Catch these Broadway winners at home
Summer reading? How about summer listening? Now is the perfect time to catch up on recently issued cast albums that demonstrate the range of the 2014-15 Broadway season. They include fresh revivals of classics like “On the 20th Century” and “The King and I” and new scores as different as the groundbreaking “Fun Home” and the justfor-laughs “Something Rotten!”
Fun Home (P.S. Classics): Composer Jeanine Tesori and librettist Lisa Kron do breakthrough work with this year’s Tony winner — a brave, compelling chamber musical based on cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir. The show unfolds as middle-aged Alison’s remembrance of growing up with her demanding father, Bruce; gradually realizing her lesbian identity; and later, her father’s complicated life as a closeted gay man whose string of secret affairs bedeviled himself and his wife, Helen. The show melds classical, pop and Sondheim-sophisticated musical theater influences into a unique vernacular, perfectly suited to the psychological insights and nuances of this story. Beth Malone and Emily Keggs are flawless as the midlife and 19-year-old Alison, with Sydney Lucas a knockout as her dynamic 9-year-old self. As the tormented Bruce and long-suffering Helen, respected Broadway vets Michael Cerveris and Judy Kuhn hit career highs. Each shines in a devastating aria — his “Edges of the World” and her “Days and Days” — songs that epitomize the show’s depth and originality. The intimate, almost confessional quality of this deeply personal work comes across on the album.
Something Rotten! (Ghostlight Records): High and low culture collide in this enjoyable romp with nothing on its mind but goofy laughs. In Elizabethan England, brothers Nick and Nigel Bottom struggle to succeed as playwrights as that showoff Shakespeare hogs all the glory. With the help of a seer who envisions a surefire hit of the future, they decide to best Shakespeare by creating the world’s first musical. Thanks to the seer’s crossed wires, they wind up creating not a musical “Hamlet” but one called “Omelette” — an egg-centric notion to say the least. By Act 2, Wayne and Karey Kirkpatrick’s jokey songs sound a bit one-note, especially in the extended show-withinthe-show sequence. The lyrics resort a bit too readily to bathroom humor and, more damagingly, false rhymes. Yet enough in the outrageous mix is genuinely funny, rousing and catchy to recommend “Something Rotten!,” especially given the cast’s polished and exuberant rendition of such highlights as the showstopping “A Musical.” As put-upon Nick, Brian D’Arcy James carries the show with his strong baritone and engaging presence, with good support from Christian Borle’s amusingly snide Shakespeare. Their one-upping challenge tap routine is hilarious.
The Visit (Broadway Records): Based on Friedrich Durrenmatt’s classic “The Visit,” the final collaboration of composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb proves its merit on this expertly realized recording. It also proves an ideal showcase for the legendary Chita Rivera. With her smoky voice and sardonic yet passionate delivery, Rivera exudes authority as Claire Zachanassian, the world’s richest woman, returning to the bankrupt town she fled decades earlier — revealing her mission of deadly vengeance against Anton Shell, the man who seduced and abandoned her. She makes clear the show’s central irony — that Claire still loves Anton. Kander’s haunting music is rich in Eastern European colorings, melancholy or ominous. Ebb’s lyrics mix worldly fatalism with jabs of gallows humor. At its best, the score raises goosebumps: “You, You, You,” the exquisite love song of Claire and Anton’s youthful ghosts; “Yellow Shoes,” a muted showstopper representing the townsfolk’s surrender to Claire; and Claire’s bittersweet credo, “Love and Love Alone.” The autumnal resonance of “The Visit” could only have been achieved by mature artists. The CD preserves the final performance of Tony winner Roger Rees, who acts and sings Anton with wintry dignity and understanding. Illness forced Rees to leave the show during its run; he died in mid-July, a few weeks after the final performance.
Honeymoon in Vegas (Universal Music): Here’s the head-scratcher of the season. Brilliant composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown, who won Tonys for “Parade” and “Bridges of Madison County,” shifted from profound to light-hearted with this funny, upbeat, Sinatra-swingy score. So, with a romantic musical comedy — pure fun based on a popular movie — Brown would finally get his commercial hit on Broadway, right? Incredibly, even with rave reviews when the show opened in January, it never generated fires at the box office and closed in April. Regardless, the cast album preserves a firstrate effort, as much fun on disc as it was in the theater. Rob McClure, a Tony nominee a few seasons back as “Chaplin,” brings his comic flair and fine voice to hapless hero Jack, whose efforts to marry his beloved fiancée, Betsy (the wonderful Brynn O’Malley) get entangled with big-shot gambler Tommy Korman’s designs on her. The real surprise is Tony Danza, spot-on terrific as the wise-guy gambler, even suggesting a dash of Tony Bennett in his vocals. From Jack’s irresistibly giddy opener “I Love Betsy,” to Betsy’s rueful ballad “Anywhere But Here,” to the splashy “When You Say Vegas,” the score boasts one winner after another. Let’s hope there’s life after Broadway for “Honeymoon in Vegas.”
On the Town (P.S. Classics): The landmark 1944 musical about three sailors on leave in New York got its definitive revival this season in the exuberant production directed by John Rando. It’s doubtful any other, even the original, got better mileage from the dynamic Leonard Bernstein score and the funny, freewheeling book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. This deluxe two-disc album is likewise definitive, not only because it includes all of Bernstein’s extensive ballet music, as well as much dialogue (virtually the entire show), but also because it perfectly captures the show’s anarchic, impulsive spirit and frankly sexual energy. As lead sailor Gabey, Tony Yazbeck heads a dream cast, singing beautifully, especially in the poignant “Lonely Town.” But every performer and number, from Alysha Umphress’ belting the saucy “I Can Cook, Too” to the wistful quartet “Some Other Time,” from the exciting orchestral performance to the comic bit parts, leaps off the disc.
On the 20th Century (P.S. Classics): Comden and Green were “On” again with this 1978 hit, writing their wittiest libretto to Cy Coleman’s most ambitious score. We had to wait 37 years for the show to return to Broadway, but it was worth it for Roundabout Theatre’s madcap and elegant production helmed by Scott Ellis, starring Kristin Chenoweth in the showcase of her life. Chenoweth devours her role as egomaniacal 1930s movie star Lily Garland, fending off her former mentor and lover Oscar Jaffe’s efforts to win her back — professionally and romantically — during the 20th Century Limited’s 16-hour trek from Chicago to New York. The authors cleverly set this screwball farce to an extravagant operetta score, as befits the larger-than-life personalities of the leads. Highlights range from the propulsive title ensemble, to Lily and Oscar’s witty argument “I’ve Got It All,” to their gorgeous duet “Our Private World,” demonstrating that however much these two scrap, they really adore each other. Peter Gallagher rises ably to the vocal demands of Oscar, if never matching the Barrymore-esque grandeur of John Cullum in the original. Andy Karl scores as Bruce Granit, Lily’s buff and dim-witted current flame. The supporting cast is solid, the choral and orchestral work superb. But the engine driving the revival is Chenoweth’s powerhouse Lily. In a tricky role that requires a combination of accomplished coloratura soprano, priceless clown and glamorous leading lady, Chenoweth is all that and more — especially in “Veronique” and “Babette,” hilarious pastiche sequences envisioning Lily’s past and future triumphs.
The King and I (Decca Broadway): Lincoln Center Theater, visionary director Bartlett Sher and incandescent star Kelli O’Hara have done it again. As with their 2008 “South Pacific,” they have taken a Rodgers and Hammerstein classic and without compromising its original values, given it the freshness, immediacy and urgency of a new work. Depicting the clash between the King of Siam and Anna Leonowens, the strong-minded Welsh widow hired to tutor his children, the show’s themes are ever-relevant: the need to bridge differences between cultures, as well as between the sexes. The themes are implicit in the score’s succession of beautiful, dramatically pertinent songs, from “Hello, Young Lovers” to “Getting to Know You,” “We Kiss in a Shadow” to “Shall We Dance?” Even without the revival’s visual splendor, its imagination and impact come across on the disc, anchored by the rare blend of steely determination and utmost delicacy in O’Hara’s gloriously sung Anna. Ken Watanabe asserts strong presence with his questing, conflicted King. Ashley Park and Conrad Ricamura sing radiantly as starcrossed lovers Tuptim and Lun Tha. Ruthie Ann Miles’ revelatory Lady Thiang lifts the eloquent “Something Wonderful” to new heights. Yet it is Anna who dominates the score, and because O’Hara is now the definitive Anna — surpassing even my previous favorite, Constance Towers, in the 1977 revival — this is the definitive recording of “The King and I.”