A roundup of this season’s original cast recordings: ‘A Gentleman’s Guide,’ ‘Madison County,’ ‘If/Then,’ ‘Beautiful’
ARNOLD WAYNE JONES | Executive Editor
The Tony Awards are over, and the nominees and winners in the musical category will be forever remembered by theater queens the world over. But how do the cast recordings of the hit shows stand up? We decided to take a look at many of the nominees.
The Bridges of Madison County. This year’s Tony for best score went to the only nominated show that had closed before awards voting ended — the commercial disappointment Bridges of Madison County. Adapted by Marsha Norman from the cloying novel by Robert James Walker, it’s a showcase for the songs of cult composer Jason Robert Brown, who hasn’t had a huge hit (Parade is the biggest) but whose shows (The Last Five Years, Songs for a New World) have become staples of smaller theater companies nationwide.
Brown’s style is plainly influenced by Sondheim, especially apparent on Bridges for his choice of minor keys and unexpected shifts in tone. That’s true on “Wandering,” Steven Pasquale’s soulful ballad that will surely be a cabaret favorite. But the score is also jumpy, from operatic numbers to dream chorale arrangements. The songs feel better than the show as a whole.
A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. This season’s breakaway success — it won the best musical Tony — is a tribute to old-time British music hall shows, but with a snarky American air about it. Culled from the same early 20th-century novel that gave birth to the 1950s Brit film Kind Hearts and Coronets, its style is reminiscent of both The Mystery of Edwin Drood and Curtains, two serviceably entertaining musicals with a theatrical bent. However, you get the impression that the stage production is more interesting to watch them the cast album is to listen to. (That was true also of a past Tony winner, Urinetown, which seemed bland as a cast recording, but was a triumph onstage.)
Despite the lyricists’ love of wordplay — the lyrics are frequently clever, with many internal rhymes — the songs are often gimmicky, resorting to such Victorian-era clichés “as deepest darkest Africa.” And it suffers from under orchestrated, two-dimensional arrangements. It also feels derivative, particularly the Act 2 opener, which recalls The Pink Panther theme, with high-pitched horns and a loping rhythm. But it’s the kind of show folks will happily commit to memory upon repeated listening — maybe not a classic, but a hoot.
B’WAY REUNION | Idina Menzel and Anthony Rapp, who played exes in the original production of ‘Rent’ nearly 20 years ago, reunite as lovers in ‘If/Then.’
If/Then. You could probably add If/Then to the subcategory of rock musicals, though it lacks the hard-driving bass lines of Hedwig and the Angry Inch or the unbridled teen angst of Spring Awakening. It’s closer in tone to Rent, without the operatic motifs.
The Rent comparison is further enforced by the presence of Idina Menzel and Anthony Rapp as the stars here as well. Menzel plays Elizabeth, a 38-year-old urban planner who returns to NYC, wondering how her life might have turned out if she had followed one of two paths — as Liz, with her lesbian friend Kate (LaChanze), or as Beth with her bisexual fuck buddy Josh (Rapp). From there, the arcs diverge, with each future playing out independently.
If you think it’ll be easy to tell whether you’re with the Liz or the Beth storyline just by listening to the cast recording (written by Tony- and Pulitzer-winners Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt, who did Next to Normal), you’d be wrong. The sounds of the songs are of a piece — if not interchangeable, not tweaked for each character. You’ll need to read the liner notes to keep track of what’s happening.
But who cares? The team of Kitt and Yorkey may be the most exciting Broadway composers working right now. Imagine, writing original music not based on a movie, novel, TV show or other pop culture icon. Their shows say something about the way we live and how we communicate — they have weight, without being ponderous. (Of the four scores nominated for Tonys this year, If/Then is the only one not to have already been a movie.) There’s a compelling energy to the songs, which provide the gay icon Menzel with plenty of power-ballad moments. I can’t wait until karaoke fans discover her humorous Act 1 solo “What the Fuck?” and startle the patrons in the other room while belting it out.
This show is a better song cycle than any of the other musicals this season, and one you know will prove to have staying power. Don’t take my word for it. Its first week in release, it landed at No. 19 on the Billboard chart. That’s higher than any cast recording debut since … Rent. And we already know Menzel has a history of defying gravity.
Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. When you hear the first vocal track of Beautiful, you may, like I did, double-check to make sure this is an original cast album and not a compilation soundtrack. After all, you’ve probably heard King’s “So Far Away” often enough that you know the original when you hear it — her plaintive, expressive voice is instantly recognizable. But listen closer: it is a new recording, delivered with equal parts impersonation and interpretation by Jessie Mueller, who won a Tony Award earlier this month for her performance.
The latest in the trend of jukebox musicals pulled from existing songbooks, Beautiful courses King’s rise from Brill Building hit-maker for others (more than 100 made the Billboard pop chart, including “Natural Woman,” “The Loco-Motion” and “Up on the Roof”) to the most successful female singer-songwriter of a generation (Tapestry is still mandatory for any serious pop music collector). Over its 25 familiar songs, the album escorts us through the ’60s music scene — like Jersey Boys, but without a falsetto. The production values on the recording are strong, though the arrangements sometimes sound slightly rushed. And led by Mueller, the singers all deliver the goods. It’s like a greatest hits album visited afresh. Lucky for Bridges (and all the other nominees) it wasn’t eligible for the best score Tony — nothing comes close.
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition June 20, 2014.