It's hard not to like Jerry Herman musicals, the music is generally so sunny with enough soaring ballads to keep the fluff from being too much. With that mindset, I put the original Broadway cast album of Mack & Mabel into the machine. I've never seen this show on stage. The liner notes to the CD reissue give a long explanation as to why it's rarely (never?) staged. Do musicals about movie-making ever work? I can only think of one other at the moment--Sunset Boulevard.
That said, there's a lot to like on this cast album. Robert Preston is so good at making that sprechstimme style work--finding a balance between singing tones and speaking tones. It's so easy to think of him in this type of role (along with The Music Man and Victor/Victoria), I find it incredible that his credits also include originating the role of King Henry in The Lion in Winter on Broadway. I will forever associate that role with Peter O'Toole in the film. Nathan Lane seems to me a modern version of Preston, not a great singer, but a great singing performer.
It's nice to remember that Bernadette Peters was a Broadway star long before her association with Sondheim and Sunday in the Park with George. She, too, has a distinctive style all her own that works for her--a kind of cupie doll voice to go with the cupie doll face and curls. And "Time Heals Everything" is a great song, well sung.
The third singing member of the cast is Lisa Kirk, who was the original Bianca in Kiss Me Kate, more than 25 years before Mack & Mabel. She sings a couple of upbeat, lighter hearted songs--some of which seem to have actual dance breaks--rather old-fashioned for a musical from the 70s. Perhaps one of the reasons the show didn't work was that it was out of its time.
Mack & Mabel Original Cast Album
Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman
Originally released on ABC Records
MCA Classics reissue on CD
Recorded October, 1974; CD reissued in 1992
Cast: Robert Preston, Bernadette Peters, Lisa Kirk, Stanley Simmonds
That said, there's a lot to like on this cast album. Robert Preston is so good at making that sprechstimme style work--finding a balance between singing tones and speaking tones. It's so easy to think of him in this type of role (along with The Music Man and Victor/Victoria), I find it incredible that his credits also include originating the role of King Henry in The Lion in Winter on Broadway. I will forever associate that role with Peter O'Toole in the film. Nathan Lane seems to me a modern version of Preston, not a great singer, but a great singing performer.
It's nice to remember that Bernadette Peters was a Broadway star long before her association with Sondheim and Sunday in the Park with George. She, too, has a distinctive style all her own that works for her--a kind of cupie doll voice to go with the cupie doll face and curls. And "Time Heals Everything" is a great song, well sung.
The third singing member of the cast is Lisa Kirk, who was the original Bianca in Kiss Me Kate, more than 25 years before Mack & Mabel. She sings a couple of upbeat, lighter hearted songs--some of which seem to have actual dance breaks--rather old-fashioned for a musical from the 70s. Perhaps one of the reasons the show didn't work was that it was out of its time.
Mack & Mabel Original Cast Album
Music and Lyrics by Jerry Herman
Originally released on ABC Records
MCA Classics reissue on CD
Recorded October, 1974; CD reissued in 1992
Cast: Robert Preston, Bernadette Peters, Lisa Kirk, Stanley Simmonds
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