Like Encores? Knickerbocker Holiday at ATH

[skynyc]

Gentlemen...

if you fondly remember the very early Encores shows...chorus in formal wear, all carrying and following scripts in notebooks, little staging and less choreography, but great performers doing obscure shows...Fiorello, Allegro and Call Me Madam in that first season...then get to Alice Tully tomorrow night (Wednesday 1/26) to see the second (and final) night of the Collegiate Chorale's production of Knickerbocker Holiday.

An early 1938 Kurt Weill score this musical/almost operetta is best known for September Song and It Never Was You. The Maxwell Anderson book and lyrics are full of interestingly pertinent political commentary.

In most circumstances this show would not appeal today...the pacing of the book is slow and plotting is awkward switching between the young lovers, the corrupt city counsel and the tyrannical governor Pieter Stuyvesant. Some of the novelty songs are charming, while others lumber, and the continual intrusion of the "author" Washington Irving becomes more tiresome than clever. And it would have been fun to see something done choreographically with the "Algonquins' from Harlem" ballet, which was rousingly played by a very capable orchestra.

 

But this company truly elevated the material. Headliners are Kelli O'Hara and Victor Garber (as curmudgeonly Stuyvesant) with smaller roles filled by Broadway staples David Garrison, Brad Oscar, Michael McCormack, Brooks Ashmanskas and Christopher Fitzgerald among others. The young leading man is fresh from the ensemble of Little Night Music, Ben Davis, where he went on for Karl Magnus, (and his Charlotte, Erin Dilly, was sitting in the row in front of me, cheering him on.) Kelly O'Hara is in marvelous voice and conveyed all the freshness of a young Dutch-colonial ingenue. Garber, the original Anthony from Sweeney Todd hasn't been singing much lately...but hearing him sing September Song with the original lyric, rather than the commercial one, was a great treat.

 

It will be interesting to see if and how it is reviewed...Howard Kissel, Harry Haun, Adam Feldman, Michael Sommers, Michael Feingold and David Finkel were all spotted in the lobby. But I can only be content to have had the opportunity to see a Broadway production from 70 years ago.

 

Happily both this evening and tomorrow, are being recorded and a CD of the production will be available, probably sometime this spring.

 

I got my ticket at noon today, at the LIncoln Center half-price atrium on Broadway between 62/63, which only added to my enjoyment...I had forgotten about the show, and on my lunch headed towards Tully to get a ticket. I passed the atrium and was tickled to see it on the board. So for what I had intended to pay for myself, I was able to take a friend. A win/win/win evening.

 

Tomorrow night is Brian Bedford as Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest. Stay tuned.

[Guest greatness]

Thanks skyncy~~~ and welcome back!