Oooo, Shiny
Finally getting to the NY Times Arts and Leisure section, I noticed a full page ad for a Roundabout Theatre production of Threepenny Opera with Alan Cumming as MacHeath, Ana Gasteyer as Mrs. Peachum, Jim Dale (presumably as Mr. P), Nellie McKay as Polly Peachum, and Cyndi Lauper as Jenny Diver (replacing Edie Falco). It could be heaven or it could be hell, but I'd sure love to see it.
posted by Madeleine Robins at 6:18 PM
8 Comments:
I've been drooling into my Times for a month.
How many musical lowlifes does Cumming have left? I suppose there's Pal Joey, but he's supposed to be seductive. Chicago's been done.
He could play Sportin' Life, but I suspect it would be regarded as an act of hubris, and politically suspect...
God. Imagine if they did for The Music Man what they did for Cabaret. Creepiest. Harold. Hill. Ever.
A friend of mine has a warped theory that Marian actually was having an affair with the town benefactor, and that her "brother" was the result. Suddenly all the gossip makes sense...
Lends new meaning to the phrase "Trouble in River City."
I always thought that the gossip was that Marian had had an affair with Uncle Maddison (of the library, the park, the bandshell, etc.) when in fact she had not. But I may just be intractable charitable.
I'm reading Meredith Willson's memoir of writing the show right now. At least at the beginning his refrain seems to have been "I gotta put Mama in the show."
Imagine if they did to The Music Man what they have apparently done to Sweeney Todd. Aiiee!
(I suck at names). No, that was my friend's weird theory: that in point of fact she *had* been having an affair with Uncle Maddison and that Winthrop was the result. All the gossip was deserved.
Man, if you did that production, your civic theater's revenues would vanish entirely. (My hometown Civic Theater nearly killed itself dead by doing "Lysistrata". The next year, it was "Arsenic and Old Lace" all the way.)
I think that is what can kindly be referred to as a variant reading of the text. Willson, from the way I read his memoir, anyway, is the most straightlaced creature imaginable; and I am beginning to think that Miss Marian is based in large part upon his mother.
I'm still shaking my head at "Carrie: The Musical".
Got to see Jim Dale in Barnum the week it opened- still remember it well!
Carrie appears to have been a sort of watershed event. If I'm feeling blue, reading the description in Not Since Carrie will send me into peels of helpless laughter. Pretty much the definition of "what were they thinking."
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