#1
Posted: 5/29/07 at 6:29pm
I posted a long excerpt from Mandelbaum's book on Bennett in the "Sondheim and Prince diss Chorus Line" thread when someone asked about Scandal but thought this deserved it's own post.
Anyone know more details about this show? i've seen two photos (in that book) from the workshop and that's all--I'm a HUGE HUGE Jimmy Webb fan and would particularly like to hear his songs--any show up elsewhere? The show fascinates me soo much--which the basic story sounds a bit sketchy to me (especially the happy ending with the marriage) staging it just sounds so incredible
Here's what I posted (typos, as always, are mine):
Try to track down Mendelbaum's book A Chorus Line and the Musicals of Michael Bennett--I got a used copy from Amazon for a penny plus shipping. It has a chapter on Scandal that was workshopped very thoroughly and sounds *wonderful*--people claim (but of course people like to claim stuff like this) that it was some of the most amazing stuff Bennett had staged.
It was put on hold partly due to his illness but partly too as baker's were afraid to back a musical that was so graphically and blatantly about sex and sexuality during the height of the AIDS crisis. Jimmy Webb's score (I'm a huge Webb fan and he has tons of love and respect for musical theatre--SOndheim in particular so I wish he'd try again to make a musical) was apparantly wonderful too though unrecorded--
Swoozie Kurtz (sp?) starred in the workshop (she stared as Claudia the American woman who goes to Europe for sexual promiscuity and experience)--there was a 14 minute "brilliant' An American Woman in Paris ballet intro. Others in the cast at the workshop were Treat Williams as Robert, David Rasche doubled as Mitch, the husband's best friend and ANdrew his friend/psychiatrist, Victor Garber tripled in three comic roles, FIsher Stevens played the French teenaged waiter, Priscella Lopez was the lesbian Claudia met in Switzerland, Wanda Richert and Trish Ramish were the women Robert saved from the fire and Kelly Bishop played Claudia's best friend and Jerry Mitchell was one of the main male dancers.
its genesis was because of an ex Mary Tyler Moore writer, Treva Silverman had a screenplay that Chorus Line lyricist Ed Kleban took to Bennett--he aske dher about it and she mentioned how she had been going to Europe to rediscover herself and Bennett decided THAT was the story that had theatrical possibilities. It was set to be a play and apparantly Treva's script was "brilliant"-but finally Bennett came across a format that was a modern take on Lady in the Dark--the songs and dance moments--which there were many of--would all be dreams or fantasies of the main character in reaction to what was around her.
He apparantly wanted Sondheim to write the score (man that oculda been wonderful) but Treva is quoted as saying that Bennett held Sondheim in such huge esteem that, while he did ask Steve for lotsa advice, he never got the nerve to ask him to write the score, as he was so afraid of rejection (Sondheim was writing Merrily and later Sunday during this time anyway). Eventually he decided on Jimmy Webb--who he had tried to collaborate with earlier in the 70s on another failed project.
Just as Bennett had gotten the younger choreographer Michael Peters to do a LOT of the actual dancing for Dreamgirls (partly cuz of his experience with black pop dancing), for Scandal, Danny Herman (who later did the Dreamgirls concert--and had been in the cast of Chorus Line) did much of the actual choreography, apparantly brilliantly.
As for the story:
" The show that began a series of workshops on May 1, 1984, contained perhaps the wildest, boldest, and most ribald story of any musical comedy. It was daring, hilarious, and ultimately profoundly moral. It concerned the marriage of Claudia and Robert Miller, which, after eight years has fallen into a patter of sexual staleness. Claudia has been sexually reserved with her husband, and it has begun to make a major difference not only in their marriage but in their ability to communicate with and love each other. Robert has begun seeing other women, and Claudia discovers this when RObert heroically saves several people from a midtown hotel fire. Unfortunately, the woman Robert carried out of the fire, identified on TV and in newspapers the next day as "Mrs. Miller," is not Claudia but a woman he has been seeing and this scandal forced Claudia to file for divorce.
Following an evening at Chippendale's, courtesy of her gossipy best friend, Elaine, plus a disastrous encounter with a hot but vain tennis pro, Claudia decides she's got to change her life. She makes a thoroughly un-Claudia-like decision to go to Europe, where she can be anonymous and see what sex is all about. Her adventures abroad form the body of the show, with occasional cuts back to Robert, including one hilarious sequence between Robert and a psychiatrist gay friend of his, Andrew.
Silverman devised a series of encounters for Claudia of a frankness and explicitness never before encountered in commercial musical theatres. However, by having Claudia constantly interrupt the most provocative situations to share her inner thoughts with the audience, she remained endearing in even the most outlanding situations, and the scenes always retained their humour--be it sometimes sweet, sometimes crude. Claudia has an affair with a sixteen year old waiter in a Paris hotel, then meets a handsome shoe repairman in Rome, who brings another man with him when he arrives for his tryst with Claudia. She finds herself snowbound in a Swiss chalet with Nicole, a woman friend whom she soon realizes is a lesbian.
Silverman: 'She becomes more and more liberated, and realizes what a joyous experience sex can be. She realizes that her husband has been searching for that because he hasn't found it with her. She also realizes she is absolutely in love with her husband. At the end, it is clear that by going through these changes she has become, finally, a perfect partner for him, just as he has had to go through his changes to be a partner for her. It was a love story, and within it was a woman's growth.'
Bennett: 'They get back together because they deal with it as opposed to thinking sex is not important. I think relationships that become compromised, where you settle are not a good idea.'
""The dance high point of Scandal! and possibly Bennett's career was the "Menage a Trois" ballet fantasy when Claudia experienced a successful encounter with two men after an earlier disaster. She finds to her surprise that the encounter with the two strangers leads to a sense of spirituality. As she dreamily remarks on the delicate frescoes decorating the old pensione, the frescoes come to life. RObin Wagner devised a ceiling that owuld lower to reveal three dancers, angels from theceiling, who float thorugh a delicately erotic dance of ineffable beauty.
Wagner: 'The ballet was breathtaking. It was Michael's best choreography and could be put on the stage of any opera house in the world.'
There were at least two other wildly inventive extended sequences. Above all the opening fantasy which was conceived as a contemporary version of Alice in Wonderland crossed with James Joyce, and on which they worked for 6 weeks alone. When completed it had the seeming arbitrariness that the unconcious express in a dream.
The curtain rose on a stage in flames, Claudia's dream of the fire that revealed and symbolized her husband Robert's infidelities. She attempts to enter the hotel but, as in a dream, she keeps shifting back and forth her perceptions. She believes she is either getting married or divorced in the hotel and at the same time wants to be the Mrs. Miller in the fire. As she attempts to get past the police cordon, she is not certain whether Robert is her husband, soon-to-be husband, or her soon-to-be ex-husband. She breaks through and wanders through the hotel until she finally drifts into the ballroom and hears the wedding march. The ceremony turns into a divorce; the man who is giving her away is not her father but a lawyer encourageing her to take Robert for everything he's got; and the men in the procession turn into the dancers from Chippendale's. At the end of the sequence, which employed continuous movement, spoken dialogue, song and dance, Claudia is rising into the air on her bed, trying to stop everything going on around her, as the celing beam collapses and the fire engulfs the stage and she wakes up.
There can be little doubt that this opening would have had audiences reeling from its complexity, hilarity, and sheer brilliance. Equally wonderful was the courtroom fantasy, composed in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan (a favorite of Webb's) in which Claudia was on trial for having a lesbian fantasy. The "Other Mrs Miller" was the prosecuting attourney; Andrew was the defence attorney; and all of Claudia's various lovers were rought into the courtroom to join with the judge and jury in singing "She's a dyke!"
Anyone know more details about this show? i've seen two photos (in that book) from the workshop and that's all--I'm a HUGE HUGE Jimmy Webb fan and would particularly like to hear his songs--any show up elsewhere? The show fascinates me soo much--which the basic story sounds a bit sketchy to me (especially the happy ending with the marriage) staging it just sounds so incredible
Here's what I posted (typos, as always, are mine):
Try to track down Mendelbaum's book A Chorus Line and the Musicals of Michael Bennett--I got a used copy from Amazon for a penny plus shipping. It has a chapter on Scandal that was workshopped very thoroughly and sounds *wonderful*--people claim (but of course people like to claim stuff like this) that it was some of the most amazing stuff Bennett had staged.
It was put on hold partly due to his illness but partly too as baker's were afraid to back a musical that was so graphically and blatantly about sex and sexuality during the height of the AIDS crisis. Jimmy Webb's score (I'm a huge Webb fan and he has tons of love and respect for musical theatre--SOndheim in particular so I wish he'd try again to make a musical) was apparantly wonderful too though unrecorded--
Swoozie Kurtz (sp?) starred in the workshop (she stared as Claudia the American woman who goes to Europe for sexual promiscuity and experience)--there was a 14 minute "brilliant' An American Woman in Paris ballet intro. Others in the cast at the workshop were Treat Williams as Robert, David Rasche doubled as Mitch, the husband's best friend and ANdrew his friend/psychiatrist, Victor Garber tripled in three comic roles, FIsher Stevens played the French teenaged waiter, Priscella Lopez was the lesbian Claudia met in Switzerland, Wanda Richert and Trish Ramish were the women Robert saved from the fire and Kelly Bishop played Claudia's best friend and Jerry Mitchell was one of the main male dancers.
its genesis was because of an ex Mary Tyler Moore writer, Treva Silverman had a screenplay that Chorus Line lyricist Ed Kleban took to Bennett--he aske dher about it and she mentioned how she had been going to Europe to rediscover herself and Bennett decided THAT was the story that had theatrical possibilities. It was set to be a play and apparantly Treva's script was "brilliant"-but finally Bennett came across a format that was a modern take on Lady in the Dark--the songs and dance moments--which there were many of--would all be dreams or fantasies of the main character in reaction to what was around her.
He apparantly wanted Sondheim to write the score (man that oculda been wonderful) but Treva is quoted as saying that Bennett held Sondheim in such huge esteem that, while he did ask Steve for lotsa advice, he never got the nerve to ask him to write the score, as he was so afraid of rejection (Sondheim was writing Merrily and later Sunday during this time anyway). Eventually he decided on Jimmy Webb--who he had tried to collaborate with earlier in the 70s on another failed project.
Just as Bennett had gotten the younger choreographer Michael Peters to do a LOT of the actual dancing for Dreamgirls (partly cuz of his experience with black pop dancing), for Scandal, Danny Herman (who later did the Dreamgirls concert--and had been in the cast of Chorus Line) did much of the actual choreography, apparantly brilliantly.
As for the story:
" The show that began a series of workshops on May 1, 1984, contained perhaps the wildest, boldest, and most ribald story of any musical comedy. It was daring, hilarious, and ultimately profoundly moral. It concerned the marriage of Claudia and Robert Miller, which, after eight years has fallen into a patter of sexual staleness. Claudia has been sexually reserved with her husband, and it has begun to make a major difference not only in their marriage but in their ability to communicate with and love each other. Robert has begun seeing other women, and Claudia discovers this when RObert heroically saves several people from a midtown hotel fire. Unfortunately, the woman Robert carried out of the fire, identified on TV and in newspapers the next day as "Mrs. Miller," is not Claudia but a woman he has been seeing and this scandal forced Claudia to file for divorce.
Following an evening at Chippendale's, courtesy of her gossipy best friend, Elaine, plus a disastrous encounter with a hot but vain tennis pro, Claudia decides she's got to change her life. She makes a thoroughly un-Claudia-like decision to go to Europe, where she can be anonymous and see what sex is all about. Her adventures abroad form the body of the show, with occasional cuts back to Robert, including one hilarious sequence between Robert and a psychiatrist gay friend of his, Andrew.
Silverman devised a series of encounters for Claudia of a frankness and explicitness never before encountered in commercial musical theatres. However, by having Claudia constantly interrupt the most provocative situations to share her inner thoughts with the audience, she remained endearing in even the most outlanding situations, and the scenes always retained their humour--be it sometimes sweet, sometimes crude. Claudia has an affair with a sixteen year old waiter in a Paris hotel, then meets a handsome shoe repairman in Rome, who brings another man with him when he arrives for his tryst with Claudia. She finds herself snowbound in a Swiss chalet with Nicole, a woman friend whom she soon realizes is a lesbian.
Silverman: 'She becomes more and more liberated, and realizes what a joyous experience sex can be. She realizes that her husband has been searching for that because he hasn't found it with her. She also realizes she is absolutely in love with her husband. At the end, it is clear that by going through these changes she has become, finally, a perfect partner for him, just as he has had to go through his changes to be a partner for her. It was a love story, and within it was a woman's growth.'
Bennett: 'They get back together because they deal with it as opposed to thinking sex is not important. I think relationships that become compromised, where you settle are not a good idea.'
""The dance high point of Scandal! and possibly Bennett's career was the "Menage a Trois" ballet fantasy when Claudia experienced a successful encounter with two men after an earlier disaster. She finds to her surprise that the encounter with the two strangers leads to a sense of spirituality. As she dreamily remarks on the delicate frescoes decorating the old pensione, the frescoes come to life. RObin Wagner devised a ceiling that owuld lower to reveal three dancers, angels from theceiling, who float thorugh a delicately erotic dance of ineffable beauty.
Wagner: 'The ballet was breathtaking. It was Michael's best choreography and could be put on the stage of any opera house in the world.'
There were at least two other wildly inventive extended sequences. Above all the opening fantasy which was conceived as a contemporary version of Alice in Wonderland crossed with James Joyce, and on which they worked for 6 weeks alone. When completed it had the seeming arbitrariness that the unconcious express in a dream.
The curtain rose on a stage in flames, Claudia's dream of the fire that revealed and symbolized her husband Robert's infidelities. She attempts to enter the hotel but, as in a dream, she keeps shifting back and forth her perceptions. She believes she is either getting married or divorced in the hotel and at the same time wants to be the Mrs. Miller in the fire. As she attempts to get past the police cordon, she is not certain whether Robert is her husband, soon-to-be husband, or her soon-to-be ex-husband. She breaks through and wanders through the hotel until she finally drifts into the ballroom and hears the wedding march. The ceremony turns into a divorce; the man who is giving her away is not her father but a lawyer encourageing her to take Robert for everything he's got; and the men in the procession turn into the dancers from Chippendale's. At the end of the sequence, which employed continuous movement, spoken dialogue, song and dance, Claudia is rising into the air on her bed, trying to stop everything going on around her, as the celing beam collapses and the fire engulfs the stage and she wakes up.
There can be little doubt that this opening would have had audiences reeling from its complexity, hilarity, and sheer brilliance. Equally wonderful was the courtroom fantasy, composed in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan (a favorite of Webb's) in which Claudia was on trial for having a lesbian fantasy. The "Other Mrs Miller" was the prosecuting attourney; Andrew was the defence attorney; and all of Claudia's various lovers were rought into the courtroom to join with the judge and jury in singing "She's a dyke!"
You guys--I wanna discuss this project--it sounds liek it got so close to being stage worthy it's depressing to think nothign remains of it... 
