dramaqueen (and possibly for further and future reference, I will try to be as objective as I can) -
Both are based on Joseph Moncure March's jazz-age poem of the same name. A lewd account of a party thrown by chorine, Queenie, and her clown boyfriend, Burrs. The poem was actually banned in Boston for being too risqué.
First off, I don't know Lippa's as well as LaChiusa's for the obvious reason that I prefer LaChiusa's. In fact, his musical version of the poem is one of my favorite scores (along with CAROLINE, OR CHANGE).
Lippa's follows the four main characters of the poem, Queenie and Burrs and Queenie's best friend/worst enemy, Kate, and her new shoulder candy/moocher, Black. The four, in Lippa's version, have a very defined love triangle. Or square. Or whatever shape it makes. There are various other characters that show up - the jovial lesbian, Miss Madelaine True, and the mute dancer, Jackie. It's a more contemporary look at the vaudeville era (the plays are both set in 1928, NYC). Lippa uses electric guitars and modern slang interspersed in more colloquial vaudevillian slang. The overall feeling is new-age Vaudeville - new-age meaning new millenium.
LaChiusa's, however, focuses more on the broad range of characters and how they further the themes of the relationship between the four aforementioned characters. LaChiusa uses the motif of masks and the ones we wear to hide ourselves from the world - a very worn image (worn seems too negative, but is also very adequate) that, in a retrospective way, represents the era of vaudeville in its entirety.
It was a decadent era of misfits, post-modernists, and people who exuded a sense of being debonair at its finest. It was people looking forward to each day, completely unaware of the inevitable stock market crash (1929) that was about to ruin their lives. Most of these people were performers and, as we've recently seen, the first thing to go after an economical attack is the theatre.
Each of LaChiusa's characters (as well as March's) hide themselves to get ahead. The two Jewish producers who change their names so many times that, by the end of the drunken madness they subject themselves to, has made them completely lose their sense of identity. Black, the suave moocher, protects himself by putting on a front that he is a ladies man. At the play's climax, Burrs applies black face (typical of a white vaudeville clown) before he goes to do the, in a way, inevitable.
LaChiusa's musical (I should say LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe), as well as the original poem, push the characters into a dangerous vaudeville romp that ultimately swallows each character and spits them out in a jealous rage, leaving some broken and some healed.
Lippa's musical has some great numbers - RAISE THE ROOF, OLD-FASHIONED LOVE STORY, and LIFE OF THE PARTY. Unfortunately, the play begins and ends on the same desperate tone. Behind the what seems to be called "more accessible" score is a lack of emotional depth that pushes the characters from beginning to end, creating the well-known arc of character development. Also, many of the minor characters seem to disappear and, despite their songs, become nothing more than ghosts. A theme that could have worked had it been developed as such.
LaChiusa's show has a much jazzier, vaudevillian sound, while still retaining a theatrical sense. (Although I suppose that makes sense since vaudeville is theatre.) LaChiusa's is also more operatic. While it has spoken dialogue (as does Lippa's), it relies more heavily on music. It's a party, after all. LaChiusa does a better job documenting the era in song and attitude and moving the party along. The party, however, seems to begin as quickly as it ends and that's pretty fast.
Much of the music is cut from both CDs, unfortunately - such as the Burrs/Queenie fight at the beginning of Lippa's; and NEED (a haunting lament sung by Madelaine - although it is echoed at the end of BLACK IS A MOOCHER) and Queenie's WHAT I NEED, performed at the end of the show, as well as the dance BLACK BOTTOM.
Both shows have been blessed with amazing casts - although many say that the cast of LaChiusa's often seemed to be stereotypes of the performer themself - Mandy Patinkin as the violent Burrs and Eartha Kitt as the legendary performer Dolores.
Both plays also use many of the same lines as the poem.
Updated On: 12/31/06 at 12:07 AM
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