The Beautiful Game

Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical The Beautiful Game opened in London in September 2000 and ran with positive reviews till September 1^st, 2001. The show deals with issues of religious intolerance and violence in Ireland using the conflict within a soccer team comprised of Protestants and Catholics. It also follows political issues, the IRA, and terrorism. While the show never transferred to Broadway, in 2009 a revised edition has been running in Canada under a new title, The Boy’s in the Photograph.

The music by Andrew Lloyd Webber is fantastic. I hear traces of Superstar and Starlight, but never enough to make me roll over. The score, as is common in Webber scores, repeats music quite a bit, but again it doesn’t bother me too much. One thing I found interesting about this score is there are really no star moments. In a lot of his scores he provides spotlight moments, but this is really an ensemble show.

Lyrics by Ben Elton show that he is a quite a writer, but as this was his first musical I think he also has learned a lot. Since this musical he went on to write compilation or ‘juke box’ musicals We Will Rock You using the music of Queen and Tonight’s the Night using the music of Rod Stewart. Elton is however, writing the lyrics for Webber’s next musical Love Never Dies.

The Beautiful Game won the Best Musical Award from the Critics’ Circle Theater Awards in 2000.

You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1999)

After the huge success of the 1967 Off-Broadway musical You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown (see previous review) the musical has become part of the repertory for schools, churches, and all community theaters. Then in 1999 It was given a face lift. Michael Leavitt of Fox Theatricals decided on director Michael Mayer to head this revival. Mayer got Andrew Lippa to sign on to update the orchestrations and lyrics of Clark Gesner’s songs and add a few new ones, two to be exact. Then Mayer headed to California and like Gesner before him, sought Charles M. Schulz approval. Schulz again fully supported the project and gave Mayer the 32 years worth of “Peanuts” strips that had been published since 1967. With these new comics Mayer revised, deleted, and added scenes. In addition to new scenes, Mayer cut Patty and added Charlie Brown’s sister Sally. A culturally diverse cast was collected and the end result is this wonderful CD.

When listening to the two productions side by side the differences are remarkable. The new cast, including Anthony Rapp as Charlie Brown and Kristin Chenoweth as Sally, approaches the Peanuts characters with the same innocence but a higher degree of musical ability than the ’67 cast. Lippa’s new arrangements are wonderfully hip and make the musical much more fun, however, he takes away some of the simplicity. I am a Lippa fan, and do enjoy his additions to the musical (Beethoven Day is so much fun), but I feel that the original is closer to what the actual characters would have heard in their mind’s soundtrack.

Unfortunately for this 1999 Broadway revival it only ran for 14 previews and 149 performances. Even with its short run it was awarded Tonys for Best Featured Actor and Best Featured Actress (Roger Bart as Snoopy and Chenoweth as Sally) and won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical.

You're a Good Man Charlie Brown (1967)

In 1966 Clark Gesner recorded an album of songs based on the comic strip “Peanuts.” After a friend heard it and passed it on to a theatrical produces, Gesner was approached about turning it into a musical. After some persuasion he was convinced and they assembled a cast for You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown. In February 1967, with little more than a month before opening, director Joseph Hardy gave the cast the task of picking the strips that showed the part of their character they liked best. The musicals book was a collaborative effort of the entire 1967 production staff and cast and is attributed to the pseudonym of ‘John Gordon’. After receiving approval from Schulz himself, the show opened Off-Broadway for quite a successful run of 1,597 performances.

In 1971 a Broadway production was attempted with a new cast and flopped immediately. In 1982 a sequel, Snoopy!!! Opened Off-Broadway and ran for 152 performances. In 1999 the show saw a revival on Broadway with additional songs and new orchestrations by Andrew Lippa (a review of this production will follow.) The revival ran for only 14 previews and 149 performances.

What’s great about this original production recording is its intimacy and its truth. Gesner doesn’t attempt to write stunning music or Broadway standards, but attempts to bring out the child’s mind and its endless soundtrack complete with non-sense noises and dog chorus. The cast approaches each scene with their child’s eye first, abandoning musical tact, for imaginative heights that seem silly but extremely close to the eternal youth within. While listening to the CD you can understand that at the right moment this journey into the complicated simplicity of the Peanut children would be exactly what people wanted. The 60’s were the right time.

The 2000 re-issue includes four bonus tracks of Gesner playing and singing songs from Peanuts in Song, the demo he sent to Schulz.

Bernarda Alba

Today we consider the 2006 Off-Broadway recording of Bernarda Alba by Michael John LaChiusa. The musical which is based on the play The House of Bernarda Alba, is dark to say the least. As Ira Weitzman says in his liner notes LaChiusa explores the female psyche and tracks a mother’s strict rule and oppression of her household after her second husband’s death and the devastating consequences.

Bernarda Alba is LaChiusa’s latest musical to appear Off-Broadway and ran a limited run of just over a month, not scoring terrific reviews, and unfortunately I have to agree. LaChiusa’s music is dark and sparse with constant repetition that I can only assume was aimed at establishing leitmotifs, but not reaching the mark. However, Michael Starobin, a regular on Broadway credits, produces some remarkable orchestrations. His color choices are truly that of a master artist.

Within the CD one track stood out: One Moorish Girl/The Smallest Stream. This song captures the heart of the show expressing the girls longing and fear, and Bernarda’s anguish. Starobin uses just the right timbres enabling LaChiusa’s music to weave through a haunting dance. Phylicia Rashad as Bernarda sings with the age and weight of a mother and widow, breaking the listener’s heart.

LaChiusa is no stranger to heavy themes however after a foray into happier subjects with his 2003 musical Little Fish which also flopped he is quoted as saying, "My God, they don't want the hard stuff and more challenging material here in this city from me. They don't want something nice and fun, either. What am I supposed to do?" But he continues to press on. In April of 2009 Signature Theater of Virginia premiered a commissioned musical by LaChiusa titled Giant based on Edna Ferber’s novel of the same name. It received mixed reviews. In addition to composing, LaChiusa is an adjunct professor at the Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program at the Tisch School of the Arts.

Take Note

I am an avid collector of musicals as well as a performer. This blog is more of a journal that records my impressions of musicals that I have either listened to or seen.

This is simply The Way I Hear It.

-James Parks