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Feinstein’s at Loews Regency – August 29
“Broadway, it’s a magical, mystical place,” performer Robert Cuccioli told the audience early on in ‘Broadway Live!’—”and it’s only a couple blocks away!”
That may have been the central problem with this revue. With the epicenter of the American Musical Theatre so close by, few audience members here really needed a show that was essentially an extended medley of the Street’s greatest hits. It’s possible, though, that the show was really designed with regional audiences in mind. If so, I wonder whether the creators have perhaps underestimated the show-tune savvy of people living in the provinces. Many musical-theatre aficionados make their home in the Corn Belt and beyond. And while many people there may not be schooled in the difference between Alan Jay Lerner and Andrew Lloyd Webber and would be happy to hear nothing but familiar songs, wouldn’t throwing in a few rarities satisfy a wider range of customers?
Broadway Live!, in effect, asked its listeners to harvest the biggest chestnuts that ever plopped on Shubert Alley’s pavement. After an opener featuring Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim’s “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” (from Gypsy) came a group of songs by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. And you can bet we didn’t get neglected gems from Allegro or Pipe Dream either. No, it was “Some Enchanted Evening” and “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair” from South Pacific and “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top” from Oklahoma! Other familiar-to-the-point-of-cliché songs in the show included Jerry Herman’s title number from Hello Dolly!, Andrew Lloyd Webber, T.S. Eliot and Trevor Nunn’s “Memory” from Cats, and Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” from A Little Night Music.” Nothing wrong with any of those, but a few obscurities would have added variety to the mix.
Cuccioli was joined by singers Terry Burrell and Christianne Tisdale, accompanied by musical director/arranger Barry Levitt on piano and Jon Burr on bass. All three singers have played on Broadway, and they clearly know how to sell a song. In one of the more successful segments in the show, each performer took a solo turn, talking about his or her experience on the Main Stem and singing a representative number. The producers might think about moving this segment to an earlier point in the show. The evening would be stronger if the performers made a deeper impression as individuals from the outset. As is, the show’s largely chronological arrangement of songs makes the itinerary read even more like a syllabus for Broadway History 101.
If the New York theatre represents the height of urban sophistication, you’d never know it from the performance style that the three performers adopted for this show. There was a bouncy quality about it that suggested a lounge act—a potluck casserole heavy with corn, cheese, and ham. Things seemed to have been needlessly dumbed down. For instance, on “Surrey with the Fringe,” the singers twice used dangling fingers to mime fringe, as though it were some strange, esoteric invention.
Cuccioli, undoubtedly the best-known performer in the group, was at his best when singing in a jazzier mode, as he did on “Surrey.” There he sounded, and from a certain angle even looked, a little like a younger Jack Jones, which is a good thing. But he struggled a bit on “Some Enchanted Evening” and seemed uncomfortable trying to mimic Michael Crawford’s creepy-voiced Phantom of the Opera on “The Music of the Night” (Andrew Lloyd Webber, Charles Hart, Richard Stilgoe), especially when he ran his fingers up and down his own torso (that works better when you’re wearing a mask, I think). Only on “This is the Moment,” Cuccioli’s signature number from Frank Wildhorn and Leslie Bricusse’s Jekyll & Hyde, did the singer cut loose completely. In any event, he had to carry a heavy load throughout the evening. Perhaps adding a second male singer to the mix would make the show come off as fuller and more harmonically balanced.
Both of the women seemed most at home with brassy showstoppers; we didn’t get many selections associated with sweet-voiced Broadway ingénues. Tisdale’s best turn, however, was actually in a quieter vein: a heartfelt version of the title song from Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s Beauty and the Beast (a show in which Tisdale had appeared, in the role of Belle). I was less taken with her “Adelaide’s Lament” from Frank Loesser’s score to Guys and Dolls. She had all the requisite nasal distress and some cute, dainty sneezes, but it all came off as a bit mechanical.
I’ve heard Burrell sound more at ease elsewhere, notably in the York Theatre’s 2000 John Latouche revue, Taking a Chance on Love. Here she seemed to be pushing a bit, although she had fun with a Lena Horne-ish rendition of “If I Were a Bell” from Guys and Dolls, and she sailed when taking the lead on “Age of Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” (James Rado, Gerome Ragni, Galt McDermot) from Hair.
But the Hair sequence represented the nadir of the aforementioned lounge-act syndrome, especially with Cuccioli sporting an improvised headband and smoking an imaginary joint. Picture Lawrence Welk’s blazer-clad ensemble performing a salute to Mick Jagger and the Stones back in the days of Richard Nixon, and you’ll get a sense of the overall effect.
No writer or director was credited for Broadway Live!, which may point to the show’s fundamental problem. This ensemble has the talent. They just need someone who can provide some guidance—with luck, someone who respects the taste and the smarts of audiences both in Manhattan and beyond.
Mark Dundas Wood is an arts/entertainment journalist and dramaturg. He began writing reviews for BistroAwards.com in 2011. More recently he has contributed "Cabaret Setlist" articles about cabaret repertoire. Other reviews and articles have appeared in theaterscene.net and clydefitchreport.com, as well as in American Theatre and Back Stage. As a dramaturg, he has worked with New Professional Theatre and the New York Musical Theatre Festival. He is currently literary manager for Broad Horizons Theatre Company.
