Martini Talk: Marilyn Maye & Young Frankenstein

Although dry vodka martinis are my normal staple of life, I must admit The Metropolitan Room's specialty martini menu makes me feel like an kid in an alcoholic candy store.  Parker forbid I order a "Zentini" (with green tea liquor) or a "pomegranatini" (served with blueberries) at The Algonquin, but at the Met Room seasonal features like the decadent pumpkin martin (I wonder if they can make a gingerbread one for December) are my vices of choice.

Of course, you can't get more sweetly intoxicating than Marilyn Maye, who has just premiered her third Metropolitan Room show in roughly a year since coming out of a decade and a half voluntary exile somewhere west of the Hudson.  Truth be told I hadn't even heard of the nearly 80-year-old jazz belter who sings with pipes a 25-year-old would envy before catching her opening night last October.  Now, come what Maye, I consider her performances unmissable.

Having appeared on "The Tonight Show" 76 times during the reign of Johnny Carson, who considered her, "one of the best singers in the business," her newest outing is a salute to the king of late night TV in appreciation for his support of Maye and other singers who remained loyal to American songbook classics while rock and roll was dominating the charts.

After an opening medley that included a tender "Look To The Rainbow" and a light waltz arrangement of "Over The Rainbow" (There were latecomers the night I attended so Maye and her superb trio of Ted Firth at piano, Tom Hubbard at bass and Jim Elkof at drums actually improvised a speed through repeat of the whole thing.) the husky-voiced charmer delivered Stephen Sondheim's "Old Friends" with the kind of relaxed familiarity that can make everyone in the room feel like she's personally welcoming you.  "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home," building with jazz intensity, was a knock-out.

"These are self serving film clips and I'm at an age where I can do that," she says to introduce a "Tonight Show" appearance where the studio audience cheered her swing vocals of "The Song Is You."  At the end of a clip of Maye performing Melissa Manchester's "Come In From The Rain" Carson advised his audience, "If there are any young singers out there who want to know how it's done, get her records."  The Metropolitan Room audience, filled with admiring cabaret singers, enthusiastically applauded in agreement, then settled down to be mesmerized by sensitive and dramatically gripping interpretations of "Happiness Is A Thing Called Joe," "Look For The Silver Lining" and "Too Late Now."

With a top ticket price that rivals the cost of a visit to the champagne room at Scores, Young Frankenstein is likewise the sort of entertainment that sends you to your seat expecting a good time but leaves you ultimately disappointed and perhaps a little sad.  And yet, there's a 3 or 4 minute slice of the show that works very nicely.  Oddly enough, it has nothing to do with any attempt to be funny.  It's when Shuler Hensley, playing Dr. Frankenstein's creation with the same kind of lovely pathos that made his Jud Fry the most likable character in Broadway's most recent Oklahoma! revival, is presented in top hat and tails to Transylvania's elite to sing and dance Irving Berlin's "Putting On The Ritz."  Left alone on stage with a huge shadow projected behind him, the frightened creature hesitantly taps out the dance steps he was taught, gradually gaining confidence with the audience's approval.  He's soon joined by a full chorus and, in the smartest artistic choice of the night, proves himself to be a pretty good hoofer, gleaming with inexpressible joy with every shuffle ball change.  For those 3 or 4 minutes, Young Frankenstein has a heart.

And there's plenty more that is quite good about Young Frankenstein.  Thomas Meehan's book (co-authored by Mel Brooks) has the solid structure expected by the master craftsman and the design is spectacular in the best way.  Robin Wagner's set, William Ivy Long's costumes and Peter Kaczorowski's lights all satirically giggle Broadway gothic, as do Doug Besterman's orchestrations, though from my seat in row R of the orchestra they, along with the rest of the show, sounded too artificial coming from the spacious Hilton Theatre's speakers.  And Christopher Fitzgerald, an exceptional musical comedy clown, sparkles with spunk as the hunchbacked Igor.

In fact, there really is only one major flaw in this big, boisterous Broadway musical featuring 4, count 'em, 4 Tony Award winners in its talented cast.  It ain't funny.  This is a show that eschews developing characters and establishing romance in order to live and die on its jokes and the thing ain't funny.  The running gag of Roger Bart, as Frederick Frankenstein, screaming his punch lines into the second balcony... not funny.  Megan Mullally, as his frigid fiancé Elizabeth, singing post coital praises of "deep love," "long love" and "firm love"... not funny.  Andrea Martin, as the severe Frau Blucher, singing a Weimar Kabarett number based on the film's memorable line "He Vas My Boyfriend"...  funny in theory, just not on stage.

I certainly don't blame the actors for having to deliver vapid lines and composer/lyricist Brooks' witless songs that while executing Susan Stroman's direction and choreography, which I would call pedestrian if I wasn't fearful of offending people who walk.  As someone who heartily enjoyed The Producers several times, and admired how touching the relationship between its lead characters became when rewritten for the musical stage, it's remarkable to see how little empathy there is in this one.

In his essential book on Broadway flops, Not Since Carrie, Ken Mandelbaum described Bring Back Birdie as, maybe not the worst musical in Broadway's history, but the worst put together by experienced theatre professionals.  It's with no pleasure I report that a new champion may have just been crowned.

Now may we please have a musical version of The Twelve Chairs?

By the way, is there any truth to the rumor that a certain Broadway star's attendance record has improved dramatically since her show's stagehands went on strike?

Michael Dale's Martini Talk appears every Monday and Thursday on BroadwayWorld.com.

Top photo by Mark Rupp:  Marilyn Maye Bottom Photo by Paul Kolnik: Shuler Hensley and Roger Bart in Young Frankenstein