DAVID H. LEWIS, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? By Peter Filichia
How fitting that I got this book on April 1st, for it does seem to be a fool’s joke.
It’s David H. Lewis’ Broadway Musicals: A Hundred Year History, in which he gives opinions on musical theater recordings. Granted, as I recently said, when it comes to such matters, “One man’s MAME is another man’s PURLIE.” You may find yourself agreeing with Lewis.
But I won’t be surprised if you don’t.
His 28-page discography offers one-to-five-star ratings on hundreds of albums. And Lewis’ five stars do seem appropriate for ANNIE GET YOUR GUN, CAROUSEL, COMPANY, FINIAN’S RAINBOW, GUYS AND DOLLS, PAL JOEY, SOUTH PACIFIC, and WEST SIDE STORY. His opinions of the others may mystify you as much as they did me.
Lewis gives FIDDLER ON THE ROOF only four stars because of its “sagging end.” Does he balk at the seriousness of Russian Jews forced to leave “Anatevka”? Perhaps he expected the Tsar to say, “On second thought, you can all stay!”
Although Lewis says FOLLIES offers a “fascinating amalgam,” he only gives it only four stars, too – which he might not have if he had avoided the terribly truncated original cast album. But Lewis gave his opinions in 2002 – 17 years after the far superior FOLLIES IN CONCERT. Why not review that one?
Similarly speaking, such masterpieces as THE MOST HAPPY FELLA and PORGY AND BESS also rate four stars, because Lewis didn’t choose each three-disc recording. The one-disc FELLA abridgement doesn’t reveal all of Frank Loesser’s achievements that would have bumped it up a star. As for PORGY, Lewis chose the 1959 film soundtrack instead of savoring the 1976 Houston Grand Opera’s three-disc recording? Was Lewis too lazy to put in the time?
GIGI is shorn a fifth star, too, for Lewis feels that “The Contract,” introduced in the 1973 production, is “one gigantic dud which nearly consumes an entire act.”
Actually, “The Contract” runs a bit shorter than nine minutes – and Act Two of GIGI is substantially longer than 12, 15 or 18 minutes.
And “The Contract” needs those nine minutes to fully realize a blatant money-grubbing, hilarious and sophisticated musical scene.
Sometimes Lewis errs in his descriptions of the musicals themselves. He believes that “four-star” GYPSY – another moronic evaluation – allows “Mama (sic) Rose to triumph while daughter Gypsy Rose Lee remains a faceless stripper.”
No, the nation knew who the former Louise Hovick was; as Gypsy herself reminds us, she was “the highest paid in the business.”
Does Lewis give A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC only four stars because he claims its songs are “all in 4/4 time”?
They’re not.
And calling PINS AND NEEDLES “a story of striking garment workers” is incorrect, too. The 1937 smash was a revue – one that offered Harold Rome songs that deserve higher than three stars.
That’s what he also gives JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR and DO I HEAR A WALTZ? He believes that the former is a “remarkable rock opera,” and the latter has “sharp lyrics, superb music.” Don’t those descriptions suggest four stars at least?
Three stars also goes to CANDIDE: “Bernstein falters when merely mimicking old operetta traditions.” Does he mean “Glitter and Be Gay,” often considered to be the crown jewel of the show?
Moving onto the two-star category: BYE BYE BIRDIE is a “borderline work,” GODSPELL “harmless light-rock,” and LADY IN THE DARK has “variable music and passable lyrics.” KEAN has “some lovely melodies and rousing choruses in a claustrophobic context.”
(Can someone explain what a “claustrophobic context” is?)
That he gives two stars to PETER PAN because it has “serviceable ditties” is bad enough. But he adds that the show is “stunted by the questionable premise that children do not want to grow up.” Then why do Wendy, Michael, John and many Lost Boys all leave Neverland in favor of London where they will grow up?
A mere two stars go to RAGTIME (“synthetic refrains dance high on ragtime appropriations stumble simple-minded over preachy red-white-and-blue anthems”), 1776 (“serviceably engaging”), and YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN (“half-delightful, half humdrum.”) His biggest two-star shocker is THE THREEPENNY OPERA: “more theater than musical theater,” whatever that means.
Lewis shows inconsistency in yet another way. For STARTING HERE, STARTING NOW, he feels that Maltby and Shire do well “when they rip loose from the yoke of Sondheim.” The vast majority of songs were written before 1970, when Sondheim, through COMPANY, really “became” S-O-N-D-H-E-I-M.
Later, however, Lewis apparently thinks that the “yoke of Sondheim” is a good thing, for he says that TITANIC’s “ponderously self-important numbers are best when iterating Sondheim.”
TITANIC gets all of one star. So does ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (“amazingly awful”), THE GOLDEN APPLE: (“one of the weakest scores to reach Broadway”), and PURLIE (“recycles blues and gospel idioms to a tiresome degree”).
Two Bock and Harnick scores get one star each. THE APPLE TREE: “No apples under this one.” Never mind the smart-ass remark; several songs could decimate this oafish opinion, but we’ll choose “It’s a Fish,” in which Adam can’t begin to understand what this creature is that his wife Eve found that “resembles us in every way but size.” He assumes it must be a fish for “it surrounds itself with water almost every chance it gets.” The last line is even funnier.
And with THE ROTHSCHILDS: “Bock and Harnick end a wildly inconsistent 12-year collaboration on a somewhat barren note.”
Granted, THE BODY BEAUTIFUL, their first effort, wasn’t much, but every one of their musicals that followed – including their two Tony-winners – FIORELLO! and FIDDLER – were consistent in showing great worth.
JUNO? “Rarely do the numbers transcend a slavish unmelodic devotion to simple Irish folk tunes.” Well, given that the story concerns simple Irish folk, why is Marc Blitzstein’s approach incorrect?
ONCE UPON A MATTRESS: “Vacant by-the-numbers lyrics.” Really? Marshall Barer smartly uses “shy” in two completely different ways. And in a fairy-tale kingdom where citizens cannot marry until the Prince does, they note that “no one is getting any” which sounds too ribald until you hear the one word that Barer added: “younger.”
And what about Lewis’ take on recordings of other Sondheim musicals? Three stars are all that he gave INTO THE WOODS (“an “out-of-control self-help musical offers bewildering smorgasbord of radiantly sung ideas”), MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG (“as exciting and alienated as the stereotypical Hollywood it ridicules”) and – get this – three to SWEENEY TODD, for it only offers “intermittent Sondheim brilliance.”
Just when you think it can’t get any worse, he gives one and only one star to SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE: “a repetitively abstract grand Sondheim drought.”
David H. Lewis, take Dot’s advice and move on — to another line of work.
Still unconvinced? Here’s the knockout punch. Lewis also gives the same three stars given to AIN’T MISBEHAVIN, BELLS ARE RINGING, CABARET, CHICAGO, DAMN YANKEES and plenty of other time-honored classics to… drum-roll, please…
OH! CALCUTTA!
Yes, that blight on America theater history garners the same rating awarded ANYONE CAN WHISTLE. Listen to Track 12 of Sondheim’s score and you’ll find lyrics that apply to David H. Lewis.
Peter Filichia can be heard most weeks of the year on www.broadwayradio.com. His calendar – A SHOW TUNE FOR TODAY: 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year – is now available on Amazon.
