From: aku@leland.Stanford.EDU (Andrew Chia-Tso Ku)
Subject: Weird Romance (was: Lea Salonga in Concert (comments))
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 14:38:20 GMT

In article <1992Oct8.071544.26670@sdcrsi.cray.com> kathyli@sdcrsi.cray.com (the Rev. Mom) writes:
>
>Speaking of Alan Menken, did anybody see WEIRD ROMANCE?  I'm a
>real fan of Brennert's Twilight Zone Episode/short story/story
>collection HER PILGRIM SOUL, and wanted to know how the stage
>version turned out.

I saw Weird Romance off-Broadway in June (opening night, no less), and
have appended the review I posted to r.a.t shortly after seeing it.  
My immediate reaction after seeing the musical was one of ambivalence, but in 
retrospect, I think it had something to do with the fact that it was
the 7th show I attended in 3 days so I was pretty burnt out ;-).

Recently, I had the opportunity to reassess the (fairly pop-
influenced) score of Weird Romance (happily, it has been announced
that a cast album will be recorded by Sony) and realized how truly
attractive it is.  For me, the best songs - "Stop and See Me", "Eyes
that Never Lie", and "Worth It", were all clustered in the first act,
which had a surprisingly downbeat (one review called it
"mean-spirited") ending.  There were two crowd-pleasing, comic songs
in the second act, but I didn't care much for them, because they had
practically nothing to do with the storyline.  And the big, swollen
finale - "Someone Else is Waiting" - just seemed obligatory.  

One thing I particularly liked, though, was the fairly extensive
underscoring (something Menken learned from Mermaid and Beauty?) which
reprised some of the better melodies.

The score sounded pretty tinny in the tiny, shoebox theater (there
were 4 musicians playing 2 sets of keyboards, bass, drums/percussion),
so I wonder the cast recording will be re-orchestrated.

Andrew

REPOST follows

WEIRD ROMANCE
music by Alan Menken
lyrics by David Spencer
book by Alan Brennert
WPA Theatre (it stands for Workshop of the Players Art; I've been 
             wondering about the acronym for some time.)

Because opening night got postponed to the performance we held tickets
for (thanks again, Rich!), we had the very good luck to attend an
opening night performance.  Not only that, but our seats turned out to
be literally the best seats in the house: we sat across the aisle from
Alan Menken and right behind lyricist David Spencer.  The man sitting
2 seats away from me looked suspiciously like Joel or Ethan Coen (the
VIPs were wearing Weird Romance '92 pins) and I overheard him telling
his date that Barry Harman will be directing ROMANCE ROMANCE for
television (!).  With the excitement of being at an opening night, as
I was watching WEIRD ROMANCE, I kept rooting for it to be better.  In
the end, however, I thought it was a fairly insubstantial work that
left virtually no imprint after the show was over.  I hope I'm not
sounding too negative, because the show is certainly no embarassment,
with care and effort that went into it in ample evidence.  It has a
handful of ingratiating tunes (and in "Stop and See Me", a soaring
ballad along the lines of "Part of Your World") to boot, and I'm
hoping that someone is willing and able to cough up the money to
record a cast album.

WR consists of 2 one-act musicals, just like director Barry Harman's
show ROMANCE ROMANCE.  Like R/R, the two acts are linked thematically
(how love can transcend mortality) and share a similar bittersweet
air.

The first act, "The Girl Who Was Plugged In", borrows a bit from
METROPOLIS (the movie and the London musical), with its story of
ruthless businessman (Jonathan Hadary) using the soul of a bag lady
(Ellen Greene) to animate the "perfect", manufactured celebrity, with
a romance ensuing between the woman and the businessman's rebellious
son.

I was surprised that I was already familiar with the story of the
second act: "Her Pilgrim Soul".  It turned out to be a musicalization
of what I considered one of the best episodes of the recent Twilight
Zone series on CBS, centering around reincarnation and the
relationship between a scientist and a hologram from the past; I still
remember that the episode was directed by Wes Craven and starred
Kristofer Tabori.

The authors have commendably eschewed (for the most part) the camp
sensibility that seems to be the norm for off-Bway musicals these
days.  But in its place, their earnestness seems a bit labored, more
so in Act 1, than in Act 2, which I enjoyed for its delicate flavor
(the "Pressing Onward" number was very well done, as was a scene where
Greene teaches Hadary to dance.)

I thought that Hadary and Greene were adequate, but not particularly
outstanding.  I've been a fan of Hadary's after seeing him in GYPSY and
ASSASSINS, but his work here seemed gruff and self-contained.  
I liked Greene better, although her belting (more like wailing) was a
bit discomfiting.

I'm no expert, but I don't think a commercial transfer is in the
offing, unless the show gets some more work done on it (Act 2 seemed
stretched out, and could use some trimming to focus the story on the
two main characters).  At the end of the show, there was warm and
extended applause (from an audience that seemed to be composed largely
of friends and associates of the authors and performers), but it just
didn't seem to have "it".  The score is quite tuneful (lyrics are
only serviceable, and sometimes worse: Pirandello/fella/oh) so I hope
the show will live on in one form or another.

[Incidently, it was neat to see an artist responding to his own work;
Spencer would sit up at the beginning of a number he seemed
particularly proud of, and he applauded wildly - perhaps overly loudly
- for many of the numbers.]