USA...
...Gertrude Lawrence was an actress/singer he had known since the days when they were child performers elbowing their way to recognition...
...That talent is enough to secure his reputation...
...The anthology show, Fosse, comes in for early derision: Give 'em the old saucy Fosse Glossy Fosse 'em Twist and contort and throw some trash in it And the reviews will all be passionate Next comes The Lion King ("African baloney/ but we won a lot of Tony"), Les Miserables ("We smell like formaldehyde/ Chances are we'll be running when the people here have died"), and such oversize targets as composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, producer Cameron Mackintosh, and singer Bernadette Peters and her antique vehicle, Annie Get Your Gun: There's no business In new business In show business today If you want a hit begin by stealing Some old classic written by Berlin Then stick in a star whose paint is peeling You'll end by reeling The people in...
...No one has ever managed to duplicate the radiance that gave the pair international celebrity...
...That aside, their professional and personal relationship could not have been closer...
...Those who lament the obsolescence of witty lyrics are in for some heartening news...
...Working himself into a lather, Noël pleads: Don't put your daughter on the stage, Mrs...
...The first song sets the elegiac tone: Someday ?'ll find you Moonlight behind you, True to the dream I am dreaming As I draw near you You'll smile a little smile...
...The production at thè Off Broadway Lucille Lortel Theater recounts their triumphs and sorrows through a series of recollections delivered by the aging Noël (Harry Groener) and the ghost of Gertie, materializing as he speaks nostalgically about her ability to rescue an indifferent line, and her inability to save a dollar...
...Love is not too strong a word for their mutual affection 容xcept that he was homosexual, and she was involved with a series of lovers and husbands...
...Devised by Sheridan Morley, this summer entertainment diverts without ever getting below the skins of its subjects...
Vol. 82 • July 1999 • No. 8
