Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead,
When she was good
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad, she was horrid!
This pretty much sums up this week of theatre at Barrington Stage. On Tuesday night we were vastly delighted with Presto Change-O, tonight it was a very different story with Songs by Ridiculously Talented Composers and Lyricists You Probably Don't Know But Should...
Ridiculous is the key word in that title.
When Mae West edited the above poem she wrote:
When I'm good, I'm very, very good,
And when I'm bad- I'm better!
The Divine Mae West!Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way tonight.
The title of the show gives away the problem. None of the composers or writers is ridiculously talented. Some have a modicum of talent, but their Muse is on hold at the moment. I have seen several editions of this show which is put on each year by William Finn as a part of his Musical Theatre Lab, which is a part of Barrington Stage. Each time I see one of these productions my opinion is the same: no matter how many composers or how many lyricists are represented, they all come out sounding pretty much the same. And not in a good way.
William FinnAgain tonight it seemed that the lyrics were mostly based on personal, emotional vignettes from the people's lives that would have been better expressed to their 'Shrinks' than set to music.
There was no printed Order of Program so the viewer had to try to memorize from the slide screen that came up for each song the composer, lyricist, and title of the song to keep track of who was what.
The opening song was 'You Show Me Yours and I'll Show You Mine'. It went downhill from there. I had a hard time thinking how any of these songs could be used in a piece of musical theatre that would make any sense.
Josh Freilich was the amazingly talented pianist for the evening and wrote much of the music. As my friend Dorothy Fee would say, 'He was sunk on the text!' Making silk purses, etc.
The energetic young performers were Desmond Green, Sally Wilfert, Lauren Marcus, Jesse Gage, Sara Kase, and Alex Syiek. I wish them better luck next time on the material they get to perform.
We slipped out at Intermission. The last song in Act I was called "Holy Crap'.
That sums up the evening.
