Top Ten Things I HATED about "Hair" at the Bushnell

10. The astrology-themed cast bios in the program

9. That the "choreography" consisted of high-fiving and lying on one's back atop someone else who was crawling on the floor on all fours

8. The cast's insistence on rubbing the hair of the audience members in the first few rows of the orchestra section. (And, no, I wasn't jealous of them because I have little hair and was in the mezzanine.)

7. That we were somehow supposed to believe that the man who played "Berger" just got thrown out of high school when he seemed plainly older than the oldest cast members of Disney's High School Musical and the original 90210 combined. (Or the poor young lad simply has overactive glands!)

6.  There wasn't a SINGLE tap dance number.

5. I couldn't find anything resembling a plot until 25 minutes in (trust me, I checked my watch!)...and even THAT modicum of plot was decidedly sketchy.

4. There were forty (?!?!) "musical numbers," a number that approaches the range of the ridiculously long New Britain YWCA dance recitals.

3. Most of the 40 (?!?!) "musical numbers" were hardly numbers at all but rather the loose scribblings of the drafts of songs. Most didn't last more than 90 seconds, and Ira Gershwin RIGHT NOW could whip up a better lyric.

2. When we arrived the two people in the adjoining seats were busy with their hand-held devices, and I feared I'd have to say something about turning them off. (They did at the proper time...unfortunately for me because, about 10 minutes in, I would have loved the distraction of watching something else.)

1. I simply cannot for the life of me figure out why they all (well, except Aquarius) took off their clothes at the end of Act I.

Eydie walked into my life again today...

In my car today I was playing an old mix tape containing a great song from this great album by the great Eydie Gorme (albeit with a not-so-great hairdo).

The song: "If He Walked Into My Life"

Sinatra lyric of the week from the Gigliotti vinyl collection

So, gentlemen, deal me out
do not to try to feel me out
since Adelaide, Adelaide, ever-lovin' Adelaide
is takin' a chance
(talk about your long shot!)
is takin' a chance on me!

"Adelaide" (Frank Loesser)
as performed by Frank Sinatra, Guys and Dolls movie soundtrack, 1955

Of Mice and Merman

With the death of Vic Mizzy, who wrote the themes songs of "The Addams Family" and "Green Acres" (in my opinion, the best literary depiction of country/city dichotomy since the story of the town mouse and country mouse of Horace's Satire II.vi!), I got to thinking about other famous television theme songs. This train of thought led me to the "Beverly Hillbillies" theme by Flatt and Scruggs:

Come and listen to the story of a man named Jed
a poor mountaineer who barely kept his family fed
Then one day he was shooting at some food
and up from the ground came a bubbling crude!

Oil, that is, black gold, Texas tea.

Well the next thing you know
old Jed's a millionaire
the kin folk said, "Jed, move away from there"
Said Californy is the place you ought to be
so they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly

Hills that is, swimming pools movie stars.

That theme naturally led me to the wonderful Ethel Merman number in the Irving Berlin musical Call Me Madam, the best song ever about striking it rich in the oil business:

I was born on a thousand acres of Oklahoma land
nothing grew on the thousand acres

for it was gravel and sand
One day daddy was digging in the fields
hoping to find some soil
He dug and he dug
and what do you think?
Oil, Oil, OIL!

The money rolled in and I rolled out
with a fortune piled so high.
Washington was my destination
and now who am I?

I'm the chosen party-giver
of the White House clientele
and they know that I deliver
what it takes to make them jell
And in Washington I'm known by one and all
as the Hostess with the Mostes' on the Ball!

This, in turn, leads us to tomorrow's lyric of the day! Tune in tomorrow.

Y'all come back now, y'hear?

REAL Quick Reviews of Shows I've Seen in the Last 10 Days

1. Lear's Daughters at Welte Auditorium, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, CT (A week ago last Friday)

Well done, and, man, my daughters left thinkin' I'm the best dad EVER.

2. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at The Goodspeed Opera House, East Haddam, CT (Last Sunday)

If you like attractive women and grapes, you'll LOVE this show...even if it's not as strong as the other two shows from this season, Camelot and 42nd Street.

3. Lost in Yonkers at The Playhouse on Park, West Hartford, CT (Last Wednesday)

I must admit I thought I was going to see Brighton Beach Memoirs...well, not really, but I had conflated the two shows in my mind. This wasn't BBM, needless to say, and how on earth can any actress make that grandmother even remotely approachable (much less likable).

4. In the Heights, Richard Rodgers Theatre, New York City, NY (Yesterday)

A handsome production, and, admittedly, I was transported to a different place while watching, but now I can't remember a single song much less hum one.

***
Film Review: Up from Pixar/Disney, Cinestudio, Trinity College, Hartford, CT (A week ago last Saturday)
2/3rds of a great movie. I'm on board until the old man becomes James Bond scaling the outside of a dirigible. Call me age-ist, but I like my smart and clever, cane-wielding octogenarians not to all of a sudden be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. I BELIEVED that he could fly a building to South America, isn't that enough to ask of an audience?

Notes from the Tony Awards

In the "surprise" opening number, which considering it was merely a medley of things presently on the Great White Way and so hardly was surprising at all, Stockard Channing sang "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" from the revival of Pal Joey, and, while it was far from a great performance, at least she was performing a song worth hearing – especially when paired with (and compared to) “I’m Alive” sung by some guy from Next to Normal. Why is it that most songs from contemporary musicals are so repetitive? I believe the only thing he sang was -- wait for it -- yes, “I’m alive.” There’s more wit and lyricism in any one line of almost any Rodgers and Hart song than anything recent I heard last night…and we won’t even mention the music.


Liza Minnelli looked and sounded terrible (to be polite). As my wife explained to our girls, “Like her mother, she’s had a very hard life which has included drug abuse, etc…” To which I added, “But her mother was smart enough to die before she turned into this.”


9 to 5: The Musical.
Shrek the Musical.
Rock of Ages (was that really “Don’t Stop Believing” I was hearing?)
And these are the ones the American Theatre Wing chose to put on stage to highlight itself. Broadway’s not dead; it’s simply gone senile…


From the vaults: Elton John writing an Aida is akin to Neil Simon offering his own Macbeth. Not saying they can’t do it, but, man, they really shouldn’t.