Little Me
Little Me
#1Little Me
Posted: 4/13/13 at 9:02pmHello, I love the show "little Me" (Neil Simon, Cy Coleman, Carolyn Leigh). If anybody knows of any audios, videos, or just interesting facts about any of the three productions, please tell me. (For videos I'm mostly thinking of Fosse's "Rich Kid Rag" and "I've got Your Number"). Thank you so much!
After Eight
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
#3Little Me
Posted: 4/13/13 at 11:08pm
The truth is a wonderfully clever lyric, and a very catchy tune, but it suffers from the being a "topical song" of the most topical kind- a name drop song.
It's also of note that of the three Broadway versions, only the first used Patrick Dennis (the author of the original faux-memoir) as narrator figure, coaxing the story out of Belle by proxy- other revivals have done away with him and simply used Belle as autonomous narrator, each one making her steadily more and more cynical as opposed to the original Belle, who even as a middle-aged dame is as much a bubble-headed slut stereotype as possible, albeit one with a veneer of culture. Perhaps the name Patrick Dennis no longer really held cultural cache enough to be made a major character in the show, post 1980s.
(Interestingly enough, the Australian production and the Charles Busch version, which mashed up all three extant versions of the show, both included "The Truth." And while I believe the Busch included Patrick Dennis, the Australian had a nonspecific "gossip reporter.")
Leadingplayer
Broadway Star Joined: 5/12/03
After Eight
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/5/09
#6Little Me
Posted: 4/14/13 at 11:14am
I agree with After Eight!
The fascinating thing about "Little Me" is that the show survives without having ANY structural integrity. The first version was designed clearly as a Sid Caesar vehicle, in which he could outshine anything. It worked perfectly. The second production was retooled to support two very different leading men in place of one, and it still worked fairly well.
The third production seemed, on the surface, to increase the size of the leading man's "Noble track" again. In actuality, it stayed about the same size as the two previous productions taken as an average, adding one role and cutting two smaller ones from each revival. However, at the same time, the role of Belle Poitrine was bulked up, as were a number of ensemble tracks- Brooks Ashmankas and Christine Pedi, for instance, were showcased fairly clearly as "players." So while Short and Prince remained leads, they were more of an integrated comic ensemble than the previous productions had been.
#7Little Me
Posted: 4/14/13 at 1:18pm
It is one of the funniest musicals (while, I agree with After Eight too!) A brilliant book.
I've always wondered about Swen Swenson's claim in All His Jazz that his strip tease to I've Got Your Number caused such a sensation that women would run to the front of the stage...
Wilmingtom
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/18/11
#8Little Me
Posted: 4/14/13 at 2:41pmI also adore Little Me. And I would argue, with all due respect, that splitting the lead role makes for 2 nice roles instead of one tour de force role. I much prefer the latter, and I think audiences do as well. The fun of plays like Greater Tuna and Irma Vep are watching the actors take on all of the roles and I feel that is a major part of LM's charm as well.
#10Little Me
Posted: 4/14/13 at 3:01pmSpeaking of Fosse's choreography, has any of it been preserved on camera? I know Fosse (the show) was meant to do the Rag but it was dropped at some point (and before I saw it in previews in Toronto so I'm not sure it ever made it in.) I have the Ed Sullivan performance of Deep Down Inside which is a fun number, but that's all I've seen.
#11Little Me
Posted: 4/14/13 at 5:11pm
A revival company called 42nd St. Moon is staging a production of LITTLE ME in San Francisco next month.
42nd Street Moon's LITTLE ME
Updated On: 4/14/13 at 05:11 PM
Quinnster64
Swing Joined: 5/4/12
#12Little Me
Posted: 4/14/13 at 7:39pm
Rich Kid's Rag was never even rehearsed in the pre-Broadway production of Fosse. There was some talk initially of somehow transitioning from Rich Kid's Rag into Rich Man's Frug (the thought frightens me).
Although the choreography was somewhat "lost" apparently two of Bob's dance captains (or dancers) from Little Me saw the show in LA and asked about numbers from that and "How to Succeed...." and that they kept their notes.
I wish it could be found...I'd love to see it as Little Me is one of my favorite shows since we did it in my high school back in the 80's.
#14Little Me
Posted: 4/14/13 at 10:55pm
Encores! is doing "Little Me"?! This makes me very happy. We just did the show at Marin School of the Arts in California, we got special permission from Neil Simon to use the libretto from the 1998 Revival. Our director, Rodney Franz, picked and chose the best from the original and the 1998 versions (he didn't care for the Coco/Garber version) and we basically made a "Little Me" zombie. Unfortunately, as we have more then 50 members in the Musical Theatre/Theatre Arts program, all of the Sid Caesar parts were split up (I was Val du Val's understudy, went on during one of the previews, but never an actual show). It made Madison Milliner, our Belle, the star, and she was great! I read Fosse's biography and have been obsessed ever since.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfVW2O5BWqw
Updated On: 4/14/13 at 10:55 PM
#19Little Me
Posted: 4/15/13 at 11:16amI saw all of them too, and although I love Garber and Coco, the show isn't nearly as clever when you break up the original concept. Caesar was great in the original, but I liked Martin Short even more (equally outrageous, but a much better singer and all-round musical performer). It's a fun show, great score, and yeah, Swen Swenson was HOT doing "I've Got Your Number" in a much tamer time.
#20Little Me
Posted: 4/15/13 at 11:22amI am assuming Simon got some ghostwriting and editing from each of his generations of leading comic actor- each variation on the script is clearly revised and refined for the idiosyncratic performers inhabiting them. The original script has lots of room for Sid Caesar to improvise and babble in what sounds like a foreign language, since that was one of his specialties. The 1982 script refines the character of Mrs. Eggleston a lot, to give James Coco a great drag role, and also kind of "butches up" Noble to make him a parodic leading man and not just a sort of mama's boy. The 1998 version, finally, makes Noble a much more emasculated figure, as well as providing opportunities for Short to get hysterical as almost all of his characters, since comic breakdowns and tantrums are one of his strongest suits.
WOSQ
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/18/03
#21Little Me
Posted: 4/15/13 at 1:39pm
Little Me is a special kind of show to me. I have always felt it belongs on a very short list of musicals that are meant to be "performed" and not really "acted". (Forum is about the only other one of this ilk that comes to mind.)
As originally written (and the script is in Volume II of The Collected Plays of Neil Simon) it feels like a series of vaudeville/nightclub turns. I saw a Music Fair production with comics Jack Carter and Kaye Stevens as Young Belle that worked in ways that later productions have not. Martin Short and Faith Prince, as good as they were, never gave the show the lunacy that I feel it calls for. (Also in that production were Harold Lang and Ethel Merman's best friend, Benay Venuta. What a cast and in a stock tour no less.)
For instance the title song in the revise is thrown away at the top of the show. In the original, it is a duet sung by Young and Old Belle to each other and is slotted near the eleven o'clock position.
[And find a copy of the novel by Patrick Dennis. Talk about a hoot.]
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