jv92 sees Road Show

SPOILERS AHEAD! (Just warnin' ya!)

It is safe to say that Stephen Sondheim, America's greatest musical theatre artist, has a very different view of American than most of us. In Sondheim's America, the American Dream is nothing but a fraud ("Follies", 1971), ambition doesn't get you happiness ("Merrily We Roll Along", 1981) and neither does shooting the President ("Assassins", 1991). "Road Show", Mr. Sondheim's latest musical (with a book by John Weidman), America is your corupt, devil-may-care leech of a brother that won't leave you the hell alone. It offers you oppertunity, wealth, love, success (both personal and professional) and gold! But in the end, it all comes back to bite you. It's all, as the opening number of the show goes, a waste.

"Road Show", which opens next week at The Public Theatre (I saw it at a Saturday preview), is Sondheim's most profound statement about America, especially since it has opened durring such a dark period in America's history. Telling the tale of the Mizner Brothers (Wilson and Addison), the former a scoundrel out to screw eveyone and everything in his path (literally and figuratively) and the latter a gentle, stubborn (and homosexual) artist, the musical does not feature Mr. Sondheim's most profound score ("Sweeney Todd", 1979) or his best set of lyrics ("Gypsy", 1959 or "Follies"- you choose!). However, it its a special trimuph for bookwriter Weidman who has had difficulty with epic subject matter ("Pacific Overtures", 1976 and "Assassins"). Here, he shines with witty dialouge, fully realized characters and nearly no structure problems (Quite a feat for a modern musical!). Oh, and Mr. Sondheim can rest easy. Not every show can be "Sweeney Todd." This is his best score since "Assassins", nearly eighteen years ago!

However, the piece would not be as profound without the stunning direction of John Doyle. Doyle, who reinvented "Sweeney Todd" several seasons ago (marvelously) and "Company" two seasons ago (bizarrely), uses his typical minimalist, Brechtian technuqies here splendidly. I can think of no finer example than the last scene of the musical. Wilson has destroyed Addison's dream for the last time. He wears and Uncle Sam tophat as Addison sings "Get out of my life!". America! You've screwed me over! You've screwed us all over! "Get the hell out of my life!" Wilson's reply, "You don't want me to go." You don't want me to go, I'm the American dream. I'm oppertunity. I'm corrupt. I'm bull****. But I'm America! And that, my friends, is why this is Sondheim's most profound statement on America. This is what America is. Doyle's marvelous, symbolic staging makes us realize it a little better. However, though we do love our sweet land of liberty, America is Wilson Mizner.

By the way, playing the role of Wilson Mizner is Michael Cerveris. I have admired Cerveris in the revivals of "Assassins" and "Sweeney Todd" and found his portrayl of Kurt Weill in "LoveMusik" quite moving. Here, Mr. Cerveris proves that he is the finest young actor in today's musical theatre. Charming and creepy, magnetic and chilling, Cerveris is spectacular. As gentle Addison is another one of the theatre's finest newcomers, Alexander Gemignani. Gemginani is gentle and stubborn, kind and bad tempered and above all, moving as Addison.

However, despite the symbolism, the yucks, the brother to brother feuds and the bull****- "Road Show" is also a moving show. When the two brothers sing of their younger years while sharing a sleeping bag looking for gold in the Yukon, one tries to fight back tears (One is also left wondering if there was a hint of incest in this scene as well). When the self-centered mother of the boys sings of Wilson, "Isn't He Something!", even though he is a cocaine-addicted, careless rascal that could give a rat's ass about her while darling Addison sits on her death bead, one can no longer fight back the tears. The clever rhymes and the jaunty tunes are wonderful, but this is what makes Mr. Sondheim the greatest songwriter we'll ever know in the musical theatre.

So bravo to all involved! "Road Show" is a profound and exciting new musical.

Updated On: 11/16/08 at 01:53 PM

Gypsy- best Sondheim lyrics? huuuWHAT?

I'll divide it into paragraphs. I didn't have enough time when I originally posted.
And yes Ole Chum, every lyric in Gypsy is an absolute gem. What don't you like about them?

Updated On: 11/16/08 at 04:21 PM

I wish I could agree with your assessment, jv92.

I'm just posting this so that if anyone here sees the show and doesn't like it, you don't have to worry that you're the only one who feels that way.

I really liked reading your review. Makes me wish I could see the show even more. I'm crossing my fingers that Nonesuch will pick the show up again, or another label!

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Thank you for your review....I very much enjoyed reading it. I can't wait to see this at Christmas!!!!

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I agree with most of the review- on the whole I enjoyed the show, the songs were fabulous, and the performances were spot-on. Once they got to Florida, the show really hit its stride and entranced me.

But I also agree with scaryclowns about the book- especially the early Alaska sections. They needed to flesh that section of the show out- it just seemed like the jumps were so sudden (father's dead, we have no money, let's go to Alaska for gold!). I sat there trying to wrap my head around all of the plot that had just been thrown at me in mere seconds. But, once they would start singing, it all started to make some sense and became an enjoyable show.

He wears and Uncle Sam tophat as Addison sings "Get out of my life!"

That sounds... heavy-handed.

But the rest is intriguing.

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think it is one of his lesser scores. I can't think of a single number that could possibly break out and make the Sondheim hit parade as with the majority of his scores.


- The revised "The Best Thing That Has Ever Happened" for Addy and Hollis will easily become a Sondheim classic.

I found the first 45 minutes of Road Show (up to the Houses number) to be a trial. Why am I supposed to care for these wastrels?

Once the House number began the show picked up and while never matching it, at least the rest of the show was watchable.

The score was like Jerry Herman meets Steve Sondheim meaning so many phrases and vamps were from previous songs. None of us could quite put our finger on which was borrowing from what, but we all agreed it was omnipresent.

Are the Mizners musical theatre characters? I felt they are not. Opera buffa/comique yes, probably, maybe, but not musical theatre. I left thinking they themselves had nothing to sing about metaphorically and were tone-deaf metaphorically. The rest of the characters could have sung around them perhaps, but the Mizners didn't make me follow them.

I thought Doyle's work was quite good and coming from someone who didn't like the direction of Sweeney Todd and loathed that of Company, this would be no small praise.

The show is better executed than Bounce, but if Sondheim, Weidman, Mendes, Prince and Doyle cannot make this show work, maybe it is time to move on. Unfortunately I wouldn't even classify this as a fabulous flop. It just fails.

The two other people with me liked the show a lot more than I did. Other friends who saw it a few days earlier felt like it was written by a student of Sondheim's trying to become the next Sondheim.

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Updated On: 11/17/08 at 01:59 PM

The revised BEST THING is definitely better. It has mostly new lyrics, and a different melody during some parts of it.