Theater: Sweet Charity-the 1960's through a foggy lens
Sweet Charity joltingly begins with the star being pushed into a Central Park pond, then having her purse lifted by her departing boyfriend. This show, which struggles to deal with the then-emerging womens' liberation movement, premiered on Broadway in 1966 featuring mega-star Gwen Verdon and was later filmed in 1969 with Shirley MacLaine. It is closely based on the Fellini 1958 film Nights of Cabiria, a spin on the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold story, which tells the tale of a prostitute who longs for real committed love, is betrayed by men, yet still keeps her eternal hope. The Sweet Charity revival I saw off-Broadway this week features the youthful, innocent Sutton Foster (TV's Younger, Broadway muscials) as Charity Hope Valentine. That this production sought something other than the typical star vehicle was evident from Ms. Foster's program listing as part of an alphabetical cast roster, not up in lights as the featured player. Overall the production had difficulty on settling on a message or tone for what is a challenging work to perform in our jaded era.
Part of both the intrigue and problem with Sweet Charity is its multigenerational genesis. The jazzy score by Cy Coleman (who earlier wrote "The Best is Yet to Come", "Witchcraft", and "Hey, Look me Over") feels most connected to the 1950's. The book, based on the Fellini film, was by a young Neil Simon, the king of New York City apartment comedy and drama. The song lyrics were by Dorothy Fields, who has credits back to the 1930's ("The Way you Look Tonight", "On the Sunny Side of the Street", Swing Time with Fred Astaire)--these are clever but sweetly chaste (the word "prostitute" or even "hooker" are avoided, and Charity is called a "dance hall hostess") and lack any sort of 1960's edge. There are big conventional choreographed numbers, largely upbeat ("If They could See me Now", "Hey Big Spender"). This all makes the show feel more like the 1950's than 1966, a year of riots and near-revolution. As a challenge, this remake has to deal with all the societal changes that came after 1966, e.g. the empowerment of blacks, gays, women, cynicism about leadership and authority, general apathy yet somehow keep the show vibrant. In this remake the new choreography is less athletic than the original muscular, angular work by Bob Fosse (Cabaret, Chicago), quite appropriate for a small theater with the 150 person audience surrounding the cube 40 x 40 foot thrust stage. The all-girl (like Cabaret) band of 7 was above in a balcony. I was about 10 feet from the stage. In such an intimate ambiance, the big Fosse choreography would have been a bit much, ditto a big extroverted performance by the lead a la Shirley MacLaine. The costumes were minimalist (a nice shabby retro 1960's shabby polyester wraparound for Charity) and the actors mostly played multiple roles, requiring quick hair and costume changes. Small theaters are normally used for serious drama where watching facial expression and nuance is key, not usually the forte of musical theater performers who are trained to perform to the back balcony of big houses. So this scaling down of Sweet Charity was quite reasonable, if risky, as it took away some of the pizzazz of the original.
So far, so good. The real problem with this revival lies with the show itself, which is a pre-womens' liberation document produced in the midst of, yet only minimally affected by the revolutions of the 1960's. Perhaps coming from Fellini's Italian/Catholic virgin/whore treatment of women, the book never really clarifies how we are to regard Charity. She wants to break out of her prostitution (in the Fellini film she is actually hypnotized on stage and an incredulous audience hears her state her inner desire for a conventional marriage), and is dissatisfied with her profession. This makes an interesting contrast with the contemporary (1966), yet much more "lib" Sally Bowles of Cabaret, who is truly torn between the advantages of monagomous love vs. promiscuity. Yet at show end when the "nice guy" Charity hopes to marry cruelly throws her into the pond, bookending the start of the show ("men are pigs" is another theme here) she still maintains her hope for true love, sort of (this show's ending made Charity's future goals unclear). Earlier in the show the "nice guy" idealizes Charity as a virgin. He is initially OK when she tells him about her career, but in the end dumps her for that very reason (although placing the blame on himself--how nice for a guy about to push his girlfriend into a pond). It's as if playwright Neil Simon is starting to recognize that things in the world are changing, but cannot quite get his hands around what that change really is or how to portray them. In this he reminds me of famed parochial northeastern novelist Philip Roth, who also seems more comfortable telling tales of 1950's people than of later generations. Amusingly, about the only thing in Sweet Charity that places it in the 60's is Charity's visit to a new-age free love church founded by hypersexual, cavorting rock artists from San Francisco (now there is a Simon-esque NYC stereotype!). This episode comes across now as less amusing than creepy, after Moonies, Jim Jones and Charles Manson all did their thing in the 1970's. Perhaps these incongruities is why Sweet Charity was not revived until the late 1980's. It just would not have worked earlier, given the emerging roles of women and the descent of optimistic 1960's into the dark cynicism, cultism and depression of the next decade. Not to mention the darker, cynical musicals pioneered by Sondheim in the 1970's and 1980's (Follies, Company, Sweeney Todd).
For this production in 2016, the director makes Charity less over the top, more a chameleon, more just part of a global dysfunctional dating scene--a postmodern Charity who provides us more of a blank slate upon which we can interpret as we like. Unfortunately, when you take away the original Verdon/MacLaine "big star" quality (however poorly it really fit into the ethos of 1966), the story is not quite strong enough to make you care about the central character. The original show relies on you seeing Charity is an effervescent bubble, floating above the cynicism around her despite all her setbacks. The bittersweet ending of this show was always a problem given the setup. The Fellini movie ending is ambiguous and famous--after getting dumped by the "nice guy" the protagonist goes home in tears, but is surrounded by a parade of partying young people, sort of a join the party, life-goes-on ending. Sweet Charity maintains this ambiguity, but ambiguity works far better in arty cinema than in a Broadway musical or opera, where songs and music force intermittent summation and a more definitive conclusion. It is very odd to see Shirley MacLaine prancing and dominating the film, only to end with a non-musical, downer ending. Interestingly, for the film version, Hollywood producers asked director Bob Fosse to devise a happier ending for the film. This ending, in which Charity reunites and marries the "nice guy" who threw her in the pond, was not used in the end, thankfully. But I think the Hollywood bosses recognized the emotional problem in the story. It would have been interesting to devise a completely new ending for 2016. Perhaps next time around Charity can go transgender, ending with a big La Cage aux Folles-style tap dance number.
Part of both the intrigue and problem with Sweet Charity is its multigenerational genesis. The jazzy score by Cy Coleman (who earlier wrote "The Best is Yet to Come", "Witchcraft", and "Hey, Look me Over") feels most connected to the 1950's. The book, based on the Fellini film, was by a young Neil Simon, the king of New York City apartment comedy and drama. The song lyrics were by Dorothy Fields, who has credits back to the 1930's ("The Way you Look Tonight", "On the Sunny Side of the Street", Swing Time with Fred Astaire)--these are clever but sweetly chaste (the word "prostitute" or even "hooker" are avoided, and Charity is called a "dance hall hostess") and lack any sort of 1960's edge. There are big conventional choreographed numbers, largely upbeat ("If They could See me Now", "Hey Big Spender"). This all makes the show feel more like the 1950's than 1966, a year of riots and near-revolution. As a challenge, this remake has to deal with all the societal changes that came after 1966, e.g. the empowerment of blacks, gays, women, cynicism about leadership and authority, general apathy yet somehow keep the show vibrant. In this remake the new choreography is less athletic than the original muscular, angular work by Bob Fosse (Cabaret, Chicago), quite appropriate for a small theater with the 150 person audience surrounding the cube 40 x 40 foot thrust stage. The all-girl (like Cabaret) band of 7 was above in a balcony. I was about 10 feet from the stage. In such an intimate ambiance, the big Fosse choreography would have been a bit much, ditto a big extroverted performance by the lead a la Shirley MacLaine. The costumes were minimalist (a nice shabby retro 1960's shabby polyester wraparound for Charity) and the actors mostly played multiple roles, requiring quick hair and costume changes. Small theaters are normally used for serious drama where watching facial expression and nuance is key, not usually the forte of musical theater performers who are trained to perform to the back balcony of big houses. So this scaling down of Sweet Charity was quite reasonable, if risky, as it took away some of the pizzazz of the original.
So far, so good. The real problem with this revival lies with the show itself, which is a pre-womens' liberation document produced in the midst of, yet only minimally affected by the revolutions of the 1960's. Perhaps coming from Fellini's Italian/Catholic virgin/whore treatment of women, the book never really clarifies how we are to regard Charity. She wants to break out of her prostitution (in the Fellini film she is actually hypnotized on stage and an incredulous audience hears her state her inner desire for a conventional marriage), and is dissatisfied with her profession. This makes an interesting contrast with the contemporary (1966), yet much more "lib" Sally Bowles of Cabaret, who is truly torn between the advantages of monagomous love vs. promiscuity. Yet at show end when the "nice guy" Charity hopes to marry cruelly throws her into the pond, bookending the start of the show ("men are pigs" is another theme here) she still maintains her hope for true love, sort of (this show's ending made Charity's future goals unclear). Earlier in the show the "nice guy" idealizes Charity as a virgin. He is initially OK when she tells him about her career, but in the end dumps her for that very reason (although placing the blame on himself--how nice for a guy about to push his girlfriend into a pond). It's as if playwright Neil Simon is starting to recognize that things in the world are changing, but cannot quite get his hands around what that change really is or how to portray them. In this he reminds me of famed parochial northeastern novelist Philip Roth, who also seems more comfortable telling tales of 1950's people than of later generations. Amusingly, about the only thing in Sweet Charity that places it in the 60's is Charity's visit to a new-age free love church founded by hypersexual, cavorting rock artists from San Francisco (now there is a Simon-esque NYC stereotype!). This episode comes across now as less amusing than creepy, after Moonies, Jim Jones and Charles Manson all did their thing in the 1970's. Perhaps these incongruities is why Sweet Charity was not revived until the late 1980's. It just would not have worked earlier, given the emerging roles of women and the descent of optimistic 1960's into the dark cynicism, cultism and depression of the next decade. Not to mention the darker, cynical musicals pioneered by Sondheim in the 1970's and 1980's (Follies, Company, Sweeney Todd).
For this production in 2016, the director makes Charity less over the top, more a chameleon, more just part of a global dysfunctional dating scene--a postmodern Charity who provides us more of a blank slate upon which we can interpret as we like. Unfortunately, when you take away the original Verdon/MacLaine "big star" quality (however poorly it really fit into the ethos of 1966), the story is not quite strong enough to make you care about the central character. The original show relies on you seeing Charity is an effervescent bubble, floating above the cynicism around her despite all her setbacks. The bittersweet ending of this show was always a problem given the setup. The Fellini movie ending is ambiguous and famous--after getting dumped by the "nice guy" the protagonist goes home in tears, but is surrounded by a parade of partying young people, sort of a join the party, life-goes-on ending. Sweet Charity maintains this ambiguity, but ambiguity works far better in arty cinema than in a Broadway musical or opera, where songs and music force intermittent summation and a more definitive conclusion. It is very odd to see Shirley MacLaine prancing and dominating the film, only to end with a non-musical, downer ending. Interestingly, for the film version, Hollywood producers asked director Bob Fosse to devise a happier ending for the film. This ending, in which Charity reunites and marries the "nice guy" who threw her in the pond, was not used in the end, thankfully. But I think the Hollywood bosses recognized the emotional problem in the story. It would have been interesting to devise a completely new ending for 2016. Perhaps next time around Charity can go transgender, ending with a big La Cage aux Folles-style tap dance number.
Comments
Post a Comment