Anything Goes, Stephen Sondheim Theatre- Part II

Last weekend I saw Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Anything Goes for the second time. You can read my review from the the first time around here. "What was the difference this second time around?," skeptical or budget-conscious readers might ask.  And the answer to that question is that there were two understudies on in supporting roles: Linda Mugleston was playing Mrs. Evangeline Harcourt, and Josh Franklin was playing Billy Crocker. I enjoyed the chance to see different takes on the roles, having already seen the original cast perform.  Also having already seen these two performers in other shows, I was looking forward to seeing them take on principal roles in this production.

The star and central focus of the show is still Sutton Foster as Reno Sweeney, who has nearly all the familiar songs in the show's score.  Personally, I believe that her best number is "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" in Act II, which really rouses the house.  The performance of the title number is also very spirited, with the full cast tapping along.

Joel Grey is amusing as Moonface Martin, in a semi-constant state of befuddlement with occasional bright ideas for scams and solutions.  I don't have another actor's portrayal to compare, but I would be interested in seeing different takes on the role.

I thought Josh Franklin did a wonderful job as Billy Crocker. He seemed to have a bit more personality and charisma than Colin Donnell, and did a better job at selling his numbers. He stood out from the chorus in a way Mr. Donnell couldn't quite manage.

Linda Mugleston does the best she can with the archetypal role of a patrician matron, marrying her daughter to the highest bidder to regain the family fortune lost in the 1928 stock market crash. It was great to see her in a larger role again, as I really enjoyed her performance as Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town back in 2005. I hope that she gets the chance to play more leading roles on Broadway.

Still strong in support are John McMartin, Jessica Stone, Walter Charles, and Robert Creighon, all of whom are quite funny and mostly underused.  In the ensemble, Joyce Chittick stands out as "Virtue," Reno's low-voiced Angel with her eye on Moonface Martin. Ms. Chittick is also a former cast member of Wonderful Town, which was also directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall, who repeats her duties here.

The show is helped by a great physical production: Derek McLane's sets wonderfully convey the deck of a luxury ocean liner and various staterooms as well.  I am especially impressed by the moving elements. There are a few room cutaways which move on and off, but parts of the deck move inward and outward as well.  Peter Kaczorowski's lighting adds to the mood as well, with many windows which light in different colors over the course of the show, usually in shades of pink or blue.  Martin Pakledinaz provides the many gowns Sutton Foster and her Angels wear over the course of the show.

The show is currently selling out with an average ticket price in the $100 range, so tickets are fairly hard to come by, but if you do get a chance to see this production, I would highly recommend it, as it is quite fun and hearing a Cole Porter score with a fairly large orchestra is always a must for any theater fan.

Oscar Song Nominees

Something I was recently thinking about, as Oscar nominations come out soon.  This is meant to be one long thought, and so I am writing this from memory and not fact-checking.  In recent years, it seems like the Best Song Winner is not actually the best song, or not a song with as much recognition as other nominees. I have also wondered whether a movie having multiple songs nominated had the effect of cancelling each other out, specifically in the cases of Dreamgirls and Enchanted. Both of these movies had three songs nominated. In the first case, it was "Listen", "Love You I Do" and "Patience". In the latter case, the selected songs were "How Do You Know?", "Happy Working Song", and "So Close". And none of those six songs won, and I thought a plausible explanation is that each of them were getting some votes, but they split the Academy's preferences and allowed an underdog candidate to sneak in. But then I thought back to The Lion King ("Circle of Life", "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?", "Hakuna Matata") and Beauty and the Beast ("Belle", "Be Our Guest", "Beauty and the Beast") in the 1990's. Both of those movies had three songs nominated from their scores. And both of them won Oscars for Best Score and Best Song. Aladdin and The Little Mermaid each had two songs nominated ("Part of Your World" was not nominated?) , and they also walked away with Best Score and Best Song. I would like to point out that five of these six examples had the involvement of Alan Menken or Tim Rice. Alan Menken also won Best Song and Score for Pocohontas featuring "Colors of the Wind." So I guess it's a newer trend for the votes to be split among the songs without one being a clear winner. Can anyone else think of movies which had multiple songs nominated in the last 30 years? Now I actually am interested in doing the research.

The update to this post is that I don't think any other movie has had more than one song nominated that wasn't listed above and I'm glad that Randy Newman won the Oscar for "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3 and that a traditional nominee finally reclaimed the award after some very disappointing winners the last few years. Hopefully this will reverse that trend and there won't be as many obscure and untraditional winners. On a related note, can we have more time devoted to the performance of the songs on the telecast? That has also been bugging me, the small amount of time devoted to performance on a bloated telecast.