Here are three more suggestions for Musical Stage and the City:
Passing Strange at The Belasco Theatre
STEW. The word says it all. This yellow spectacled Man For All Music Seasons writes dynamic “song”, ingeniously combining cabaret, rock, Afro-Baroque and his unique turn of lyrical phrase. Mix that up with young Stew’s alter ego Youth, (Daniel Breaker) his wanderlust to flee his middle-class LA trappings to find life’s “real” in the streets of European bohemia via Amsterdam and Berlin, and you have Passing Strange. It’s theatre and music but never a rock musical… more like a live gig global travelogue brimming with shrewd viewpoint, delicious wit, and a huge universal heart. Y’all know that no matter far you run down that sex, drugs and rock and roll highway, you can never escape “The thing that is me”.
A Catered Affair at The Walter Kerr Theatre
With a script based on the 1955 teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky (Network) and screenplay by Gore Vidal, Harvey Fierstein, (Hairspray, Torch Song Trilogy) skilfully adapts this poignant slice of life family portrait into a musical. The Hurleys are the typical Bronx $125-a-week blue collar household that Chayefsky loved to write about - husband, wife, live in uncle (Fierstein) and two kids.
Aggie (Faith Prince) and Tom (Tom Wopat) Hurley have just lost their only son to the Korean War and daughter Janey is planning to elope. Tom, a cab driver, intends to use his son’s bereavement benefit cheque to buy his own cab, finally working for himself. Despite the fact her daughter wants no fuss made, Aggie is determined to throw Janey a lavish wedding, something Aggie never had.
Janey’s simple plan turns into an elaborate event, as Tom watches his money and a 20-year lifelong dream fritter away. But dreams can be deceiving. This is Thinking Man’s Broadway. Closes July 27, but don't be surprised to see it re-emerge on the American regional stage circuit.
Young Frankenstein at The Hilton Theatre
That’s Fronckensteen…. Ah Sweet Mystery of Musical life, At Last I’ve Found You!
Mel Brooks is at it again. It worked with The Producers, so now he’s giving the same high voltage treatment to Young Frankenstein. Brooks has taken all the best one liners: vould you like a roll in ze hay, he vas my boyfriend, hump, what hump?…. from his 1974 black and white cult classic and electro shocked it into a whizz bang Broadway musical.
From Dr Fronckensteen to Frau Blucher (cue whinnying horses) to The Monster and Inga and Igor (That's Eye-Gor.. the T is silent) – it’s all there in a 20 million dollar musical extravaganza. Think Monty Python’s Spamalot, cause you can sing along with all the YF gags from Transylvania Mania to toe-tappin' Irving Berlin classic Puttin’ on the Ritz. Roger Bart plays Frederick Fronckensteen to Sutton Foster’s steamy lab sexpot Inga, with Christopher Fitzgerald as Igor (Eye-Gor) and Andrea Martin as Frau Blucher (cue whinnying horses)
Channelling screen siren Marlene Dietrich, Megan Mullally plays frigid fiancé Elizabeth and The Monster’s main squeeze... Showstopper Deep Love is a down-and-dirty "nudge-nudge-wink-wink" ode to The Monster’s (Shuler Hensley’s) obvious endowment. It’s Alive!!!
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