A Catered Affair (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
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Music CD Cover
Performer: Faith PrincePerformer: Tom Wopat
Performer: Harvey Fierstein
Edition: Music CD
Format: Cast Recording
CD Release Date: 2008-05-27
Music Label: P.S. Classics
Soundtracks:
- Partners
- Ralph and Me
- Married
- Women Chatter
- No Fuss
- Your Children s Happiness
- Immediate Family
- Our Only Daughter
- Women Chatter 2
- One White Dress
- Vision
- Don t Ever Stop Saying I Love You
- I Stayed
- Married (reprise)
- Coney Island
- Don t Ever Stop Saying I Love You (reprise)
- Coney Island (reprise)
Free Music Notes for A Catered Affair (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
Free Music Review: An Underrated "Kitchen-Sink" Musical
Hit: 5 Stars
"A Catered Affair" met with mixed to negative reviews when it opened on Broadway in April. Everything from the score to the production to the source material was attacked with gusto. However, if this recording is indicative of what's happening on the stage of the Walter Kerr Theatre in New York, it's probably worth a visit. True, this is not exactly the flashy hit-mongering that passes for Broadway entertainment these days, but that's what makes it so special. The original kitchen sink drama this is based on was emblematic of its time, a true 50s artifact that still resonates today thanks to original writers Gore Vidal and Paddy Chayefsky. And the score underpins that point with subtle poignancy. The oboe / horn combo in the opening prologue recalls the type of subdued jazzy underscoring found in many a 50s film. Credit goes to the great Jonathan Tunick, whose orchestrations always serve the material but also tenderly recall that bygone era with wistful gentility. John Bucchino's evocative score has been criticized for its low wattage, but a sockeroonee "Wicked" tunestack would be totally wrong for the themes and characters of this show. Using a quiet, chamber musical approach, Bucchino eschews bombast for emotional phrasing with the most intimate grace. We share the longing sadness and survivability of a battered but unbeaten family, a strongly drawn group of human beings from another time. Songs like "Partners", "Married", "Our Only Daughter" and "One White Dress" draw the characters sharply with sly wit and compassion...and they "sound" like a family, not a group of actors. All of this recalls the monumental "Caroline, or Change" that completely reinvented the musical theater palette several seasons back with its adventurous artistry. Both scores are unconventional and completely dedicated to content and character.
The cast, with one exception (and it's a biggie) is marvelous. The great Faith Prince underplays Aggie in what is possibly her most touching portrayal and her songs, especially "Married", are standouts on this recording. True, the high-volt Prince persona is muted, but this allows her a depth of characterization that was heretofore unseen. Tom Wopat brings real fire to the beleagured figure of Tom, especially in his growling heartbreaker, "I Stayed", and both Matt Cavanaugh and the beguiling Leslie Kritzer hit just the rote notes, literally and figuratively, as the devoted intendeds. The one blight is the librettist, Harvey Fierstein, who doubles as closeted bachelor-brother Winston and massacres every one of his songs with that course growl that was funny for five minutes in "Hairspray" but undoes the material here. He's all wrong for the part which, ironically, is the only ill-conceived character of the lot.
What really boosts this original cast recording, however, is its presentation. So much of the generally smart libretto (Harvey again) is included here that it's like an old radio program where the listener gets the entire storyline through the clever use of words. Dialogue segues into song so effortlessly that the seemlessness is often breathtakingly natural. And the caliber of the recording is pristine. "A Catered Affair" may be too glum for the "Mary Poppins" crowd, but it's an adult musical about adult themes and deserves an audience to keep such artistic audacity alive in the musical theater.
A Catered Affair (Original Broadway Cast Recording) Poster
A Catered Affair, the new musical with book by four-time Tony Award-winner Harvey Fierstein, score by John Bucchino and direction by Tony Award-winner John Doyle, poses the question that inevitably faces every mother and daughter: whose wedding is it anyway? It's 1953, and family ties are strained when a Bronx mother struggles to give her only daughter the elaborate wedding she herself never had and the bride never asked for. Based on the 1956 motion picture of the same name, the production stars Tony Award-winner Faith Prince as Aggie Hurley, the mother-of-the-bride, Tony Award-nominee Tom Wopat as 'Tom Hurley,' the father-of-the-bride, and Fierstein himself as Winston, the uncle-of-the-bride. It's a funny, poignant and oh-so-human tale of love and disaffection, and the tender and melodic score to A Catered Affair -- expertly preserved on this original Broadway cast recording -- explores both our need for love and the true meaning of family.Broadway & Vocalists Music CDs
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