Gerard Alessandrini, America’s foremost Broadway Musical Maven, now brings us Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation, and in it he astutely observes that “we’re in a musical drought.”
He couldn’t be righter. Indisputable substantiation based on the 2018-19 season would make grown men weep. But that’s a screed for another time, whereas any old drought couldn’t come close to stalling the intrepid Alessandrini from sending up the threatened American musical with his beloved, almost always effective funny-bone tickler.
Perhaps a giveaway to the drought is that the best entry, or one of the best entries, in this latest Forbidden Broadway edition is Alessandrini’s comic take on a television series about musicals. (N.B.: The first FB occurred almost 38 year ago in 1982.) This highpoint is “Fosse/Verdon,” inspired by Fosse/Verdon. For the funny elbowing, Chris Collins-Pisano is Bob Fosse with ever-present hat but without ever-present cigarette butt. (He needs to sing.) Jenny Lee Stern is Gwen Verdon with pronounced hip contractions.
[Read Jesse Oxfeld’s ★★★ review here.]
To adjusted lyrics of “Whatever Lola Wants,” “Who’s Got the Pain?” and, mostly, “Two Lost Souls” from Damn Yankees (by songwriters Richard Adler and Jerry Ross), the two spoofers sing and, even more importantly, move to Gerry McIntyre’s spot-on Fosse-esque choreography. Also note that Alessandrini relies on irresistible numbers from a musical that bowed not last year but in 1955.
He’d have to use that material, of course, but thank the musical gods he could cull from the time when hit musicals included top-drawer scores. This isn’t exactly the case in another of the outstanding items, “It’s Got to Be a Musical.” That’s the one where Alessandrini jabs at the trend in which any property with a built-in marquee name is regarded as a potential B’way click. Lord knows, that approach has had its dulling influence for too long now.
As targets he opts for Beetlejuice with Collins-Pisano as the title figure kidding one of the forgettable Eddie Perfect songs. He moves on to the very young Joshua Turchin hilarious as the sequin-gowned Tootsie of Tootsie, in part resorting to the old fave “Toot-Toot-Tootsie” for some genuine pizazz. Then it’s Aline Mayagoitia in icy gown as Elsa of Frozen. She gets to intone Alessandrini’s version of the Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez chart-topping “Let It Go.” But don’t forget that the power ballad leaped out of the Disney animated movie. The 1990s-type power ballads the Lopezes added to the stage adaptation happen to be toothlessly powerless.
Strongly vying for this edition’s top accomplishment slot is the poisoned arrow that Alessandrini aims at the Oklahoma! revival. And he hits the bull’s eye. Establishing the sketch as that much more significant is his couching it as an example of a too often reigning Broadway conviction nowadays: Musicals are cowardly if they’re not blatantly dark. In current jargon, they need to be “woke.”
So his reworking of the classic Oscar Hammerstein-Richard Rodgers World War II classic as “Woke-lahoma!” is the outstanding gag in a segment that boasts many sizzlers. Not the least is the suggestion that Curley and Jud Fry might be boyfriends. They’re caught ogling Ethel Merman and Mary Martin photographs by Aunt Testa (that’s Mary Testa as Aunt Eller).
To give an extended rundown of all the numbers connecting like gangbusters could take a while as well as dampen the surprises. And, yes, there is the occasional lapse, as there usually is in Alessandrini’s multi-barreled blasts. Nonetheless, he has wicked fun (though Wicked is scanted this time around) with the omnipresent jukebox musicals like Moulin Rouge (diamonds turn out to be a satirist’s best friend). He joshes Jeremy Pope (Immanuel Houston here) of Choir Boy and Ain’t Too Proud. He has the chutzpah to go after the Yiddish Fiddler on the Roof. (It’s not on Broadway, but who’s noticing?). He even kicks the non-musical The Ferryman and Irish drama.
Another stand-out that takes on the movies and not Broadway has Stern as a gesture-perfect Judy Garland bemoaning other performers portraying her. Alessandrini is looking squarely at Renée Zellwegger impersonating the great screen and concert star in Judy, but he does slip in a dig at Tracie Bennett, who received much attention as Garland in the 2012 English import, End of the Rainbow, which was ballyhooed as a play with music.
Stern might be the stand-out this time around, but then again the cast is made up of heroes who have to be as active offstage as on, what with all of the time spent changing innumerable costumes and wigs in order to pop up for that much more of McIntyre’s unrelenting routines. And speaking of wigs, it may be that sufficient credit is given Forbidden Broadway costumers—here it’s Dustin Cross—but not the truly indispensable wigmaker—here it’s Conor Donnelly.
So keep eyes and ears open for Immanuel Houston’s take on the soigné André de Shields and—get this—Jennifer Hudson. Get a load of Mayagoitia’s Karen Oliva of Moulin Rouge, Caissie Levy of Frozen, and Bernadette Peters of so many productions. Keep an eye out for Turchin’s turn as one or all of the Ben Platt replacements in Dear Evan Hansen. Enjoy Collins-Pisano’s take on Lin-Manuel Miranda and, of all people, the late Hal Prince.
Before Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation ends with a bang not a whimper, Alessandrini has a laugh on himself. He slots a jab to the tune of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” that goes, “Watch out, watch out, when you spoof a play, or you’ll never work again.” Nothing doing. The hope has to be that as long as there are musicals—and whatever the next generation brings for better or, spare us, worse—Alessandrini will put himself to work again and again.
Forbidden Broadway: The Next Generation opened October 16, 2019, at The Triad and runs through November 30. Tickets and information: forbiddenbroadway.com
