Without meaning to here comes probably another long comment. I saw Bandstand for the second time this afternoon. The first time I saw it was the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend and I wondered how much of the enthusiastic audience response then was due to the holiday weekend. The new Times critic had written
If “Bandstand” really worked, the finale would find you laughing and crying. Instead, you might just make like the dancers and shrug"
According to these criteria, Bandstand had worked when I saw it. It produced heartfelt tears (even in me, a little) and broad grins. I thought that the show deserved more attention than it got for bringing up a subject that had never even occurred to me. Having volunteered at a homeless shelter in the well-off village of Port Jefferson on Long Island, in the early 90s, I had been exposed to the heartbreak of the returning veterans of Vietnam. Over 50,000 men were killed in action, but an equal amount returned home with a permanent handicap of either mind or body. Basically there were a lot of alcoholic vets living on the streets of this affluent village. The veteran brother of a pretty young girl who was a volunteer at the homeless shelter had been in effect sentenced to life in a big, cavernous psychiatric institution run by the government.
So why had it never come to the attention of most that their must be many forgotten World War II vets who had come home in the same sad condition of the Vietnam vet? They had had similar or worse experiences evicting the fight-to-the-death Japanese from their well-entrenched defensive positions on so many muddy, disease-ridden Pacific Islands?
The immediate cause of my returning was hearing the cast album. I really like the wall of sound that it put up. I had pretty good exposure to the best of the swing era due to my parents' interest in it. It was the music that they had grown up to. I thought I might like the show even better knowing the music and understanding the lyrics.
A lot of theatergoers blame Bandstand's failure on the lack of knowledge or interest on almost all parts of the population in swing music. Chicago was set in the jazz age and its original semi-failure could be blamed partly on lack of interest in that music. But when the Encores version caught fire everyone discovered that this music was pretty great.
It's just a noisy hall, Where there's a nightly brawl, And all that jazz.
So you might be able to say the same about swing right now: off the radar. But one odd thing is that the CEO of Sirius Satellite radio said a few weeks ago that the biggest negative response that they had ever gotten, by far, to an announcement that a channel was being dropped was the response to the news that the 40s station was being dropped. It was restored. Where did all that response come from? Some day you may appreciate, if you don't already, all the gifted musicians of that time. Benny Goodman with Gene Krupa ("Sing! Sing! Sing!"
, Duke Ellington ("Take the A Train", Artie Shaw ("Begin the Beguine".
So far I haven't said anything about rush. Par for the course. I was going to say that Telecharge's regular discount prices may be low enough to avoid you a trip. The last three rows of the mezz are $59.00 for every performance except the Wednesday matinee. And you can be pretty sure that you'll be able to move down, probably into the front mezz, at just about every performance.
About today's show, for starters Corey was out. I don't think many bothered to ask for a refund as most didn't know him. His understudy, Jonathan Shew, wasn't as attractive in the role as Corey, but as a guy in his first Broadway show, he did well enough. Acting and dancing the role is hard enough, but having to go over to the piano on a moment's notice and play the instrument and play it well is a lot to ask.
Once again this show, which appears to be one that could be on a respirator at any time, grabbed the audience in the 2nd Act. There were tears and smiles and a strong standing "O" for the company, but most impressive was the great roar that greeted the end of the show's climactic number, "Welcome Home."
I think that the audience really grew attached to the whole band. Not just Donny and Julia, but the heavyset Irish alcoholic who got off a number of good one-liners, the drummer who rolled over three times in the jeep, doing serious damage to his mental faculties, the detail oriented trumpet player. The roar was for all the band members who had pulled off a long shot of even being able to function together as a group in a successful band.
Updated On: 6/26/17 at 11:39 PM
