Curtains (2007 Original Broadway Cast)
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Free Music Notes for Curtains (2007 Original Broadway Cast)
Free Music Review: Gotta Love Broadway!
Hit: 4 Stars
Lovers of Broadway will appreciate thaat the Musical genre' is alive. Here is a refreshing "new" work, with a clever story and a great cast. Buy the cd & then see the show! You'll leave the theare with your toes a tappin'.Free Music Review: The Last Kander and Ebb
Hit: 4 Stars
Couldn't miss the opportunity to hear the last of the Kander and Ebb collaboration. This score has a familiar feel to it. The music is good but not great and the show seems as if it would be fun.Free Music Review: Funny show, lame score
Hit: 3 Stars
Overall, Curtains is great fun, but the score is pretty lame, especially considering its Kander & Ebb pedigree. The show survives on a humorous and entertaining book, and a very engaging cast. The music is forgettable, and the lyrics are rarely more than serviceable, although they can at times be quite funny. Overall, the show reminds me of Kander & Ebb's last Broadway outing, Steel Pier, which was also very enjoyable in the theater, but I somehow never find myself wanting to listen to the score.
Tony winner and whodunnit scribe Rupert Holmes doubtless had a hand in crafting the clever plot for Curtains, which genuinely kept me guessing until all was revealed at the end. Holmes came in to supplement Fred Ebb's lyrics as well as the late Peter Stone's original book. Despite an unremarkable score, the whole show somehow adds up to be greater than the sum of it parts, due in no small part to a simply marvelous cast of some of the best Broadway has to offer.
"Frasier" veteran (and now Tony winner) David Hyde Pierce is sweet, charming, and very very funny as the detective investigating a mounting series of murders during the Boston tryout of a fictive Broadway-bound musical. Pierce adopts a very interesting accent, although it didn't seem to originate from any part of Boston that I'm familiar with. After his hysterical turn in Spamalot, Pierce has quickly proven himself a natural musical performer. Why Hank Azaria received a Tony nomination for that show but Pierce did not is still a mystery to me.
The rest of the cast is a veritable who's who of Broadway stalwarts. Debra Monk absolutely stops the show with her second act number, "It's a Business," as she did in the last Kander & Ebb show to hit Broadway, Steel Pier. Jason Danieley is blessed with the best song in the show, the touching "I Miss the Music," and he delivers it with power and heart. Jill Paice was a fresh and likable ingenue. Edward Hibbert did yet another in his succession of bitter quipsters. And I'll see just about anything with the glorious Karen Ziemba.
As for whodunnit, let's just say it all comes together at the end, the guilty parties get their comeuppance, and all is right with the world. And isn't that what musical comedy is all about?
Free Music Review: Very Pleasant
Hit: 3 Stars
Nice, witty and pleasant music. Sadly, as the teams last work, it is not on a par with their earlier efforts. I kept expecting the big, gorgeous, soaring ballad of other shows, but it never really comes. I still think Steel Pier is their best work (tho the show didn't work). However when you are the composers of Cabaret, The Happy Time, Zorba, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Woman of the Year, Chicago, and The Rink (among others...), you go down in history as one of the great songwriting teams in American theater.
The performers are all first rate, David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk are hoots. Karen Ziemba, as always, is wonderful. A major disappointment is that Jason Danielly's beautiful tenor voice is not given more to do. Overall, pleasant fun!!
Free Music Review: CURTAINS is likable but not special.
Hit: 3 Stars
There is nothing particularly great about this score, but it is likable, and it is Kander & Ebb's final work. That makes it worthwhile to have. The next time I am in NYC, which won't be until December, I would like to see CURTAINS, especially if David Hyde Pierce is still in it. I prefer revivals and old fashioned musicals like CURTAINS to the new shows with rock or folk rock scores, like LEGALLY BLONDE which I disliked.