Here’s another tidbit from Mary Martin’s autobiography My Heart Belongs:
Mr. Kern didn’t comment [on my audition] for a moment. Then he gave me some of the best advice I ever received—and I have had enough advice to fill this book and another besides. He said, "Miss Martin, why do you want to be a prima donna? They are a dime a dozen, and most of them have better voices than yours. Why don’t you find your own métier, your own style, and perfect it? Learn to be you.”
Then we visit another mouth:
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion . . .
That was Ralph Waldo Emerson in his oft-assigned essay Self-Reliance, his anthem of individuality.
Success breeds imitation, but imitation rarely breeds success. There are those with vision, then there are those who feed off the vision of others. Yes, no vision is entirely independent—we are all shaped by that which we encounter because, as Richard Rodgers once said, nothing comes from nothing. However, there is a monumental difference between chasing the trends and being authentic to whom you are as an artist.
For example, look at Mamma Mia, a show which has been phenomenally popular. How many investors dolled out money for Good Vibrations, All Shook Up, and Ring of Fire thinking that it was a new trend, the jukebox musical? How many of those shows were being developed before Mamma Mia hit it big—not many, likely.
Hollywood is a good example of this. In My Heart Belongs, Mary Martin writes about how she was, at different times in Hollywood, fashioned to look like many of the big mega-stars of the day—Rosalind Russell, Claudette Colbert, Jean Arthur—a practice which was popular at the time.
Hollywood is no different today. After Gladiator, we got Troy, Alexander, and others I don’t remember (and which, in twenty years, no one else will either). After The Lord of the Rings, we got The Chronicles of Narnia, The Golden Compass, and a myriad of other similar movies. How many of them have been successful? The two based on classic novels that remained fully true to their original sources.
Even among Hollywood actresses today, the people who thrive are those who are unique. The dime-a-dozen generic blondes might get to be some muscle-bound action hero’s wife in a movie or two, then get relegated to bimbo parts on television, but it’s Julia Styles, Renee Zellweger, Amy Adams, Glenn Close, Christina Ricci, and Rachel Weisz who hit the big time.
This has been a part of my own personal journey. I am learning to embrace the fact that my writing is never going to be as witty as Michael Frayn or that my dialogue will never be as snappy as Tom Stoppard’s, but what my writing does have is much heart, much middle-America appeal, and brains. If I write plays and fiction that is true to myself, then I will do what no one else can do better—write like myself.
So, just as Mary Martin had to learn to stop trying to be other people in order to hit it big—and hit it big she did—we have to do the same. By her own account, her cheek bones were wrong, her neck was too long, and her nose was too rounded. She even says she lost her high soprano after touring in Annie Get Your Gun, but what she had was something different, something that couldn’t be hired in anyone else. She had Mary Martin.
You knew it had to come. See how well you know some of your (and my) favorite Broadway mouths. A name bank is included below, but beware! There are more names than Broadway mouths. Scroll down to the bottom of the post for the answers.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
8. 9. 10.
11.
12.
Laura Benanti Will Chase Merle Dandridge Hunter Foster Cheyenne Jackson Carly Jibson Judy Kaye Marin Mazzie Audra McDonald Donna McKechnie Idina Mensel Kenita Miller Matthew Morrison Broadway Mouth Adam Pascal Anthony Rapp Douglas Sills Rachel York
the Broadway Mouth April 4, 2008
The Answers: Broadway Mouth 1: Hunter Foster (in a photo from Urinetown) Broadway Mouth 2: Laura Benanti (in a photo from The Wedding Singer) Broadway Mouth 3: Marin Mazzie (in a photo from Ragtime) Broadway Mouth 4: Idina Menzel (in a photo from Broadway.com) Broadway Mouth 5: Matthew Morrison (in a photo from South Pacific) Broadway Mouth 6: Judy Kaye (in a photo from Sweeney Todd) Broadway Mouth 7: Rachel York (in a promotional photo from The Scarlet Pimpernel) Broadway Mouth 8: Audra McDonald (in a headshot) Broadway Mouth 9: Carly Jibson (in a photo from Hairspray) Broadway Mouth 10: Merle Dandridge (in a professional photo) Broadway Mouth 11: Douglas Sills (in a promotional photo from The Scarlet Pimpernel) Broadway Mouth 12: Broadway Mouth (taken outside the Pantages Theatre in LA; I figured it was only fair I that I do it to myself too)
On a recent trip to buy a new Broadway show CD, I picked out the 2002 Marvin Hamlisch/Craig Carnelia show Sweet Smell of Success, the adaptation of the Burt Lancaster film which, at this juncture, is a show most remembered for its cast. The role of J.J. Hunsecker won John Lithgow his Tony award, but it was golden-voiced Brain d’Arcy James (future Shrek and past stoker Frederick Barrett of the Titanic) who spent most of the evening on the stage. The Sweet Smell of Success would also be the OBCR rookie card for an ingénue named Kelli O’Hara. Unlike another prolific leading lady who also got her big, big break that season—Sutton Foster—O’Hara’s show didn’t win the Tony, but she walked away with an equally prolific career. Also of note in the cast is Frank Vlastnik, co-author of the favorite Broadway book Broadway Musicals.
In perusing written documentation of the work, critical response to the show is a curious mixture. In Broadway Musicals, Vlastnik and co-author Ken Bloom identify Sweet Smell of Success as a show in which the book (by John Guare) surpasses the music, though they also call the whole show ahead of its time elsewhere.
Ethan Mordden, premiere historian of the Broadway musical, includes the show in his chapter on “Five Special Shows” in The Happiest Corpse I’ve Ever Seen, his documentation of “The Last 25 Years of the Broadway Musical.” In this chapter, he discusses shows that he identifies as, well, special, unique, and probably the antithesis of his book’s title. He praises Sweet Smell of Success for taking a brilliant film and adding a lacking ingredient—reality, taking the film’s “stick figures” and creating human figures.
According to Barry Singer in Ever After, the show was actually a project initiated by Garth Drabinsky during the short-lived glory years of Livent, and his feelings on the result was, well, to be polite I’ll paraphrase Singer’s words, bad. Sony actually tried to back out of its contractual commitment to record the score, though, in a reported mist of secrecy, the show was thankfully recorded (If anyone wants to share the dirt . . . I’d like to hear!).
There’s not much like the joy of buying the Original Broadway Cast recording of a show you never saw, paging through the notes and pictures, and following the story being told in song. Sweet Smell of Success has the added bonus of beautiful cover artwork—a supreme use of black-and-white photographs to convey the essence of gossip-mongering with an appealing chalk orange that complements the tone. No matter how great the cover artwork, however, the experience is best when the score is worth discovering, and my purchase of Sweet Smell of Success has been among the best of experiences.
Why Marvin Hamlisch isn’t a regular presence on Broadway, I’ll never know. Perhaps it’s a result of all those happy royalties from A Chorus Line, but this twice in the seventies and once a decade thereafter isn’t enough!
Like the best of the contemporary scores, the plot of Sweet Smell of Success can be mostly followed through the recording. The plot concerns Sidney Falcone (Brian d’Arcy James), a budding press agent willing to scheme and fib to make it to the top, to catch the aroma of the sweet smell of success. However, on Broadway as in real life, one desperate action always leads to another when Sidney falls into the clutches of mega-time gossip columnist and power broker J.J. Hunsecker (John Lithgow’s role patterned after Walter Winchell). So close to his goal, Sidney becomes willing to do whatever he can to keep in the manipulative Hunsecker’s good graces. Kelli O’Hara is Susan, J.J.’s overprotected sister who is mad for singer Dallas Cochran, both of whom become pawns for the controlling J.J. Hunsecker and the desperate Sidney Falcone.
It is interesting to view Sweet Smell of Success in relation to Broadway’s traditional interpretation of the American Dream. In other musicals—The Pajama Game; Hello, Dolly!; Hairspray—the pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps hero/heroine is the successful embodiment of the American Dream. In Sidney Falcone we are presented with a character who is an equally realistic interpretation of the American Dream (if Dolly Levi is the “I worked hard to make it” dreamer, then Sidney Falcone is the equally truthful “I succeeded from the blood of others” dreamer). By the end of Sweet Smell of Success, one succeeds not from hard work or determination, but from one’s ability to outwit, outlast, and outplay.
What is unusual about the recording of Sweet Smell of Success is that while the story is undeniably bleak and filled with interesting repulsive characters who do repulsive things, to quote Little Sally, “the music’s so happy.” Okay, that’s not a completely accurate description, but whereas bleak shows like those of Michael John LaChiusa or Jason Robert Brown carry the weight of their themes in the music, an unsuspecting ear could easily think of the score to Sweet Smell of Success as something flashy and fun. Of course, there is darkness in the score—the disturbing base line in “For Susan” or the two-faced lyrics of “Don’t Look Now” for starters—but at heart, Sweet Smell of Success plays on CD like a big, classic Broadway musical, perhaps akin to Chicago in how the light is used to mask the dark.
What this means is that musically, Sweet Smell of Success is a great listen on CD, providing a showcase for Brian d’Arcy James who has, when given the music that showcases it, one of the best male voices on Broadway hands-down. His “At the Fountain” is a powerful testament to the hope-filled side of the American Dream, the title referring to a story he tells in which Lana Turner got discovered at a soda fountain, just as J.J. Hunsecker has discovered him.
Kelli O’Hara gets to shine with James in “What If,” another strong entry on a recording filled with them. In it, Susan pleads with Sidney to make a name for Dallas, while the chorus echoes the warning flags inside Sidney’s mind.
Another O’Hara gem is her duet with Jack Noseworthy “Don’t Know Where You Leave Off,” the prerequisite love song ingeniously sprinkled with sung dialogue, beautifully written and beautifully sung.
John Lithgow, not surprisingly, is one of those talents whose strength lies in interpretation rather than singing, so his few songs on the disc are marked with his intonations. His “For Susan” is both loving and wistful as well as pain-filled and dangerous. His highlight, though, is the vaudeville-styled “Don’t Look Now,” a great Broadway song in which he is the magician with “nothing up their sleeve” who only seeks “to deceive.”
In addition to Hamlisch’s music, kudos must be given to Carnelia’s great lyrics. Topped with exact rhymes, Carnelia’s lyrics dig into the passion and drives of the characters, alternating with wit and charm where needed (like the clever use of numbers in “One Track Mind”). Hearing the few intervals of sung dialogue (placed in the middle of songs) reminds the listener of how it can be done perfectly rather than perfunctorily as is often done in some un-named British shows.
In short, I love this score, and I'll have to make a point of getting the libretto.
After investigating on one of the best research tools available for musical theatre—Talkin’ Broadway’s All That Chat—it’s interesting to note how director Nicholas Hytner and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon handled the dual duties of the chorus, which act both as a traditional chorus and as the voice for Sidney’s inner thoughts (presumably similar to what happens in Jane Eyre). Here, to emphasize Sidney’s inner dialogue, the chorus was staged to surround Brian d’Arcy James (as Sidney) to sing to him, while their more traditional chorus parts were danced and performed in traditional chorus style.
Honestly, if I was still directing high school musicals, I would love to check into Sweet Smell of Success because in a production with a big cast, there would be a lot of play space for what the chorus could do and how they could be used to interpret Sidney’s thoughts, particularly when the director could divide the chorus into two categories. With completely different actors in each chorus, a different set of costumes, and a clever use of lights, there’s much that could be done with this music.
Sadly, the song “Dirt” preserved by the Tony Awards is oddly one of the least-memorable of the bunch on the CD. Sweet Smell of Success announced closing the performance after that Tonys airing—a moment touchingly retold by John Lithgow on a bonus interview on the Show Business: The Road to Broadway DVD. Perhaps the plot was simply too bleak, too inaccessible. Maybe it was the harsh reviews. Sweet Smell of Success survived only about 3.5 months (109 performances and 18 previews) in the Martin Beck Theatre. Once again, thank God for cast recordings, for whatever the show was on stage, on CD, it makes for a great listen.
In her autobiography My Heart Belongs, Mary Martin writes:
A fine libretto, wonderful music, a role full of vitality can make milestones in the careers of entirely different personalities in the theater. Annie [Oakley] was one of those roles. It was one of Ethel Merman’s unforgettable ones; it gave Delores [Gray] her first big break; it afforded me many of my happiest hours onstage.
And that brings up one more thing I have learned: beware of any role which somebody says is "written especially for you." If the role isn’t written so well, so strongly, that any professional can play it, don’t get involved. That, too, is what theater is all about.
Some examples:
Mama Rose: Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone (not to mention the many great regional Roses)
Dolly Levi: Carol Channing, Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Pearl Bailey, Ginger Rogers, Martha Raye (and that’s the short list)
Charity Hope Valentine: Gwen Verdon, Shirley MacLaine, Debbie Allen, Donna McKechnie, Charlotte d’Amboise, Christina Applegate
Perhaps Martin’s statement rings true because the basis of any production of a show that is either new or used is interpretation. The interpretation is derived from the libretto, which means that a great role can survive many different interpretations, provided they are rooted in the text and supported by the playwright’s intentions. If someone is writing a show for a specific personality, that means that they could be using that actor’s natural charisma, acting style, or personality as a crutch, to cover any gaps in characterization.
As you can imagine, I’m always casting shows as I write them, organizing my dream cast as I go along; however, it’s equally delighting to think of the many different actors who could also play the part. I feel like I’ve done my job if I can imagine people with different appearances, voices, or personas taking on the roles.
I was a big fan of Melinda Doolittle’s versatile performance abilities on American Idol last season. Whatever genre was thrown at her, she could handle it with finesse and style.
Recently she released a single on iTunes, her rendition of the Rodgers and Hart classic “My Funny Valentine” from Babes in Arms, probably either as a net to see what interest there would be if she were to release a full album or, possibly, as a promotion of something to come.
True to her style from when performing on the show, she begins her rendition with soaring voice but lacking in emotional direction. It’s as if she’s enjoying the vocalization without communicating a strong intent; however, there comes the moment in the song when she and the orchestrations collide into an up-tempo rhythm that grooves the song for modern audiences. I love it. If Doolittle were to release a full album of pop standards, not only would it give songs of this style—many of which are classic Broadway songs—a new audience, but it would give us a great full-length album.
It is worth noting that this is not the same version Doolittle performed on American Idol; it is much better.
The download in only 99 cents. Check it out!
the Broadway Mouth April 1, 2008
(Note: And while you’re there, check out the Webber Trio from the My Favorite Broadway: The Leading Ladies concert. It’s the glorious arrangement of “Love Changes Everything,” “Unexpected Song,” and “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” so beautifully sung by Audra McDonald, Marin Mazzie, and Judy Kuhn. It’s simply to die for. Except you don’t have to die for it. It’s only 99 cents!)
When it was “slipped” to me, I was told that the demo recording was filled with songs that weren’t that great, that weren’t very “catchy” (his actual words). I won’t go into great detail because I know how stupid and artistically unethical it is to review or go into length concerning a work that is in progress; it’s something delicate, and God knows that anything could change between now and Broadway. However, I do think a little preview to whet your appetite is warranted. And I will go far enough to say that I’d have to overall disagree with my kind informant, quite a lot, actually.
The opening number of this show will probably be the most exciting opening number of recent times, rivaling another exciting opening number from this songwriting duo. With a full orchestra and a great voice, the audience will be jamming with the rock and country-infused tune (perhaps it’s rockabilly—my knowledge of musical terms from this particular era is underdeveloped, I’m afraid). Of course, the staging will be very important as well (it could become redundant), but I have to say that I keep listening to the song, and based on that number alone, I’d want to buy a ticket.
What may have caused someone to say the music isn’t very catchy could be that, while there are some strong rock-infused songs, there are also many numbers in, I’m not even sure I know how to accurately describe it, in the crooner style, perhaps that of a Frank Sinatra or a Dean Martin. But I would say that these songs are not only very theatrical in nature but also very exciting in their own right.
Perhaps where the negative comment may have come from is that it’s hard to tell how the final songs will play, perhaps because they are performed by the composer and not Broadway singers (though he does very well elsewhere). Sometimes it’s hard to tell if they are meant to be sincere or if they fulfill some other function within the plot. Since Urinetown, it’s hard to know if river metaphors are serious or not. A few of those final songs almost feel the same, though one really can’t judge a theatre song based solely on the recording. The book could very well support the styles and that’s what matters most.
Two more words must be said, one about a track performed by, it has to be, Patti LuPone (can anyone confirm or deny the presence of a Patti LuPone?) in a beautiful song that won’t sound nearly as stunning without her singing it (though maybe I’ll make out more of the words), and another favorite being sung by a prostitute character. I don’t know who’s singing it on the demo, but it has been a part rumored at various times to be going to well-known singers. I don’t know who the woman on the recording is, but she knocks it out of the park. I want to see her on stage.
I look forward to when this show opens, not only to hear this music live, but to see how the story has been made to work on stage. This particular source material has a lot of strength, but if the last 1/3 of the source material isn’t made to work on stage (and plain-old fixed; the source material never had a strong ending), the strength of the songs I’ve heard so far won’t do much good. That said, I can tell you that this story is in good hands.
I recently quoted a writer from Variety saying that those in the music industry need to stand up and take notice of the talent on Broadway. Perhaps Jessica Simpson would have a hit with a song like one of these on the radio. In the old days, artists could have one or two good songs on an album then pad them with crap. Here’s an album with a plethora of strong melodies. Hello, music industry . . . ?
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