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| Hal Watters, Judy Lander, Margery Cohen, Jerry Lanning, Ken Kercheval. |
"In Lieu of Reviews"
For background on how this previously
unpublished series—introducing all mainstream New York shows between 1970 and
1975—came to be and its relationship to my three The Encyclopedia of the New York Stage volumes (covering every New
York play, musical, revue, and revival between 1920 and 1950), please check the
prefaces to any of the earlier entries beginning with the letter “A.” See the
list at the end of the current entry.
BERLIN TO BROADWAY WITH KURT WEILL [Musical Revue/Composer
Anthology] M: Kurt Weill; LY: Maxwell Anderson, Marc Blitzstein, Bertolt
Brecht, Jacques Deval, Michael Feingold, Ira Gershwin, Paul Green, Langston
Hughes, Alan Jay Lerner, Ogden Nash, George Tabori, Arnold Weinstein; D: Donald
Saddler; S: Herbert Senn and Helen Pond; C: Frank Thompson; L: Thomas Skelton;
P: Hank Kaufman and Gene Lerner i/a/w Michael Arthur Film Productions; T:
Theatre de Lys (OB); 10/1/72-2/11/73 (156)
A retrospective of 39 Kurt Weill songs from 11 shows, presented
within the context of a narrated shipboard voyage (with projections) through
the composer’s career. It begins in Germany and ended with his contributions to
the American musical. A narrator (Ken Kercheval) filled in the biographical
details of Weill’s life in order to illuminate the music in its chronological
development.
There were few outright raves and quite a number of notices with
severe reservations. Everyone had only esteem for the resplendent Weill tunes
but there was little satisfaction with the glossy, inappropriate staging
devices of Donald Saddler, the intrusive narrative concept (co-written by
co-producer Lerner), the orchestrations, and the company. The German portion of
the show failed to work properly, the cast being more at home with the Broadway
segments. Typical of the responses was John Simon’s that the show lacked “not
only humanity but even femininity, and especially, virility.”
Previous entries:
Abelard and
Heloise
Absurd Person
Singular
AC/DC
“Acrobats”
and “Line”
The Advertisement/
All My Sons
All Over
All Over Town
All the Girls Came
Out to Play
Alpha Beta
L’Amante Anglais
Ambassador
American Gothics
Amphitryon
And Miss Reardon
Drinks a Little
And They Put
Handcuffs on the Flowers
And Whose Little
Boy Are You?
Anna K.
Anne of Green
Gables
Antigone
Antiques
Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead
Applause
Ari
As You Like It
Augusta
The
Au Pair Man
Baba Goya [Nourish the Beast]
The Ballad of Johnny Pot
Barbary Shore
The Bar that Never Closes
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel
The Beauty Part
The Beggar’s Opera
Behold! Cometh the Vanderkellens
Be Kind to People Week
