It Looked Good on Paper

by Bill Fawcett

  Given the elegance of their milieu, the amusement of their banter, and their branded name recognition in the public eye, Nick and Nora Charles seemed tailor-made for the Broadway musical stage.

  The transition to stage from book or film is often precarious. It requires a skilled hand familiar with all these modes and acquainted with their virtues and pitfalls. Arthur Laurents was such a man, author of the novels on which his screenplays to the hit movies The Way We Were and The Turning Point were based, the books for such hit musicals as West Side Story and Gypsy, and a Tony Award–winning director for the film-based hit musical La Cage aux Folles.

  Partnered with him on the project was the estimable Charles Strouse, the Tony Award–winning composer of both Annie and Applause, hit musicals based on high-profile properties (the comic strip Little Orphan Annie and the movie All About Eve respectively), not to mention his classic toe-tapping contemporary score for Bye Bye, Birdie.

  There could be no question that these two learned hands understood the tastes of the general public necessary to produce a hit, and with both La Cage and Annie still very much in the public eye, their names were also worthy of marquee status.

  Stepping into the shoes of William Powell and Peter Lawford in the role of the debonair, tippling Nick Charles was Barry Bostwick, who had originated the role of Danny Zucco in the original Broadway production of Grease, earned a Best Lead Actor in a Musical Tony for The Robber Bridegroom, and had widespread media exposure for his part as Brad in The Rocky Horror Picture Show as well as numerous TV mini-series.

  Nora was assayed by an equally esteemed Broadway veteran named Joanna Gleason, with numerous Tony nominations to her credit, including a recent win for Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, as well as prominent parts in a couple of Woody Allen’s films.

  And some of the names below the titles were no less impressive. Christine Baranski as Tracy Gardner had already been the recipient of two supporting actress Tony Awards and was gradually attracting even more attention to her film and TV work through her turn as Claus Von Bulow’s current girlfriend in the movie Reversal of Fortune.

  Christopher Sarandon played Nick’s romantic rival, and though far from a household name (despite a previous Academy Award nomination in the Supporting Actor category for Dog Day Afternoon) had managed to maintain a regular profile on Broadway and in numerous showy parts in films such as Fright Night. (He also had a profile as Susan Sarandon’s first husband, and coincidently married Joanna Gleason after the show closed.)

  The unheralded surprise of the show was the talent of Faith Prince in her second Broadway show, after winning a Tony for her debut in Merrily We Roll Along two years earlier. Here she was cast in the pivotal role of the murder victim, with flashback sequences featuring her both before and after her demise.

  You couldn’t ask for a more solid marquee cast.

  The show’s initial opening date was announced almost a year in advance. This was scheduled to allow plenty of pre-premiere sales to out-of-town theater junkets, as well as set the stage for success through a fall opening that could be promoted through the holiday season (including national coverage via excerpts featured on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade pre-show as well as a float in the parade itself). All along the marketing plan was designed to make the show as much of a hit show for out-of-towners coming to New York on holiday as for the resident New York–area Broadway patrons.

  In an era that was growing accustomed to “wait and see” box-office economics, Nick and Nora was pre-sold as the guaranteed hot ticket for the year-end holiday season.

  With the score and book well in hand, the leads signed, and a production budget befitting its intended success, the schedule was perfectly timed to its overall potential.

  Everything was in place for a bankable long-running hit to rival Annie, but somehow the show that looked so good on paper did not appear as rosy on the musical stage.

  The plot and chemistry strayed from the “Thin Man” formula, a victim of modernization and political correctness. The simple “whodunit” formula may have appeared too dated to modern sensibilities, and gave way to a convoluted Rashomon rococo plot that was way too demanding to be taken seriously, and the archetypal Charleses themselves were evolved to a post-Moonlighting era of man vs. woman competition (perhaps to replace the now unfashionable tippling that seemed to be so much a part of their characters and indeed their relationship).

  And somewhere midway between the time tickets went on sale, and the first scheduled opening night, word of mouth turned ugly—and all of the professionals involved (plus more than a few so-called hired guns) dug in to resolve the problems with changes upon changes upon changes.

  Opening night was postponed several times in favor of additional previews to “retool” the show. Over four million dollars in budget overruns were incurred as two weeks of scheduled previews became nine. Several more experts were brought in to observe/comment/consult/fix the show, whose opening date was postponed no less than three times. (This drew a query from the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs, who questioned the suitability of charging patrons who had reserved tickets well in advance for a finished production considering that, since changes were made after almost each performance, the show was obviously still just a work in progress.)

  Seventy-one previews passed prior to opening night.

  And when opening night finally came, most of the critics were disappointed. It was nowhere near as bad as they were expecting (they had hoped it would unseat Moose Murders and Carrie: The Musical in the all-time-worst columns)—which is not to say that it was good—or even adequate.

  In the words of Frank Rich: “There is no escaping the unfortunate fact that the liveliest thing in Nick and Nora is a corpse” (which some PR types tried to spin as a rave for Prince appearing in it, thus implying the show was a “must-see”).

  The show closed seven performances after its official opening.

  The Times did a post-mortem after the closing, concluding that some shows should never have been done as musicals but Nick & Nora wasn’t one of them as “there was considerable potential here—a pair of sophisticated sleuths who have long since laid claim to our affections; a stylish Los Angeles setting at a time when the smog had yet to settle in permanently and the sunsets lived up to the lurid colors in the picture postcards; a murder story, presumably told with a light, bantering touch. Plus Asta, a performing dog.”

  But all produced naught, as a hit musical that looked good on paper failed to live up to its potential, and the world championship level team that mounted her struck out before the opposing team ever took the field.

  “Everyone judges plays as if they were very easy to write. They don’t know that it is hard to write a good play, and twice as hard and tortuous to write a bad one.”

  —Anton Pavlovich Chekhov

  By Jeeves

  Brian M. Thomsen

  Wunderkind showmen are a curious breed. A string of successes at an early professional age can spawn two resulting situations—an expectation by audiences of something similar of equal or greater quality, as well as, usually at the same time, the desire of the showman to do something new and completely different to show his facility with diverse materials.

  This disconnection between audience expectation and “artist’s nature” has led to some pleasant surprises—but in most cases, mutual disappointments.

  Such was the case with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s By Jeeves.

  Webber, with his collaborator Tim Rice, exploded onto the London/Broadway theatrical scene with two “pop” musicals (then dubbed “rock operas”) based on biblical sources. Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat utilized a variety of song styles to tell the Genesis story of Joseph, the son of Jacob who was sold into slavery in Egypt by his own brothers. It garnered nice notices and helped the authors get backing for their next project, released as a recording before its stage debut. This was Jesus Christ Superstar, and it took the world by storm in the early seventies,
though some considered it downright blasphemous.

  First it took Broadway. Then it took London—and the world.

  In no time at all the names Webber and Rice were synonymous with the new performance oeuvre “rock opera,” and Yvonne Ellmann’s recordings of “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” and “Everything’s Alright” (from Jesus Christ Superstar) were crossover hits that made the show’s soundtrack a platinum seller and laid the groundwork for her later success as a disco diva with the Saturday Night Fever hit “If I Can’t Have You.”

  Needless to say everyone was waiting for the next Webber and Rice extravaganza.

  The only problem was that the two could not agree how to proceed.

  There was a project they were both excited about, but Rice just didn’t feel that it was the right next thing. (Rice later admitted his reason for nixing the project was more because he felt daunted by the source material than by market expectations.)

  So Webber, the composer, decided to proceed without him. The composer of cutting-edge theatrical entertainment daringly chose to adapt to the musical stage…the old-fashioned novels of P.G. Wodehouse—in particularly the stories about Bertie Wooster and his gentleman’s gentleman, Jeeves.

  Now Webber was no fool—he realized that he needed a wordsmith to match his music mastery, and he enlisted the master playwright Alan Ayckbourn. Ayckbourn’s numerous successes (including Absurd Person Singular and The Norman Conquests trilogy) had earned him accolades as the Noel Coward of the modern era, making him seem the perfect scribe for the mannered mayhem of the Wodehouse materials.

  The New York Times was kind in its assessment of the London production, asserting that Jeeves was “a well dressed flop.” It opened on April 22, 1975, and closed after only thirty-eight performances—and numerous critical drubbings. This was a far cry from the accolades and praise bestowed upon Jesus Christ Superstar and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Not only did it fail to become a crowd pleaser and make its way across the Atlantic, it also failed to launch Webber as a bankable commodity sans Rice. (The two reunited for one last collaboration the following year. Evita’s success more or less proved that their talents were neither flash in pan nor biblically confined.)

  After once again parting ways with Rice, Webber did succeed on his own with such crowd-pleasing, record-setting theatrical blockbusters as Cats and Phantom of the Opera (and to a lesser extent Starlight Express and Sunset Boulevard).

  Soon success reinvigorated Webber’s ego, causing him to look back and question his worst theatrical failure.

  The answer was obvious—it wasn’t what the audiences were expecting. Nothing wrong with the material—perhaps the timing had been wrong.

  Since the now Lord Webber was now the consistent sultan of theatrical success, it was time to revisit the piece. Webber’s return to creative status assured backing. A nip and tuck here, drop a song, add a song, plus a bit more dialogue and plot surgery by Ayckbourn, and on May 1, 1996, Jeeves, now titled By Jeeves, opened in London for a limited season to what one might refer to as “kind reviews”—at least kinder than those of the original production.

  Webber interpreted this as the sign that he had gotten it right this time and started plans to slowly move it to Broadway where all of his other shows were flourishing. The fact that the Frye and Laurie BBC versions of the Wodehouse stories had already appeared on U.S. public television had no doubt already prepared American audiences for the sheer delight of the mannerly adventures of a young man and his gentleman’s gentleman.

  And slowly it did move to Broadway, with all of the hoopla and presale of an in-demand Webber extravaganza from the genius behind Cats and Phantom.

  Despite its being a new version, the Times was still unmoved, with the headline on the review “Fooleries From Fey to Tedious,” and though it was not panned in the tradition of Carrie: The Musical or Moose Murders, it failed to secure either accolades or an audience draw beyond the presale.

  Perhaps Wodehouse is not the right subject for an American audience who have come to expect pyrotechnics and flash from the Really Useful Lord Webber.

  Or maybe it was just not very good Webber.

  Its second and probably last incarnation closed after a very short run, having failed to recoup even a substantial fraction of its developmental costs.

  “All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.”

  —Jean-Luc Godard

  The Big Flop in the Big Top

  Brian M. Thomsen

  The 1960s saw more than a music revolution in rock and roll; it saw a media revolution as well.

  When the Beatles came up with their “innovation” of the “concept album” (or as they referred to it—“an album that could take the place of a tour,” the lads from Liverpool having tired of the hassles of the road and the media eye twenty-four/seven) with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which encompassed not just musical evolution for the band, but shades of fictional characterization, theatricality, and elements of plot and mystery (including the still debated “Paul is dead” set of clues) which attracted almost the same amount of attention as a personal appearance without the in-person hassles, it was a win-win scenario.

  For their bad boy British rivals, the Rolling Stones, however, it was perceived as the equivalent of a schoolyard challenge. “Keep up or Give up.”

  So when the Stones’ concept album Their Satanic Majesties Request failed to set the world on fire and managed instead to focus more praise on Sgt. Pepper, the Stones knew they would have to up the ante even more.

  A concept wasn’t going to be enough—it had to be a full-out extravaganza. And what better concept for an extravaganza than a circus—a rock and roll circus—a one-night-only themed event, with numerous guest stars leading up to a center ring performance by the Stones themselves.

  Allegedly the concept was Mick Jagger’s, and he immediately cast himself as the ringmaster. He approached director Michael Lindsay-Hogg to come on board and take the helm so that it could be recorded for broadcast as a BBC event in conjunction with the album release. (Hogg had previously directed the group’s performances on numerous UK TV variety shows.)

  Immediately an impressive card of supporting acts was lined up, including the soon-to-be ascendant groups The Who and Jethro Tull as well as Taj Mahal and the Stones’ woman-in-waiting (a star in her own right) Marianne Faithfull. Also included was a one-time-only super-group called Dirty Mac, which featured John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell, and Keith Richards on bass guitar.

  Jagger and Lindsay-Hogg lined up a sound stage for the performance, while inside they had a seedy big-top circus tent erected, with equally shabby carnival costumes and props supplied for all. They then arranged an invitation-only audience to fill up the bleacher seating and cheer and applaud on cue to increase the circus ambience.

  The Stones would take turns introducing the other acts, all leading to a rousing main act of the band performing such already classic Stones hits as “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Sympathy for the Devil.” Lindsay-Hogg would direct the filming while Jagger commanded the performances in the center ring. The captured-on-film concert was then slated to be run as a prime time television special on the BBC.

  The date of performance was December 11, 1968, and the cameras began to roll at two in the afternoon. Jagger took the center ring in his role as ringmaster, welcomed the audience to the circus, and then introduced Jethro Tull.

  Unfortunately, though the man behind the camera was well prepared for the filming, the man in the center ring had basically decided to improvise the entire thing..

  Moreover no one had factored in the set-up and take-down time that was necessary between acts, so the show proceeded with many fits and starts at a pace that drained not just the performers but the audience as well. (That there was undoubtedly “much partying” of a sixties sort didn’t help matters along; to say nothing of the substance abuse problems of Brian Jones, on the verge of being kicked out of the band due to
his drug habit and unreliability.)

  As a result the Stones themselves didn’t get their performance shot in front of the cameras until many hours later (5 a.m. the following morning), when all parties concerned were on the verge of exhaustion. (All participants credited Jagger’s stamina and his embodiment of the ringmaster role as the sole reason that the marathon production made it through to the bitter end.) With the final bars of “Salt of the Earth,” the set was struck, and everybody went home.

  A rough cut was quickly assembled by Lindsay-Hogg and Jagger, and soon thereafter the BBC airing was cancelled. Unsubstantiated rumors began to fly that the show was cancelled because the Stones had been upstaged by the other bands—but given the conditions all of them performed under that doesn’t seem likely; for the most part the performances were all mediocre and not anywhere near the classic levels of rock and roll filmmaking that would soon be attained in Woodstock or Gimme Shelter or even Lindsay-Hogg’s subsequent Let It Be.

  The bottom line was that they had promised a crowd-pleasing rock’n’roll extravaganza—and had failed to deliver.

  The Stones accepted defeat, ended their era of attempting to one-up the Beatles, and placed the filmed footage in a vault, moving on with their careers—including the dismissal of Brian Jones from the band.

  The cost of the Rock and Roll Circus was written off as a failed experiment and became the subject of rumors and whispers. With the exception of the soon-to-be-dead-from-a-drug-overdose Jones, all parties recovered from this perceived fiasco (financially if not artistically).

  Director Lindsay-Hogg went on to direct the Beatles’ final film Let It Be, the critically acclaimed BBC mini-series Brideshead Revisited, as well as numerous successful London and Broadway productions, such as Master Harold and the Boys.