LaChiusa's Wild Party (2000 Broadway Cast)
Written: Aug 25 '00 (Updated Sep 03 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Eartha Kitt, some great songs
Cons: It's a mess
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| fdknight's Full Review: The Wild Party (LaChiusa) by Original Cast Recordi... |
There are those of us who consider it a tragedy whenever a new musical closes without having its score recorded. Even the most flawed pieces usually contain some gems, and, like families, virtually every dysfunctional musical is unique. Some flops are so interesting that their cast recordings are nearly as enjoyable as the albums from musicals that actually work. I have no trouble understanding why John Michael LaChiusa's The Wild Party closed quickly and left a sour taste in the mouths of many who saw it. I certainly wouldn't recommend its cast recording to people with a casual interest in musicals. Fanatics like myself, however, will find some extraordinary moments and remarkable performances within this moderately interesting mess.
The Show
The 1999-2000 Broadway season will be remembered in part as the year that composer/lyricist John Michael LaChiusa just couldn't stop shooting himself in the foot. First of all, he competed against himself for audience and awards by opening two shows during the same season, this one and the Audra McDonald is Medea vehicle Marie Christine. Neither of the shows could be said to have commercially viable source material, one coming from Greek tragedy and the other from a long poem with a cult following.
Joseph Moncure March published The Wild Party in 1928. As adapted here, the story is about a party in the home of Queenie and Burrs, two vaudeville performers. Burrs is abusive, Queenie is bored, and a crowd of colorful guests show up to get wild and play some hazardous games. The most dangerous guests are Queenie's best friend Kate and her kept lover Black. Black and Queenie start a flirtation that leads to sex, love, and violence as an orgy erupts and subsides around them.
The problem with the poem as source material for a musical is that the characters are drawn in broad strokes and are basically so unsympathetic that their stories ultimately cannot sustain audience interest. It was also made into an unsuccessful movie in the 1970s, which grafted elements of the Fatty Arbuckle story to the original. Despite how unpromising the material is, the poem was the source for two entirely separate musical which both opened and failed in New York last season. Andrew Lippa's more accessible but less distinguished version played at the Manhattan Theatre Club.
How did anyone think that two adaptations of the same depressing poem could possibly find adequate audience in New York in the same season? How did anyone think there would be enough interest for two LaChiusa projects in the same amount of time? How long will producers continue to blame a lack of audience sophistication for failure caused by their own idiocy?
The Score
LaChiusa's approach to the story was to create a nightmarish musical collage based on music of the 1920s. I think he succeeded in this admirably: if you aren't likely to find yourself humming songs from the score after listening, I think you probably will find some tantalizing fragments wafting through your mind.
The show's musical triumph's include the excellent opening number, a vaudeville-style piece closely based on the unforgettable opening lines of poem: "Queenie was a blonde and her age stood still. . . ." Queenie gets two great songs later in the show. Her "Welcome to My Party" is a restless, driving invitation which perfectly characterizes this selfish but charming young woman. She shares "People Like Us" with Black, a song that breaks through as a sustained ballad in a section of the show where the score has become increasingly fragmented. That song builds sympathy for two extremely limited characters while exposing their shallowness.
The biggest problem with the score is that there are simply too many songs where characters describe themselves or others. There is a sequence of eight songs titled "Promenade of Guests." Half of them should have been cut, or at the very least combined. You want to scream at the creators that you don't care that much about the pugilist and his wife, or the lesbian stripper and her comatose girlfriend, or the ambitious producers. They don't need entire songs to describe themselves at the outset and later songs to express their reactions to the party. The amount of dead wood in the score is depressing, especially since LaChiusa proves that he knows how to dramatize minor characters when he feels like it.
The D'Armano brothers, for example, don't just sing about who they are- they are an incestuous brother act who perform their songs at the party, songs which tell us all we need to know about them, comment subtly on the action, and function as pastiche numbers on their own. Songs like "Tabu" are not on the Sondheim level, but I enjoy them.
The Recording
LaChiusa wisely saved his best writing for his best performer. The legendary Eartha Kitt plays Delores Montoya, a legendary performer. Her "Moving Uptown" is worth the price of the recording. Delores plays on both her fading glory and her still potent sexuality to seduce some young producers into giving her a slot in their new show. The music moves between sensual exotica and businesslike staccato. Kitt is sexy, hilarious, and moving.
The rest of the cast doesn't fare as well. Mandy Patinkin has some nice moments, but Burrs is very thinly written and lacks the big number he seems to need in order to come to life. Toni Collette proves that she has what it takes to be a musical star of the first order, but this is not the vehicle to make her one. Queenie has a few good songs, but does not emerge as a strong enough character to anchor a musical or launch a career.
The supporting cast is more than competent, with Tonya Pinkins as Kate providing a memorably smoldering "Black Is a Moocher." Pros like Marc Kuddisch, Jane Sommerhays, and Norm Lewis do good work, but the writing is not satisfying enough for them to make the strong impressions they have made elsewhere.
The CD has one of those cardboard sleeves that Decca Broadway has made part of their signature. The design comes from a 1922 drawing by Miguel Covarrubbias- it's real ugly (especially when the design in reduced to lips on the CD itself), but it sets the tone. The notes are self-infatuated, but all of the lyrics are included and there is some attempt at a synopsis.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
fdknight
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Member: F. Douglas Knight
Location: Astoria, OR
Reviews written: 115
Trusted by: 101 members
About Me:
When he awakes the summer night is filled with screams.
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