Steadstyle Chicago
December 2009 Book Review by Joe Stead
Forbidden Broadway: Behind the Mylar Curtain
There's
a Never Land where the hits get panned and which has entertainingly
skewered Broadway musicals in times both lush and lean over the past
three decades. I first became aware of "Forbidden
Broadway" in the mid 1980's and within a few years the various
"unoriginal" cast albums of the Off Broadway institution
were in constant rotation on my CD player. In fact, I tend to
remember some of creator Gerard Alessandrini's scathing lyrics better
than some of the originals ("I'm thirty years old Tomorrow,"
"Don't Cry for Me Barbra Streisand," "The Ballad of
Teeny Todd," and the list goes on). How did the
"Forbidden" phenomena get started, and what kept it playing
in various Off Broadway venues well after most of the hits it
parodied closed? That I can tell you in one book, a marvelous
new hardcover edition from Applause Theatre & Cinema Books
entitled "Forbidden Broadway Behind the Mylar Curtain,"
written by its creator with Michael Portantiere.
Flash back to the year 1981. Gerard Alessandrini was, like many other musical theatre wannabes, working as a waiter and dreaming of being an actor on Broadway. The problem was he couldn't get an audition. So in the great Mickey and Judy tradition, Gerard put his talent for writing parody lyrics to work and soon developed a cabaret act. One of his first lyrics, inspired by the middle-aged Richard Burton's short-lived return to rule "Camelot" was "I Wonder What the King is Drinking Tonight". That parody is joined in the book by many, many more, and reading those naughty lyrics can be nearly as much fun as seeing or hearing them performed onstage or on disc.
What is remarkable in reading the back story of this celebrated roast of all that is Broadway is how success was spawned by desperation. Alessandrini's dreams of starring on Broadway blossomed into writing "real musicals" and he enrolled in Lehman Engel's BMI Workshop. While watching the great Patti LuPone emotionally belting "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" on the Grammy Awards, a friend quipped that she was not crying because of the emotion of the song but because Barbra Streisand bought the film rights for "Evita". Thus the lyric: "Don't Cry for Me Barbra Streisand. The truth is I never liked you. You'll do the movie, but what a bummer when you sing Eva like Donna Summer". Likewise Lauren Bacall's star turn in "Woman of the Year" "I'm One of the Girls Who's One of the Boys" suggests that the deep voiced actress is one of the boys because she's really a man.
Mean-spirited,
you ask? Well, maybe a little. But all good satire has a
grain of truth in it and Alessandrini's wicked wit shows a great deal
of affection as well as malice for its targets. Some of those
early parodies were written out on paper placements while Gerard
worked as a maitre d' at Lincoln Center. A disastrous gust of
wind nearly spelled the end of "Forbidden Broadway,"
however fate smiled kindly on these ribald send-ups and the 88-minute
revue had its debut in 1981 at Palsson's Cabaret Theatre on West 72nd
Street. The big ticket hits of the day included the
aforementioned "Evita" and "Woman of the Year,"
"Pirates of Penzance," "42nd Street," Sondheim's short-lived
"Merrily We Roll Along," revivals of "My Fair
Lady" and "The King and I" and the odd non-musical
smash hit "Amadeus".
Initially all of the performing duties fell to Alessandrini and actress friend Nora Mae Lyng, with pianist Fred Barton providing musical support and the occasional breather to allow them to change costumes. As the show progressed, it moved from a duo to a quartet, and up and coming performers such as Jason Alexander, Dee Hoty, Patrick Quinn, Barbara Walsh, Bryan Batt and Brad Oscar are among the FB alumni. Composer Stephen Flaherty even served as pianist at one point! Equally impressive are the real life stars that showed up at the cabaret in droves, most of them delighted (or politely good sports) at seeing themselves parodied onstage. LuPone was supposedly miffed about her "Anything Goes" spoof "I Get A Kick Out of Me," but more receptive to her "Master Class" sketch. Glenn Close supposedly asked the lyricist if he really thought she was balding, to which Alessandrini replied, "Oh no, Miss Close, I just needed a word to rhyme with scalding."
Original star Nora Mae Lyng enjoyed being in the audience for the show's twenty-fifth anniversary performance and noted in one of the book's many alumni anecdotes "There's something about Forbidden Broadway that brings out the monster in everyone who does it". Celebrities ranging from Ethel Merman, Mary Martin and Carol Channing to LuPone, Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Chita Rivera are pictured throughout the book with their "Forbidden" alter egos. The photos, many in full color, are nearly as much fun as the lyrical slaughter. Who could ever forget the indelible image of a jaded, chain smoking Little Orphan Annie begging for a comeback? Original "Annie" Andrea McArdle is even pictured in a benefit pose complete with red dress, wig and cigarette. Priceless!
Perhaps
the reason that "Forbidden Broadway" has endured so long
is the changing culture of the musical theatre itself, and that the
material is constantly updated to reflect the current state of the
Broadway theatre, as the 12 delicious albums pay testament to.
We can see the changes on Broadway itself, from the waning days of
star packaged revivals through the creatively desolate days of the
mid 1980's (spurred no doubt by the AIDS pandemic) that yielded to
the British invasion of mega musicals imported from London. We
see the trends of jukebox musicals like "Mamma Mia!" and
"Jersey Boys," the Disney "Mousification" of
Broadway, and the endless re-treads of movies posing as Broadway
musicals. Almost without missing a beat, "FB" has
captured and skewered them all.
Not only did the influx of new material give loyal fans an excuse to return for the "Forbidden" fix, it also gave Alessandrini the chance to customize material to the strengths of his performers. You can see actress Chloe Webb for example going from Annie to Carol Channing to Mary Martin to an outrageous "Jennifer Holler-day" that is a real "scream". As Sondheim himself once advised, "The meaner the funnier". So we have the maestro going "Into the Words" while his British rival is proclaimed "Andrew Lloyd Superstar". Both composers are noted for their senses of humor as the jabs grow more and more merciless.
And if imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, look at "Spamalot," "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," "The Producers" and other such self-referential "meta-musicals" that seemed to spring out of the "Forbidden" mold. As Alessandrini looks back over the decades, he remembers that "When Forbidden Broadway started, we were just kids, and we did the show because it was fun." For an audience member, it is not only fun but an extremely economic way of sampling all that Broadway has to offer in one dose of hilarity.
As actress Roxie Lucas notes, "Forbidden Broadway" is the best bang for your buck, regardless of whether you have seen all the shows spoofed. Of course, the more one loves the Broadway musical the greater the fun. And looking through the pages of this wonderful tome is like chartering a course or survey of America's most popular art form over the years. "Forbidden Broadway Behind the Mylar Curtain" is a must-read for all fans of the Broadway musical theatre and anyone looking for a good laugh. Visit www.applausepub.com.
About Joe Stead
Joe
Stead has enjoyed a lifelong passion for the theatre, which has
involved acting, directing, producing, designing and reviewing for
the past twenty-five years. He served as founder, producer and
Artistic Director of Curtain Up Productions in Baltimore, Maryland
and Four Star Players in Tampa, Florida. Favorite productions
have included "Life With Father," "Deathtrap,"
"The Odd Couple," "The Miracle Worker,"
"Brighton Beach Memoirs," "You're A Good Man, Charlie
Brown" and "Godspell". He has also performed
leading roles in "Fiddler on the Roof," "Pippin,"
"The Phantom of the Opera," "The Front Page," and
most recently as Hucklebee in "The Fantasticks" for
Waukegan Community Players. Joe holds a degree in Commercial
Art from Tampa Technical Institute. As a critic, he has
reviewed everything from Broadway to community theatre and major
regional theatres throughout the United States including the Kennedy
Center in Washington, D.C., Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey,
Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut, and the Asolo Theatre in
Sarasota, Florida.
Since 1998, he has been a proud resident of Chicago, the greatest theatre city in America. He served for two years as Theatre Editor for College News and Central Newspapers. He created the website Steadstyle Chicago in 2000 to showcase the city's outstanding and diverse theatre scene. Joe was proud to serve alongside a distinguished panel of theatre professionals as a judge for two seasons of Speaking Ring Theatre's "Vitality" Festival of original short plays. His most fulfilling role, in addition to reviewer and all-around theatre fanatic, was as director of the 2007 production of Peter Shaffer's "Equus" at Actors Workshop (now Redtwist) Theatre, which was nominated for five Joseph Jefferson Award Citations and won for Best Actor (Peter Oyloe).