Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Review - On a Clear Day You Can See Forever With Harry Connick Jr.

I had been hearing really great things about the revised version of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, which has been kicking around for a few years now in various workshops and readings. In fact, the advance word was so strong, and the sources so reliable, that On a Clear Day was easily one of the Broadway productions this season that I was most eagerly anticipating.

And then I saw the show.

I'm going to give my sources the benefit of the doubt and assume that something has been lost in the translation, but in all honesty, there are certain fundamental flaws with this new version of On a Clear Day that I can only assume must have been part of the show since the revision was conceived. 

Some history: On a Clear Day You Can See Forever has never been much of a hit, despite the popularity of the title song. The original production ran less than a year, and the 1970 movie version is a curiosity at best, notable mostly for the presence of Barbra Streisand in the central role of Daisy Gamble. The main liability of both the stage and movie versions is the wackjob story line by Alan Jay Lerner, which focuses on such offbeat topics as psychoanalysis, telepathy, and reincarnation. According to John Cullum, the star of the original stage version, there's a fairly understandable reason why the show seems like it was written by someone on drugs. Lerner was taking LSD while he was writing it.

But Burton Lane's marvelous score to On a Clear Day, full of jaunty, upbeat numbers (my favorite is "Hurry, It's Lovely Up Here") and soaring ballads (particularly the haunting "Melinda"), has always had its adherents, and rightly so. Apparently the prospect of taking the marvelous Lerner and Lane songs and fashioning a more workable book around them was too much for director Michael Mayer and playwright by Peter Parnell to resist. Their efforts might have amounted to nothing more than an academic exercise had it not been for one man: Harry Connick Jr., who apparently saw enough in Mayer and Parnell's version of the show (or at least the Lerner/Lane score) to sign on for what he no doubt hoped would be a triumphant return to Broadway after the sold-out success of The Pajama Game in 2006.

Connick certainly gets props for returning in such a risky project. As you may have heard, Parnell and Mayer have given Daisy Gamble a gender reassignment: it's now Davey Gamble (an adorable David Turner) who enters the office of Dr. Mark Bruckner (Connick) in the hope of quitting smoking. Davey is a gay man who is having trouble committing to moving in with his boyfriend. Under hypnosis, Davey reverts back to a previous life in which he was Melinda Wells, an up-and-coming World War II big band singer, played here by sensationally talented newcomer Jesse Mueller. Dr. Bruckner finds himself drawn to Melinda, and, well, the plot thickens from there, bringing Dr. Bruckner into a rather dicey love triangle. 

Which is all well and good. I have no problem with outlandish plots or daring subject matter. I do, however, have problems with both Parnell's new book and Mayer's direction of same. Parnell's dialog is often painfully plodding and expository, particularly when it comes to explaining the Freudian underpinnings of the good doctor's obsession. But the most egregious elements for me were the tortured song setups. Most of the songs (which were cherry-picked from the stage version as well as the songs that were added for the movie) seemed to fit nominally within the new scenario, but none of them really embraces it fully. And there were a few songs that seemed wedged in with a crowbar.

For instance, "Wait 'Til We're Sixty Five" in the original story is sung by Warren, a stuffy young man who is old way before his time. The satirical lyric describes how Warren has his finances all planned, and the couple will have it free and easy in their retirement. But when Warren sings the song in the new version, it doesn't make any sense, because the new Warren isn't stuffy. What's more, the song is meant to convey how Warren and Daisy don't belong together, but that's inconsistent with how things develop in the new version. And as for the line "If the children never mature, what the hell the bonds will so we're secure," the show takes place in the 1970s, and the idea of a '70s gay couple assuming that they'll have children is anachronistic. 

And then there's "When I'm Being Born Again," which in the original is sung by a rich Greek businessman who wants to find a way to be reincarnated so he can leave his fortune to himself. In the new version, the song becomes part of some mystical be-in kind of happening that the good doctor is holding with his psychiatry students. The new context renders meaningless the fractured English syntax (for instance, the deliberately awkward phrasing in the title), and makes the references to the character's avarice and materialism ("Don't cross the line! Those toys are mine!") jarringly inappropriate for the scene.  

What's more, Parnell fails to follow his own rules. Early in the show, Dr. Bruckner tells Davey he won't remember anything that happens while he is under hypnosis. But Parnell seems to conveniently forget this dictum in the number "On the S.S. Bernard Cohn," during which Davey regales his friends with the seemingly romantic night that he has just spent with Dr. Bruckner. I suppose it's possible that, just that once, Dr. Bruckner was remiss in his post-hypnotic instructions, but I think it's more likely that this is just lazy writing.

Beyond the plot holes, the main liability for this On a Clear Day is that the pace starts off rather sluggish and never really recovers from that listlessness. The show perks up considerably whenever Turner and Mueller are on stage, which is thankfully a large portion of the show. But whenever the stage belongs to Connick, the pace grinds to a halt. Connick is quite the singer, but he seemed uncomfortable in the role, and I don't recall seeing him smile even once. Act 2 got particularly bogged down in making sure Connick got his full complement of power-ballad moments.

Despite Connick's presence, On a Clear Day has been playing to rather anemic houses, with heavily discounted tickets. According to Michael Riedel of the New York Post, Connick's contract is for 34 weeks, which is about 240 performances. If the show can make it through the notoriously chilly months of January and February, it might have a shot of making it to the end of Connick's contract. But I don't see him extending, nor do I envision anyone stepping in to take his place.

Review - Coco at The York Theater, Musicals in Mufti

My abject apologies, dear reader, for my prolonged absence from the blogosphere. The new semester at the Boston Conservatory has started up with a vengeance, and I've been like the magician in the Frosty cartoon: busy, busy, busy.

Fortunately, I was able to carve out some time last Saturday for a day trip to New York to catch Coco at the York Theater, presented as part of its marvelous Musicals in Mufti series.

As the Mufti program points out, Coco was "suggested by incidents from the life of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel." The original Broadway production of Coco has long been a guilty obsession of mine, partly because it was the only Broadway musical that the glorious Katharine Hepburn ever performed in. Yes, Katherine Hepburn did a musical. And, no, she can't really sing. But that doesn't matter. As Rex Harrison demonstrated in My Fair Lady and Richard Burton confirmed in Camelot, actors don't necessarily need to be strong singers to give convincing and affecting performances in musicals.

Plus you have that score by André Previn, set to lyrics by the occasionally great Alan Jay Lerner. Sure, it's no My Fair Lady, but it's full of its own share of wonders and fascinations. Previn's music is a lot more tuneful than people give it credit for, and Lerner's lyrics are sometimes clever, sometimes heartfelt, and sometimes painfully forced. My particular favorite in the clever department comes from "The World Belongs to the Young," and has Coco Chanel declaring "I want Paree to wake and see/without me there's a vacancy." Lerner also grinds out some genuine groaners. In "The Money Rings Out Like Freedom," Coco relates an anecdote regarding her invention of slacks for women, and in the process is forced to sing: "Soon all the sisters and the cousins and the aunts/Were calling we The Pirate of Men's Pants." (Get it? Gilbert & Sullivan? "Poor Wandering One" and all that?)

Well, despite my abiding love for the cast recording, Coco wasn't holding may attention in its Mufti presentation. When Hepburn left Coco after some nine months, the producers brought in French actress Danielle Darrieux to replace her. The show only lasted two more months. The reason: it's not very good. The score has its individual charms, but on the whole Coco really doesn't work, at least not without La Hepburn and Michael Bennett's original staging, which apparently was dazzling.

Alan Jay Lerner's book for Coco is jokey when it should be heartfelt, and includes a rather inert subplot about Chanel taking on a young modeling protege, in a relationship that's meant to be maternal but comes off as Sapphic. Plus, the book and songs exhibit just a bit too much of Lerner's condescension towards women. (It's no surprise that he was married 8 times.) "A Woman is How She Loves" is a particularly bizarre and misogynistic anti-fashion screed. (e.g. "But who cares where the hems are if dismal the stems are?")

Other than the show itself, the main attraction at this Coco was cabaret star Andrea Marcovicci in the title role. Marcovicci has played Coco before, as part of a staged concert at 42nd Street Moon in San Francisco in 2008. At first, Marcovicci wasn't faring well with the comedy, but she eventually got a handle on it when she let it flow from character rather than from forced line readings.

Marcovicci was more consistent, and effective, in her dramatic acting. In fact, at times she was immensely moving, particularly during "Gabrielle/Coco" and "Always Mademoiselle." Her singing was surprisingly thin, given her reputation in the cabaret world, but that may have been because most of the score seemed to take place on the break between her head and chest voice. Since there was only piano accompaniment, it makes me wonder why the York didn't have the music transposed for her, or find a pianist who could transpose on sight.

The rest of the cast was serviceable, at times inspired. The clear-voiced Lewis Cleale fared especially well in the role of Coco's absent father, played by Jon Cypher in the original production. David Turner was an admirable model of restraint as the fey Sebastian Baye, at least compared to the embarrassingly over-the-top René Auberjonois, who surprisingly won a Tony Award for originating the role. (Then again, perhaps it's not so surprising: it was a very slow year, and Auberjonois only had two competitors: Brandon Maggart in Applause and the late George Rose, his Coco costar.) In the George Rose role of Coco's long-time attorney and confidante, Charles Kimbrough didn't seem to have a clear handle on humor, which got lost amid some rather bizarre mannerisms, prompting ruminations among my cohorts and me as to whether he might be ailing physically.

Overall, I have to say cheers to the York for their mission of bringing us these forgotten little gems. For the most part, there's a reason they've been forgotten, but it's always a pleasure to experience something neglected from the past. I already have my ticket to the next Mufti show: The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd. Watch for my review in the coming weeks.