Guys and Dolls:Off the Record

Well, points against my queue planning, for today I repeat a show in my Year for the first time--a show I just discussed a week ago-- a show that featured Nathan Lane (who I also discussed this week)--and a documentary surrounding the recording of a cast album, a format I also discussed earlier this week. In my favor, it's a good cast and a great show and an interesting recording process.

Guys and Dolls: Off the Record followed the 1992 recording of the cast ablum for the Broadway revival production that featured Nathan Lane and Faith Prince. I'm certain in 1992 I had never heard of either of these performers and when I bought this cast album (which I still have) and saw this documentary (which may have been on PBS) I was taken with both of them. I still am.

If there is a better show for which to be a member of the men's chorus, please tell me what it is. "Oldest, Established, Permanent, Floating Crap Game in the World" must be fun to sing. Backing up Sky in "Luck Be a Lady Tonight", ditto. Backing up Nicely-Nicely in "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat, double ditto. Nicely is nicely sung here by Walter Bobbie, who has had a nice career as performer and now director for musicals, just as Jerry Zaks has had before him. Mr. Zaks directed this revival of Guys and Dolls and we see of lot of him reassuring performers during the recording process.

I must find a way for Faith Prince to reappear in my Year. I know she did a revival of Bells are Ringing, but what else?

Guys and Dolls: Off the Record
Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser
Revival Broadway Cast album recorded in 1992
Documentary taping of recording also in 1992
Production directed by Jerry Zaks
Cast: Nathan Lane, Faith Prince, Josie de Guzman, Peter Gallagher, Walter Bobbie, JK Simmons

Tintypes on DVD

I don't really know what this is supposed to be. I suppose it is the recreation of a stage production filmed on a sound stage for video distribution. But Tintypes falls a little flat by not capturing the excitement of a live performance. It's a review of music from a range of sources in the decades before and after 1900. Should one call it a "Victrola musical"? Oh, I don't even think there were Victrolas then. So maybe it's a pianola musical, since sheet music and home pianos and pump organs were kings of the era.

While the music has a lot of charm and is well-sung by the original stage cast, I can understand why the show lasted less than three months on Broadway. The rather rose-colored glasses view of this time is cloyingly happy at times, and ineffective when paying lip-service to the social ills of the industrial age. Each of the five performers represent a certain type from the era--the new immigrant, the industrialist, the reformer, the socialite, the African-American poor. I suppose the point of the show isn't really to provide a history lesson, but there are better shows depicting the struggles of this time--Working by Studs Terkel, Showboat, even Ragtime. At times, the disconnect between the music and the vignettes is startling, particularly when the Emma Goldman rant is going on.

I didn't realize that Jerry Zaks started as a performer; I've heard of him only as a director. He was nominated for a Tony for his performance in Tintypes. He's likable and has a nice singing voice. And Lynne Thigpen returns to my Year, previously appearing in Godspell.

Tintypes

Conceived by Mary Kyte, Mel Marvin, and Gary Pearle

Music and lyrics by a whole bunch of turn-of-the-century songwriters (the last century)

Taping of the original cast in 1982

Cast: Jerry Zaks, Lynne Thigpen, Carolyn Mignini, Mary Catherine Wright, Trey Wilson