From: conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad)
Subject: Re: Chock Full O'Goodies!!!
Organization: University of Delaware
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 14:31:27 GMT

In article <1k5oh5$6eg@agate.berkeley.edu> dkodmur@ocf.berkeley.edu (Daniel Kodmur) writes:

[Liz Callaway:]
>Rivera asked her about dealing with bad reviews. She told of surviving her
>first bad John Simon review; apparently he had called her performance in
>BABY "unendurable."  I wonder what drugs he had been taking when he wrote
>this.  

John Simon is known for sliming any actress whose appearance is not up
to his standard of beauty.  Though I agree with him in principle that
when people present themselves as stage performers, their appearance is
part of the package and fair game, his expecting all women to be perfect
Jacqueline Bissets or whoever goes way over the line.

>Speaking of BABY, does anyone know if the Todd Graff who has just
>written the screenplay "Used People" is Todd Graff from BABY?

Yep.  He's become a scruffy juvenile character actor in movies, and he
writes.  (He's also a cousin of Ilene and Randy Graff.)

>I played John Pizzarelli's tracks for a friend of mine and he
>absolutely hit the ceiling.  Not just because he adores Cliff Edwards, but
>because he could not understand how anyone could perform "Fascinatin'
>Rhythm" without syncopating it.  He said syncopation was the point of
>the song, and asked me who the hell Pizzarelli was to mess with the song 
>like that. Since I did not know who the hell Pizzarelli is, I could not
>answer his frustration.  Suggestions???

My first suggestion (sugar-coat it as you like) is that your friend has
his head up where the sun don't shine.  Pizzarelli performs the song as
written, which includes syncopation.  He doesn't mess with it (except
when he introduces more synopation on his jazz-instrumenal refrain).
Edwards did, and in fact was quite an inaccurate performer to my way of
thinking.  I'd love to know what your friend is talking about, but I
suspect (sorry) that *he* doesn't know what he's talking about.

My suggestion:  ignore him.

>Before I rhapsodize over the McGlinn, which has been playing nonstop since
>I brought it from the store, I want to step gingerly into the minefield
>discussion about FOLLIES and good-versus-bad singing.  I agree with both
>sides here.  It seems that Jon was just trying to say that we should not
>let cloudy thinking cause us to accept shoddy performance, regardless of
>the emotional attachment we might have to the performers.  This is perfectly
>valid, but I think the other side is somewhat valid too.  For example, I know
>that Barbara Cook is no longer Cunegonde or Marian Paroo...

Oh, I agree with you completely.  I can still enjoy Barbara Cook, a lot.
Many other veteran performers too.  But I do find it important not to
lie about what we hear.  It's fine with with to say "She's lost
something but she still has a lot to offer," or "She's not what she was,
but her limitations are not exposed by this role."  But I have to object
when it becomes "She HASN'T lost anything" (when she clearly has), or
"Her limitations make her all the better."  That's all I meant to say.

>The SEPTEMBER SONG is good indeed, with a new layer of context provided by
>the booklet essay.  By the way, who is Kevin Colson?  He sounds familiar, but
>I can't place him.

He played the older man in ASPECTS OF LOVE in London and New York.

>The Jefferson number from 1600 is nifty, particularly the piping trill first
>heard after the lyric "rhythm in ragout."  Is the rest of the score this good?

Who knows?  This is the most of it that's gotten on record so far.

>The Inauguration number from 1600 is one of the best things I have ever
>heard, period.  Perhaps this is because the election is right smack in the 
>middle of the period I study as a future historian, 

Gosh, that sounds like SF!  You study history of the future??  :-):-)

>perhaps because the details
>are so right.  

I was wondering how accurate the details were.  It passes muster, then?

>And I thought Lerner had lost his touch after the Sixties! This
>is as good as anything Sondheim has done lately. Are there plans afoot to 
>record anything else from this score?

It received its first stage revival last year.  I daresay we have not
heard the last of it.

>PS. Who is George Dvorsky?  He does a great job!

He's done regional theater and that sort of thing, and McGlinn often
uses him as his principal baritone in concerts.  His only NY credit that
I know of is the job of understudy to the men in "The World Goes Round."
I agree, he really shines on this recording.  (Oh, he also appeared as
Bill in McGlinn's Kiss Me Kate.)

Jon Alan Conrad
Newsgroups: rec.arts.theatre