Sweet Smell of Success

In reading the long, complicated synopsis of this show in the cast album booklet, I can't help but wonder if the story of Sweet Smell of Success just didn't lend itself to being a musical. Certainly, it's not a musical comedy. I can imagine that a brass-knuckle type of story wouldn't appeal to a New York audience less than 6 months after the World Trade Tower attacks.

Too bad, because I really like the score to this show, with its strong supper club/jazz club-infused music. The voices, too, are all first-rate as I suspected they would be with talents like Brian d'Arcy James and Kelli O'Hara in the cast. Jack Noseworthy is a new name to me, and I must try to find out more about him, because he has a lovely tenor voice that seems to caress his songs in just the right way. His song "I cannot hear the City" deserves a life outside the show.

I do have a problem with the chorus music in this score--they seem to comment more on the action than to be part of it. And while there is some lively, syncopated rhythms for the chorus, it's all in unison.

Can't we all get get along in harmony?

Sweet Smell of Success
Music by Marvin Hamlisch
Lyrics by Craig Carnelia
Book by John Guare
Cast: John Lithgow, Kelli O'Hara, Brian d'Arcy James, Jack Noseworth, Stacey Logan

They're Playing our Song--OBC album on CD

I've heard the title song from this show so many times, but didn't really know what the show was all about. Turns out its about songwriters, pop songwriters, which explains the variety of pop genres that the score covers. I suppose the variety makes sense given the world of the show, but They're Playing our Song didn't keep me humming along. Pop songs don't have much of a shape or a climax often, where in the theater we're all about building toward that big moment; perhaps that is why this score just left me lying there.

This is basically a two-person show, although the male and female leads each have a back-up group that functions as a sort of Greek Chorus, or The Chorus of Inner Thoughts. I hear voices in my head sometimes, too.

For a two-person show, I wanted some better singing. Lucie Arnaz (in her Broadway debut) has a pleasant voice, but it is rather characterless--neither a pop voice nor a musical theater voice. Robert Klein has a pop voice with a decent range, but he does sound a bit like an aging heavy metal band singer, all rasp and cigarettes.

Music by Marvin Hamlisch
Lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager
Book by Neil Simon

Opened 1979 and ran for more than 1,000 performances, so some one must have liked it.
Cast: Robert Klein, Lucie Arnaz

A Chorus Line Film on DVD

I saw the film A Chorus Line for the first time when it was released in France in 1986. I was doing a semester abroad and was desperate for some English. In France, the film was released in English with French subtitles. I remember very little of the film, except that by listening to the English and watching the subtitles, I learned quite a few French slang terms--now mostly forgotten with the rest of my French--except the slang term for gay, which is pede (with an accent aigu over the final e). I guess we remember the things that are most important.

I've never seen the show live on stage in a professional production. I could have my gay card revoked for admitting that. I'll do some extra credit as make up.

A Chorus Line is one of the shows that depresses me at first. I know which side of the white line I would be on. Dance 2, Looks 4. It also strikes me as the struggle of individuals to become one of many. To steal a line from Marc Acito (see June 2 entry), these people are clawing their way to the middle. On the other hand, all the of the songs give voice to the individual struggles of the characters, so maybe this show has the best of both worlds.

I think there is a lot in this show that's prescient of what we're experiencing now. Is Chorus Line the predecessor to So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing with the Stars, that show where they found the leads for the revival of Grease?

A Chorus Line
Music by Marvin Hamlisch
Lyrics by Edward Kleban
Conceived and choreographed by Michael Bennett
1986 film by Richard Attenborough
Cast: Michael Douglas, Terrence Mann, Alyson Reed, and a whole lot of other talented people to whom I apologize.