His name may be fading into theater-annals mists, but there was a time—the late 1960s and early 1970s—when the Rev. Al Carmines was being ballyhooed as the future of musical comedy. There he was ministering at Manhattan’s Judson Church on the south border of Washington Square Park while turning out in what apparently was his spare time a list as long as Paul Bunyan’s arm of melodic tuners, many of them adaptations of works by the likes of Gertrude Stein.
Granted, he didn’t become musical comedy’s future but more like a marvelous blip, perhaps partly for reasons I’ll discuss later in this out-and-out rave for his 1969 masterpiece Promenade, revived this weekend only at City Center’s Encores! Off-Center series. That’s the overall Encores! series, devoted (maybe not often enough) to shaking the dust off musicals that are close-to-forgotten but shouldn’t be considered gone.
And, don’t you know, this Rev. Al—not to be confused with the Rev. Al Sharpton—composed the music for Promenade with bookwriter-lyricist Maria Irene Fornés, another trail blazer whose influence over the burgeoning off-Broadway movement is also in partial eclipse these careless days. All the same, her trenchant Fefu and Her Friends is being presented this fall at Theatre for a New Audience.
[Read Steven Suskin’s ★★★ review here.]
So a grateful welcome back to Carmines and Fornés and an immediate acknowledgment that this perfect intermissionless 110-minute fandango (originally presented in two acts with Madeleine Kahn and Alice Playten among its ensemble) could be described with adjectives like “esoteric” and “precious” and phrases like “not everyone’s cup of tea.”
Yes, for those who require their entertainments to be perfectly straightforward, perfectly accessible, perfectly Pretty Woman ,Promenade might not fit the bill. For those, however, who like going with the unrestrained flow of two extraordinary talents (geniuses?) feeling their impressive oats, this up-close-and-personal look is an absolute must-see—especially in a flawless production, directed by Laurie Woolery and choreographed by Hope Boykin to an ipsy-pipsy fare-thee-well. In other words, be there or be so square you will never be able to be fit into a round circle.
So what in the name of sweet heaven goes on in Promenade, which begins appropriately enough with its 15-member cast promenading across the front of the stage in Clint Ramos’ hilariously garish costumes? That’s but for one thespian in a jailer uniform, one outfitted like a maid, and two in prisoner’s loud black-and-white stripes?
What plot there is to the Carmines-Fornés script—OK, there is no plot—begins with prisoners 105 (James T. Lane) and 106 (Kent Overshown) digging their way out of their cell despite a jailor (Mark Bedard) of oddball vigilance. Leaving The Cell followed by the Jailer, they join a group of upper-class sillies at a banquet, attended by that Servant (Bryonha Marie Parham). Before the on-the-lam prisoners return to The Cell for the finale, they’ve gadded about with the others at The Banquet, The Street, The Park, The Battlefield, The Drawing Room, and another locale or two.
What do these swellegants do in these random environs? They sing songs of comic seriousness that, among other qualities, hand players the opportunity to distinguish themselves singly and together. As an aggregate this cast can boast the best vocalizing offered on any New York City stage this short-run weekend. The sopranos airing their wares one after another—Parham, Carmen Ruby Floyd, Soara-Joye Ross, Marcy Harriell—are particularly impressive and may cause severe damage to City Center rafters before they depart.
Nods also to Bonnie Milligan, who pops out of a cake to become Miss Cake and to Saundra Santiago, who wanders through the goofy proceedings wondering if anyone has seen her children. There are no slugabeds among the men, either—Steve Routmen, Don Darryl Rivera, Eddie Cooper, J. D. Webster, and Becca Blackwell.
Yes, and get a load of the display-case ditties Carmines and Fornés forged for the top-notch performers—songs that warn lovers not to fall in love with me, because I might fall out of love with you, songs that include avisos such as “You have perhaps made me feel something, but the moment has passed” or “Cad! Heel! You treated me the way I treated others.”
What has to be noted is that Carmines sets them to tunes often owing inspiration to the likes of Kurt Weill and even the da-capo king, George Frideric Handel. Fornés has her intentions as well. Although the songs may impress as offhanded nonsense on the surface, they reveal something else when scratched. In many of them—as those quoted above—statements are made and then contradicted. “I have to live with my own truth, I cannot live with yours,” goes one impassioned threnody,” which further establishes Fornés’ tacit insistence that nothing anywhere is unqualified, that the world is a place that inevitably turns in on itself.
All of this, by the way announced in a score that doesn’t include a single rhyme. Wait! Hold it! There is a single rhyme, and, mon dieu, it’s in French—“aprés-vous” with “pas de tout.” This absence of rhyme when one of the hoity-toity characters defends herself by insisting she can rhyme. No matter. By the time 105 and 106 are humbly back in their cell, Promenade has become its own perfect rhyme.
Promenade opened July 10, 2019, at City Center and runs through July 11. Tickets and information: nycitycenter.org
