Elaine Paige, Stages--recital disc on cassette tape

Being stuck in the 80s, I have a lot of cassette tapes, which I've only just started to explore for my Year of Musical Thinking. Fortunately, my father's car (which I borrowed for a weekend trip to Wisconsin) is also stuck in time and has a tape cassette player, so I was able to relive some of my musical past on the way north. As I got onto I-94 toward Milwaukee, I popped Elaine Paige Stages into the dashboard player.

Ms. Paige is one of those quintessential musical theater performers of the 70s and 80s, having created the roles of Eva Peron in Evita and Grisabella in Cats. She, of course, has done many things since then, but as this recording was made in 1987, songs from shows of the 70s and 80s dominate here.

That actually may be one of my criticisms of this recital disc...um, tape. The range of music is not very broad. I believe the earliest show represented, I believe is Hair (1968). The latest is Cats (1982). I would love to hear some tracks from shows of the 40s and 50s--the so-called Golden Age of Broadway. Perhaps Ms. Paige has another recording that mines that era.

It is hard to argue with any of Ms. Paige's singing, which is strong up and down her "chest" register and reaches into the middle range without getting ugly. I have always liked her voice and find it less nasal than some of her belt singer comrades.

All of the tracks here seem over-produced to me, with large orchestrations and involved arrangements that sometimes get in the way. Well, it was the 80s and it wasn't only the hair that was big. I particularly wished that songs like "Send in the Clowns" and "Losing my Mind" could have provided a change of sonority to the big, bold offerings.

Dirty Dancing pre-Broadway live performance

I have to be careful with this one, and judge it for what it is, and not for what I wish it were. I had a clever opening all written in my head when I planned to have this entry appear on Thanksgiving Day. But that would have been unfair, too, for Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage has a lot going for it and is definitely not a turkey.

The first thing to clarify is right in the title: this is THE classic story. It's not a version of the story. It's not an adaptation of the story. It's not a musicalization of the story. It's THE story. If you know the film, you know this show--down to every scene, every line of dialogue, every gesture, every tracking shot, every location, every note of underscoring. How is that possible, I hear you asking.

Well, this show may go down in history as the most technologically advanced show in Broadway history. Granted, I don't have a lot to judge it against in that regard, but this feels like Broadway 2.0.

To start with the stage mechanics: there is a turntable which lifts up and splits in two, and rotating tracks around the turntable, and lift sections of the stage around the rotating tracks, and pop up doors. To continue with the lighting effects: there are programmable lights with changing patterns, there are scrim projections and projections on proscenium screens and a giant curved-screen television, and there are FOUR mirrored disco balls. To finish with the set pieces: there are at least two bedroom scenes that slide out, numerous dining tables and chairs, and a car that we see from both the front and back and which pivots during one scene.

With all of that stage equipment, I was surprised there was still room for 30 performers. And room for them to dance. Fortunately, the dancing is very good, particularly by Josef Brown as Johnny Castle and Britta Lazenga as Penny Johnson. Both are performers with a lot of legit dance credits--you know, ballet and stuff. Ms. Lazenga danced for seven seasons with the Joffrey Ballet, and given that her legs seem about as long as the whole show, I bet she was good. What was on display in this show certainly was good.

The standout actor in the bunch was Amanda Leigh Cobb as Frances "Baby" Houseman. Ms. Cobb is a graduate of the Yale School of Drama and includes in her bio The Coast of Utopia on Broadway and significant regional company credits. That kind of breeding shows; while keeping the character of Baby distinctly her own, Ms. Cobb manages to hit all the familiar marks that fans of the film will expect. And then she gets lifted into the familiar pose that inhabits the poster for this show.

I'll be interested to see this show's reception when it opens in New York, if it opens in New York. It leaves Chicago in January and goes to Boston for a month.

Dirty Dancing: the Classic Story on Stage
Music is all of the era
Lyrics are the original song lyrics
Book by Eleanor Bergstein from her screenplay for the 1987 film
Live at the Cadillac Palace Theater in Chicago until January 17, then to the Boston Opera House until March 15, 2009
Cast: Josef Brown, Amanda Leigh Cobb, Britta Lazenda, John Bolger

Into the Woods Broadway Production on DVD

I suppose I couldn't avoid him for long, but I have to confess a love/hate relationship with Stephen Sondheim. I find his musicals smart and insightful, and good explorations of interesting themes. And I like his music, but I can't sing it worth beans.

Into the Woods is one of my favorites of Sondheim's works. I like how it uses childhood fairy-tales to explore very adult themes of risk/reward for "straying from the path", personal responsibility, sense of community, and parenting. It also marks the second appearance in my year for Bernadette Peters, now in the prime of her career and warranting applause from the audience at her first entrance (even though she is done up in the old witch make-up and costume).

I find Joanna Gleason a wonderful singing actress. I was more familiar with her television experience (West Wing) and saw her in a brief role in the Sex and the City movie, which is out right now. I'm going to need check out more of her musical background. I believe she was in a musical based on the Nick and Nora Charles stories--perhaps with Barry Bostwick.

I saw Woods live maybe a decade ago at the Marriot Lincolnshire Theater outside of Chicago. It was done in the round, or maybe 3/4 round. The proscenium version of this production seems very 2-dimensional, especially at the beginning when the three fairytales each have their own small proscenium. It's better when the storyline goes into the woods--perhaps part of the point.

Into the Woods
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book and Direction by James Lapine
Taping of performance by original Broadway cast in 1990
Cast: Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason, Chip Zien, Barbara Byrne, Robert Westenberg