It's All About Me, Man: [CanYoAssDigIt] more on Ishtar the Musical

Saturday, July 21, 2007

[CanYoAssDigIt] more on Ishtar the Musical

He is joking... but maybe the more the idea is in the air...

Stupid NYT reviewer maybe doesn't know the Times initially gave Isthar
a good review... as they should have.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/arts/22ishe.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Playgoers, Beware the 'Ishtar' Invasion

By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
Published: July 22, 2007

BROADWAY has recently been diligent, even tireless, in the pursuit of
refitting successful movie musicals from the 1980s (and the 1970s) for
the stage. Almost without exception the results have been dire. The
synthetic stage version of "Saturday Night Fever" took itself way too
seriously; "Footloose" was bland and witless; "Urban Cowboy" had all
the down-home grit of a barbecued marshmallow. The odious stage
version of "Fame" never made it to Broadway — a small mercy — but it
was an inexplicable hit in the West End of London. Next up: a stage
"Flashdance," being developed by the company that brought us the dud
Earth, Wind and Fire jukebox musical "Hot Feet." Prognosis: scary.
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Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection

"Ishtar" starred Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty.
Enlarge This Image
Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection

Jamie Lee Curtis in "Perfect."

Now, with the improbably delightful "Xanadu" blazing a neon path
forward, perhaps it is time for Broadway to forge ahead in adapting
some of the truly awful movie offerings of the decade for the stage.
Maybe only in acknowledged cinematic badness does the promise of stage
greatness lie.

Herewith my fantasy (and, I hope I need hardly add, facetious)
suggestions for potential resurrection. You'll notice that my
definition of the 1980s is a little bit loose here. The 1980s were the
years in which the quality of American moviemaking truly began to
decline precipitously, but a few '70s titles were so bad that I've
decided to include them as honorary '80s movies. And, to narrow the
competition, I concentrated on movies that are either musicals or were
associated with hit songs or soundtracks. ("Mommie Dearest," a natural
choice, is thus disqualified, although it could make a great opera.)

'EYES OF LAURA MARS: THE MUSICAL'

This 1978 thriller was not, strictly speaking, a musical, but it
spawned a big hit for Barbra Streisand in "Prisoner (Love Theme From
'Eyes of Laura Mars')," and its soundtrack also includes the familiar
disco number "Let's All Chant," by the
never-heard-from-before-or-since Michael Zager Band.

Nor is it truly terrible, although its chichi fashion-world setting
and the presence of Faye Dunaway in the title role firmly classify it
as camp. Ms. Dunaway is fiercely entertaining as a demanding,
perfectionist, Helmut Newton-style fashion photographer who is stalked
both psychically and literally by a killer who plants ice picks in his
victims' eyes.

Who but the demanding, perfectionist Donna Murphy could fill Ms.
Dunaway's leather boots onstage? Denis O'Hare would be brilliant as
the snippy gay sidekick played by Rene Auberjonois. A dance medley on
the soundtrack also includes "(Shake Shake Shake) Shake Your Booty"
from KC and the Sunshine Band, which means the stage version could
shoehorn in a few more of that group's undying dance hits with
impunity, although it is hard to picture Ms. Murphy delivering any of
them. Perhaps she could tone up the proceedings by singing "I'm Your
Boogie Man" with a German accent?

'A STAR IS BORN '76: THE MUSICAL'

Andrew Lloyd Webber's production company was once rumored to be
mounting a stage version of the beloved 1954 "Star Is Born," which
starred Judy Garland and James Mason and featured songs by Harold
Arlen and Ira Gershwin. Far more fruitful for pure kitsch purposes is
the unbeloved, resplendently bad 1970s version that helped send Barbra
Streisand's movie career into an aesthetic swoon from which it never
truly recovered.

I envision Idina Menzel in the lead role, center stage at the climax
in a nimbus of light emphasizing the supersized faux-'fro that Ms.
Streisand sported in the movie. (Remember, these were the Jon Peters
years.) Ms. Menzel certainly has both the vocal chops and, as an
alumna of "Rent," the rock (or rock-ish) background to play Esther
Hoffman, the pop rocker on the rise whose marriage to that
star-on-the-skids John Norman Howard ends tempestuously and
tragically.

Harder to cast, perhaps, would be the Howard role, played by Kris
Kristofferson in the movie, looking vaguely nauseated throughout.
Perhaps Ms. Menzel's co-star in "Rent," Adam Pascal, could be talked
into growing a scraggly beard and grumbling his way through Mr.
Kristofferson's songs?

A metatheatrical twist could interpolate the backstage drama on the
movie. Ms. Streisand's megalomania had begun to spiral out of control
by this point. She and Mr. Kristofferson reportedly loathed each
other; hence, perhaps, his terminally disgusted look. Incidentally,
Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne shared screenplay credit. Would Ms.
Didion be interested in another crack at Broadway, refashioning her
work for a stage sendup? I rather doubt it.

'GREASE 2: THE MUSICAL'

Sequelitis, the bane of Hollywood for at least a quarter-century, has
somehow failed to infect Broadway. Maybe the doomed attempts to
manufacture a hit follow-up to "Annie" had a vaccinationlike effect on
even the more crass producers. But it's never too late to start.

How many show queens recall that the super-flop sequel to one of the
biggest movie musicals of all time was directed by Patricia Birch,
better known as a Broadway choreographer and frequent collaborator of
Harold Prince? Ms. Birch choreographed the smash-hit "Grease" for both
stage and film and was rewarded with the director's chair on "Grease
2."

Sadly, her moviemaking debut didn't fare much better than Mr. Prince's
moribund film version of the Stephen Sondheim musical "A Little Night
Music." Perhaps a second crack at the material, with tongue in cheek,
would be more fruitful. (More theater-related "Grease 2" trivia: Peter
Frechette, a well-known New York actor, plays one of the not-so-tough
toughs in the bland, sugary sequel to an already toxically innocuous
movie.)

I see Leslie Kritzer, now on Broadway as Elle's chief sidekick in
"Legally Blonde," in the Lorna Luft role (and Ms. Luft in the Eve
Arden role). Perhaps Kerry Butler could move smoothly from "Xanadu" to
the lead, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, who was perhaps the only one
involved in "Grease 2" to emerge unscathed.

'ISHTAR: THE KARAOKE MUSICAL'

Another popular trend Broadway has been slow to capitalize on is
karaoke. Maybe the time has come to acknowledge that today, as amateur
hours spread across the television spectrum like a variety-show virus,
half the people in a Broadway audience secretly yearn for stardom, or
at least a shining moment in the public spotlight. The rest have
learned to be voyeurs and contest judges, happy to snicker as fellow
audience members make utter fools of themselves.

So the legendarily unamusing 1987 comedy starring Dustin Hoffman and
Warren Beatty as talentless singer-songwriters could be adapted to
give audience members a chance to play would-be pop idols themselves,
sharing the stage with the stars of the Broadway sendup, Norbert Leo
Butz and Brian d'Arcy James. Before taking your seat, you check off
your repertory from a wide list of hits of the past few decades. Lucky
winners get a chance to sing their favorite or share a duet with Mr.
Butz or Mr. James.

Thus laughs, so peculiarly absent in Elaine May's movie, can be
effortlessly ushered into the stage adaptation. Also, Jackie Hoffman
and Mary Testa repeat their scene-stealing chores from "Xanadu" here,
playing both ends of a wisecracking camel.

'PERFECT'

This 1985 clunker was undoubtedly the worst movie ever made about the
aerobics craze — also the only one I fondly hope — and possibly also
the worst movie ever made about journalism. The chemistry between
Jamie Lee Curtis, as a grumpy, manic, trampy workout instructor, and
John Travolta, playing a reporter for Rolling Stone, was about as
intoxicating as a gallon of Gatorade. Some egregiously bad dialogue
didn't help. The immortally awful aperçu "You're a sphincter muscle!"
is virtually a leitmotif, for example, spoken both in bitterness and
in tendresse.

To avoid having to use any of that un-lampoonably dreary dialogue,
"Perfect" becomes Broadway's next all-dance musical, a zippy 90
minutes choreographed by Twyla Tharp (she already did jogging in
"Movin' Out") and reuniting two of the electrifying dancers from that
show, Elizabeth Parkinson (in Ms. Curtis's asymmetrical shag) and John
Selya.

Their pelvic-thrusting pas de deux are performed to the music of the
Pointer Sisters, whose single "All Systems Go" appears on the
soundtrack, thus making it logical to include a bunch of their other
infectious hits from the decade, like "Jump (for My Love)," "I'm So
Excited" and "Automatic," all uncannily apropos for a show set in a
stylized dream of a sports club. Other kitschy fun redolent of the
'80s: a scene set in a Chippendales-type bar full of hysterical
bachelorettes, and a chorus line of Boy George impersonators
serenading their trainer with "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?"
(Weirdly, a bunch of Boy George look-alikes actually make cameo
appearances in the movie.)

'THE BRAT PACK LIVE! ON BROADWAY'

This tribute to the sentimental filmic youthquake of the decade
reunites all the stars of the John Hughes pictures (and tributary
movies like "St. Elmo's Fire") who are not currently working in film.
Which is to say, most of them.

In a semi-satiric nostalgia fest the likes of Molly Ringwald, Ally
Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy and Anthony Michael Hall recreate
memorable scenes from the movies that made them, all too briefly and
at a painfully tender age, famous. Altered hairlines and paunches add
a postmodernist twist to scenes of teenagers battling and bonding. A
poignant finale finds the cast leading a sing-along version of the big
hit from "The Breakfast Club," Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About
Me)."