Curtains
Al Hirschfeld Theatre
9/21/2007 – 8:00 PM
Curtains is a good old fashioned style feel good musical. Essentially a musical type “Clue” set backstage at an out of town musical tryout in the 1950’s. Lots of simple yet catchy songs with big chorus dance numbers. I have seen a lot of good shows recently, but this just made me smile like a child seeing something flashy. The story is very captivating and light hearted. A great evening out.
Disastrous leading lady Jessica Cranshaw is killed during curtain calls of ‘Robbin’ Hood”, and all cast members are locked in while a Boston detective tries to figure out who the murder is. Along the way, he helps the cast members rewrite and rework the show from a flop into a hit. And a lot more stuff, obviously but that would be giving too much away.
Debra Monk is a force to be reckoned with as Carmen Bernstein, the producer. She completely commands the stage. I think it is part due to her fame and past stage successes, but it is also that this role IS her! Karen Ziemba, playing Georgia Hendricks the song writer turned leading lady, is also a great talent. I have heard plenty of her dancing abilities, but she definitely wowed the audience during numbers like “Thataway”. It is especially impressive because she isn’t exactly a spring chicken anymore, but she still nailed it.
Aaron Fox, composer, was played by Jason Danieley, and he has a new fan in me. I came back and sought out his solo work because his classic broadway tenor voice was beautiful. I listen to “I Miss the Music” on the cast recording but it doesn’t live up to the emotional live performance. I know the song has a double meaning with the relationship of Kander & Ebb (the Composer/Lyricist of the show itself), which made it that much more touching. The rest of the supporting cast was also talented and brought a lot to the show. Only character I wasn’t overly thrilled with was Jill Paice as Niki Harris, the ingénue. I’m sure it was meant to be played like this, but I always want to take a shotgun to the naïve damsel in distress characters. Plus, oy, that high pitched voice was giving me a headache!
David Hyde Pierce (Niles from Frasier) is considered the ultimate star of the show, and he lived up to it. He played Lieutenant Frank Coffi, the detective in charge of the investigation and a budding thespian. His numbers are cute and his character is played with the right mixture of innocence and intelligence. His dance number is “A Tough Act to Follow” was very impressive.
I hopefully will get the chance to catch this show again. The material is good enough, in my opinion, to last on broadway a bit longer, but it all depends on how the eventual replacements of Pierce and Monk do. I sat in center front mezzanine and they were great seats. Not great leg room, but better then some other theaters. This is a big ensemble piece so sitting a bit further back helps you take in everything.
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2 comments:
I have seen CURTAINS five times now - so you know I'm a fan. :) I didn't fall in love with Jill Paice (Niki) right off the bat, but enjoyed her performance more and more upon subsequent viewings. In case you didn't know - David Hyde Pierce is on vacation this week and there are some great discounts out there. (If you aren't a member of Playbill.com, do it! It's totally free! There is a normal Playbill discount for the show and a special one just this week that's a steeper discount.) I saw John Bolton go on for David Hyde Pierce (Bolton usually plays Grady, the critic) and he did a very good job. And I *loved* his understudy - Michael X. Martin (who usually plays Johnny, the stage manager).
I don't doubt that if I saw another time or two Jill would grow on me. I kinda felt the same way about Erin Davies in GG the first time I saw it, but she grew on me, and I love her take on the performance now.
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