Sometimes your kindness pays off.
Take Paddy Young Jr., the bitter, self-destructive, and self-destructive comedian from the failed 1992 movie “Mr. Saturday Night,” which Billy Crystal starred, directed, and co-wrote based on one of his ’80s schematic creations. This sour pickle for a comic Old as a basis for musical theatre?Don’t make me laugh.
But a funny thing happened on the way to Broadway. For this new on-stage adaptation, Crystal and his screenwriters Babalu Mandel and Lowell Gans reimagined Buddy with warmer colors and softer edges. They also gave him some self-awareness and fun, so the audience instantly liked him instead of hating him.
With Crystal running nonstop evil magic and zingers, that access is easy — at least until the backstory kicks in and it reveals Buddy was a bit of a bastard. By that time, it was too late. Buddy is semi redeemable enough that the audience can get him to cross the finish line for the nice guy.
Directed by John Rando, the musical now focuses on the Buddy family as much as his career, which spans from the Borscht belt to the early days of television to gigs at the top. The addition of music also adds dimension to the characters, allowing the audience to understand their inner lives without missing a single bit of the lyrics.
The end result is definitely the funniest show on Broadway in years, if not the most admired. Look for a healthy run, at least with lead star Krystal, who recently filled homes with his “700 Days” autobiographical show. And with composer Jason Robert Brown and poet Amanda Green providing one of the sexiest and most disarming scores ever, what’s not to like?
As one of the songs on the show reminds us, it’s all about timing. One could imagine Krystal, Randy Graf (who plays Buddy’s supporting wife, Elaine) and David Beymer (playing the comic’s brother Stan, a role that earned him an Academy Award nomination in the movie) really killing her a decade or two ago. , with more emphatic singing voices and without the audience commenting their disbelief when the trio play much younger versions of their characters.
However, it is the type of show where the truth is not the point. She knows what it is: a great comic car with a solid albeit unsurprising story — with a little love, if not Schmaltz, that’s thrown in for good measure.
With a core cast of five including an impressive trio of graphic artists – Jordan Gilber, Brian Gonzalez and Melinda Hull, playing a plethora of characters – it’s clearly not a show about scale, scope, and production values. It’s all about music, shows, and eventually comedy.
Brown/Green tone – a new musical color combination that one hopes will stay in fashion – bright, breezy and smart, remembering the kind of easy tones Cy Coleman used to delight crowds. Brown’s ability to find a comfortable groove with a foundation of sophistication, and Greene’s skillful words are a perfect match for Crystal’s wit and winks.
The wonderful cast plays it uniformly for laughs, but they also play it for real. As Buddy’s adult daughter Susan, Shoshana Bean is strong and tender. She also has the best pipes on stage and rises with her solo tracks, “What if I say?” and “maybe it starts with me”.
Chastain Harmon as the grumpy agent of Boddy Annie Wells shows that she’s more than a plot tool and definitely more of a straight guy. Eileen from Graff loves friends, so the audience also loves him through her eyes, even if their marriage has made her put off her dreams (as expressed in the charming tune “Tahiti”).
Meanwhile, the chemistry between the comic and his brother is quite evident. (As Paddy joked, “Do you see what I did there?”) A seasoned actor with grace and intelligence, Paymer once again brings heart and humor to his role and even some anger, which he expresses poignantly in “Broken.”
But the show is Crystal and he’s got it, after living with the character for decades and remaking this ’90s homage to an earlier era of comedy. It was an era that wasn’t always the cutest, often offended, and mostly came from a boys’ club. But Krystal makes us see that even with flawed heroes, there’s still music in the laughs.
[ad_2]
