Back to the "story" format for this question.
Once upon a time,
Ewan McGregor (one word from a title)
and
Bette Davis (one word from a title)
were
Basil Radford (title)
in
Louise Dresser (title),
but that all ended when
Olivia de Havilland (two words from a title)
came along and convinced them to take
Tammy Grimes (four words from a title).
I'm off to a matinee of She Stoops to Conquer at the Irish Rep. I'll check back in when I get home.
Once upon a time,
Ewan McGregor - Young Adam
and
Bette Davis - All About Eve
were
Basil Radford - Young and Innocent
in
Louise Dresser - The Garden of Eden
but that all ended when
Olivia de Havilland - The Snake Pit
came along and convinced them to take
Tammy Grimes - Three Bites of the Apple
Thank you for refreshing my memory, Bree as it's been ages since I've read
John Huston (Title)
and
Chris Haywood (three words in title)
Peter Steen - (title)
Claudette Colbert (title)
from
Spencer Tracy
(I hope you enjoyed "She Stoops to Conquer".)
It's been ages since I've read
The Bible (my birthday-mate, John Huston)
and
The Tale of Ruby Rose (Chris Haywood)
The Creation of (Peter Steen)
His Woman (or The Wiser Sex) (Claudette Colbert)
from
Adam's Rib (Spencer Tracy)
I did enjoy She Stoops to Conquer. Despite the fact that it's considered a classic, I had never read it or seen it performed before, so I was glad to remedy that omission.
I thought of the Adam and Eve story because, on Friday night, I saw a semi-staged performance of The Apple Tree, a revival of a 1966 musical that starred Barbara Harris and Alan Alda. The evening consists of three one-act musicals, the first one of which (from which the whole evening takes its title) is based on Mark Twain's "The Diary of Adam and Eve". Kristin Chenoweth played the female lead in all three parts, and she was great. Of course, I knew about her singing, but I don't think I had ever realized what a good comedienne she is - her comic timing is sensational. I hadn't heard any of the songs before, and I can't say they made me want to run out and buy the CD, but it was a very enjoyable evening.
My choice was "The Wiser Sex".
I know nothing about "She Stoops to Conquer", but am now curious and will search on the net for some info on it.
I heard "The Apple Tree" 10 years ago on DMX (a cable station I once subscribed to that played Broadway shows), and although I taped around 30+ shows from DMX, I didn't care enough for that show to tape it. However, no matter that the songs were forgettable, you saw Kristin Chenoweth. I love her voice. I may have mentioned before that her rendition of "My Funny Valentine", accompanied by violinist Joshua Bell, on a Richard Rodgers special, placed her on my list of all-time B'Way favorites. I enjoyed her in the TV productions of "Music Man" and "Candide", too. I'm glad you saw her.
Ben Brantley likes her, too (to put it mildly), as you can see from his New York Times review of The Apple Tree. (If the name Michael Cerveris sounds familiar, that's because he played Giorgio in the production of Sondheim's "Passion" that was on PBS recently).
Three Faces of Eve and a Bunch of Adams
By BEN BRANTLEY
The gods of musical theater are merciful, after all. After leading trusting New York audiences through an especially painful season in purgatory (with a side trip to hell, via "Good Vibrations"), they have now taken the suffering faithful into a cozy corner of paradise, where mortals sing like angels and old lame jokes discover that they can walk again. This place is called, as it should be, Eden - well, for the first act anyway - and it is somewhere you should definitely spend time if you need reassurance that musicals can still float next door to heaven.
"The Apple Tree," which runs at City Center only through Monday, is the final production of this season's Encores! series of Great American Musicals in Concert. And this life-giving interpretation of Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock's sweet but slender show, which lets the astounding Kristin Chenoweth fly over the moon in three different roles, is enough to make a believer of anyone who has started to doubt Encores!' reason to be.
Directed by Gary Griffin, and featuring expert performances from Malcolm Gets and Michael Cerveris, "The Apple Tree" restores faith in this series's ability to supply pure showbiz magic, the kind found in those transporting resurrections of vintage shows (from "Call Me Madam" to "Chicago") that Encores!, created in 1994, provided for nearly a decade before seeming to run out of enchantment.
A triptych of singing fables about Man and Woman (yes, with capital letters, please) through the ages, "The Apple Tree" received friendly but hardly ecstatic reviews when it opened on Broadway in 1966 for a 463-performance run. Though it featured a Tony-winning performance from the sublime Barbara Harris - who vanished, Garbo-like, from the Broadway stage shortly after - this follow-up to Mr. Harnick and Mr. Bock's superhit "Fiddler on the Roof" never felt bound for immortality. The show isn't much more than a series of cute comic sketches, drawn on paper that seemed destined to yellow quickly, with some agreeable tunes to perk things up.
But this production demonstrates that with the right talents on hand to supply texture and color, even cartoon sketches can be made to look like old master paintings. And the elegant simplicity with which it achieves this transformation makes most current Broadway musicals look either embarrassingly overdressed (toot toot to you, "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang") or downright tatty (hey, "Sweet Charity").
Based on short stories by Mark Twain, Frank R. Stockton and Jules Feiffer, "The Apple Tree" begins with Adam and Eve meeting cute in Eden, moves on to an ancient barbaric kingdom to recrack that chestnut of a conundrum known as "The Lady or the Tiger" and concludes with the latter-day fairy tale "Passionella," in which a sooty chimney sweep turns into a Marilyn Monroe look-alike.
As Jack Viertel, the Encores! artistic director, points out in his program notes, "The Apple Tree" capitalized on the vogue for bright, quick-take satire that was then blossoming in the United States in television revues like "That Was the Week That Was" and stage shows like "An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May." (It was no accident that Mr. Nichols directed the original "Apple Tree.")
Such humor generally has a limited shelf life. But this production elicits a sweetness at the core of "The Apple Tree," turning material that might seem quaintly sexist or buffoonish into remarkably fresh comic and musical stylings. Like Mr. Harnick and Mr. Bock's songs, which speak slyly in an assortment of musical tongues, this production is an engagingly modest showoff. It milks every ounce of charm available without ever pushing for effect.
This is especially true of Ms. Chenoweth, late of "Wicked," whose talent and timing seem to grow in scope and refinement with every new project. A distinctive stage presence, with her compactly curvaceous figure and xylophone smile, Ms. Chenoweth nonetheless manages to summon an entire choir of different voices and personae.
She is forthrightly feminine as the flower-loving, bossy Eve; as glamorously, hilariously feral as a heroine from a DeMille biblical epic as a blood-lusting barbarian princess; Charlie Chaplinesque as Ella the chimney sweep; and divinely self-worshipful as Ella's alter ego Passionella, the pneumatic movie star. Even within a single song, her voice may mutate from torchy brass to operatic trills, accented with precisely matched comic postures. (She has an especially winning way with a whip.) No performer in musicals today has her range, and she may be the best argument for cloning that the theater has to offer.
Mr. Gets, as the men in Ms. Chenoweth's lives , is less obviously virtuosic but just as delightful, finding a goofy, deadpan sincerity in each of his incarnations (parts originated by Alan Alda) without sliding into preciousness. And Mr. Cerveris brings burnished off-center wit to the roles of the Snake (for the Eden sequence) and two different narrators, a folkie balladeer and a BBC-style commentator.
It would be easy for these portrayals to cross into exhibitionist excess. Any such exaggeration would make this show's appeal, admittedly of the gossamer-thin variety, evaporate. But Mr. Griffin, known for his minimalist productions of "Pacific Overtures" and "My Fair Lady," understands that talents of the wattage assembled have no need of artificial exaggeration. Every element in this production - from its lighting (by Ken Billington) to its wry use of its chorus - is pitched to underscore, not overwhelm, the natural resources of its stars and score.
That score, by the way, has surely never been better served than it is by the Encores! orchestra under Rob Fisher, capturing the assorted moods of music that morphs from slow, warm simplicity ( the ballads of Adam and Eve) to restless hot jazz, Broadway-style ( the second and third acts). Sadly, this is the invaluable Mr. Fisher's last production as the music director of Encores! But true to the showbiz creed that is the religion of this series, he leaves his audience grinning and aching for more.
Thanks Bree. I just listened to some samples of Kristen's CD that has "My Funny Valentine"on it , but sadly it doesn't have Joshua Bell's violin which made it so outstanding. However ---- she does "You'll Never Know" with (from what I can tell from the Amazon sample) a piano and violin accompaniment. I love that song and her rendition. I think I'll buy that CD this evening.
So Apple Tree was the last show of the season. Do you know when the new season will start and what shows are scheduled, or is it too soon to get that info?
Signing off until tomorrow evening except for a quick peek here in the early A.M.
I ordered Kristin and one by Linda Eder. (I like Linda Eder, too.
)
Pleasant dreams.
Encores hasn't announced the shows for its next season yet. The performances are in February, March, and May, and they usually don't announce what shows they're doing until the fall. There have even been years when they've mailed out tickets that just say "Show 1", "Show 2", and "Show 3" on them -- and people still subscribe to the series, because they know whatever Encores does will be worth seeing.
I have a date with Brian Stokes Mitchell tomorrow evening (me and several hundred other people), so I may not "see" you again until Tuesday.
I hope you enjoy the CDs.
Ooooh. Brian Stokes Mitchell. That's exciting. I can't wait.
Here's a belated report on Brian Stokes Mitchell's concert last night. (I was waiting until I got home so I could refer to the program, to refresh my memory about what he sang.)
It was wonderful. If I have one criticism, it was that some of the arrangements were a little too jazzy for my taste - I prefer my Broadway show tunes and pop standards sung in a more straightforward style. For example, "How Long Has This Been Going On?" is such a great song, it doesn't (in my opinion) need the vocal frills he brought to it, but should be performed as simply as possible. But that criticism applies to only a few of the songs he sang, many of which were performed more simply. His performance of "It's Not Easy Being Green" was heartbreaking in its childlike simplicity. And near the end of the show, he sang three consecutive songs in the style of romantic crooners of the 1930's and 1940's (he mentioned Bing Crosby, Billy Eckstine, and Johnny Hartman as his inspirations for the way he sang them): "The Very Thought of You", "They Can't Take That Away From Me", and "Embraceable You". It was sensational. I was in the first row, and when he sang "Embraceable You" he walked around and sang to all the women in the first row in turn. (Unfortunately, I wasn't the lucky woman who got her hand kissed, but maybe that's a good thing, because if Brian Stokes Mitchell had kissed my hand, I would be tempted never to wash it again).
He also sang a couple of songs from My Fair Lady ("I'm an Ordinary Man" and "Show Me") in arrangements by John Williams, the film composer, which were interesting. When he finished "I'm an Ordinary Man", he asked, "Did you recognize the melody? Of course not - Rex Harrison never sang it!" And one of his encores was "The Impossible Dream", which has been one of his signature songs ever since he appeared in a revival of Man of la Mancha a couple of years ago. Anyone who thinks it's a cheesily sentimental song has never heard Brian Stokes Mitchell sing it.
Thanks bree! It's so nice to live vicariously thru you! <sigh>
Seriously, I appreciate that you see so much and come back and tell us about it.
Thanks for keeping us informed, Bree. Like Mac, I look forward to your adventures. I feel as if I've been there, too. And a front row seat. <sigh>
I saw Brian Stokes Mitchell perform "Impossible Dream" on Rosie O'Donnell's show (actually, I mentioned it on this thread at the time ) and he was superb. I loved Richard Kiley's (the original version) and couldn't imagine anyone else performing it as well. I now prefer Mitchell's version. And he looks great with a beard. (lol)
I don't like jazzed up versons of B'Way tunes either ---- and as for cheesy, - the cheesier, the better. they Can't Take That Away From Me and Embraceable You, another <sigh>.
Thanks for the kind words, guys -- it's good to know this stuff isn't boring you.
Things are kind of crazy at work, so I won't have time to start a new question for a while, but rest assured I'm not getting bored with this game!
I love your New York adventures.
This A.M. I recorded "People Will Talk" with Cary Grant and Jeanne Crain based on a play, "Dr. Med. Hiob Praetorious", by Kurt Goetz. Love that movie.
This afternoon I'll record "The Red Violin".
I haven't been around A2K much in the last couple of days, because my law school
Jason Robards (title)
took place this weekend. It was nice to have a chance to renew
Miriam Hopkins (title)
with all of
Jack Lemmon (title)
who came to
Diane Keaton (title)
for the event. After the official festivities ended yesterday evening, some of us continued celebrating in the bar of a nearby hotel, so it was well past
Claudette Colbert (title)
when I got home. When I walked in the door of my building, the night doorman (who isn't used to seeing me keep such hours) asked, "Did you have a nice night
Gene Kelly?" (title)
(I did.)
I haven't been around A2K much in the last couple of days, because my law school
Reunion (Jason Robards)
took place this weekend. It was nice to have a chance to renew
Old Acquaintance (Miriam Hopkins)
with all of
The Out-of-Towners (Jack Lemmon) (It's obvious from your enjoyment of the event that they weren't Grumpier Old Men.
who came to
Manhattan (Diane Keaton)
for the event. After the official festivities ended yesterday evening, some of us continued celebrating in the bar of a nearby hotel, so it was well past
Midnight (Claudette Colbert)
when I got home. When I walked in the door of my building, the night doorman (who isn't used to seeing me keep such hours) asked, "Did you have a nice night
On the Town? (Gene Kelly). (It wasn't raining was it? :wink: )
(I did.)
What a pleasant way to spend a weekend.
Nope, no rain on Saturday night -- it was just about the only rain-free part of the weekend!
Well, I asked because you might have been "Singin' in the Rain" (Gene Kelly)
Be back shortly with a new question. It will have to be another "music" one because nothing worth mentioning happens in this town.
Music connection:
Kristy McNichol (two words from title) + Sonja Henie (title)
Jeanne Crain - (title)
Merle Oberon (title)
George Murphy (title)
Donald O'Connor - (title)
I actually had to work for my living today (I hate when that happens). That's why I'm just getting back here with these songs of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed:
Just the Way You Are (Kristy McNichol) + My Lucky Star (Sonja Henie)
You Were Meant for Me (Jeanne Crain)
Temptation (Merle Oberon)
Broadway Rhythm (George Murphy)
Singin' in the Rain (Donald O'Connor)
