BWW Preview: The World Goes 'Round at Scarborough Musical Theatre

In the musical theatre today, it seems the world goes 'round the shows of composer John Kander & lyricist, the late Fred Ebb.

On Broadway, one of their final musicals "The Visit," starring Chita Rivera with a book by Terrence McNally, begins previews next Month and opens in April.

In London's West End, another of their last shows, "The Scottsboro Boys," was named "Best Musical" by the prestigious Evening Standard newspaper. (Their musical "Kiss of the Spider Woman" also received the same award in 1992.)

Also, recently a "multiday" reading of "Kiss of the Spider Woman" was held with six-time (a record) Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald in the title role, Alan Cumming (Tony Award-winner for 1998 revival of "Cabaret") as Molina and Steven Pasquale ("The Bridges of Madison County") as Valentin. Tom Kirdahy, spouse of the musical's book writer Terrence McNally, organized it and Tony Award winning director John Tiffany ("Once") led it.

No plans for a full-scale production have been announced yet.

Now, just a few months after Ryan Hinds performed his cabaret saluting their songs and shows, Scarborough Musical Theatre is presenting "The World 'Goes Round," a revue celebrating show-stopping tunes of theirs from such musicals as "Cabaret" ("Maybe This Time," "The Money Song) and "Chicago" ("All That Jazz," "Mr. Cellophane") and their beloved anthem "New York, New York" from the film of the same name.

This engagement of Scarborough Musical Theatre, this year's winner of the Broadway World Award for Best Community Theatre Group, opens this Thursday, Feb. 5th and runs until Feb. 21.

The show features a 10-member cast with Mario D'Alimonte directing. Ellen Kestenberg is the music director and Collette Carr is the choreographer.

Total disclosure: I was the publicist of the revue's Toronto production at the Bayview Playhouse in 1992 starring Louise Pitre with director Scott Ellis and director Susan Stroman.

I also had the pleasure and privilege of being the original publicist of "Kiss of the Spider Woman," which had its world premiere in Toronto in June of 1992, then travelled to London's West End and Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre where it won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, tying the amount won by Andrew Lloyd Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera." That's a record for a Canadian-produced musical that stands to this day.

And it started right here in Toronto at the St. Lawrence Centre's Bluma Appel Theatre in the summer of 1992.

The show's title song is featured in "The World Goes 'Round," which brings back many happy memories for me.

The three leads ... Chita Rivera (Aurora/Spider Woman), Canadian-born Brent Carver (Molina) and Anthony Crivello (Valentin) ... each received Tonys as did Terrence McNally for his book and Florence Klotz for costumes. Kander and Ebb's score tied with Peter Townsend's for "Tommy."

The New York Times' David Richards hailed "Kiss" as "one of Broadway's most thrilling musicals - the most intelligent musical of the 1992-93 seasons. Nothing that has since turned up on Broadway has eclipsed it."

He described Brent Carver's performance as Molina as one of "mesmerizing depth."

During its run in London's West End, Sheridan Morley, a critic for several publications including The Spectator, called "Kiss" "a stunning and courageous hit!" He described it as a "challenging, difficult, dangerous show" that "has the courage to think while it sings and dances."

Manuel Puig's novel, originally published in 1975 as "El Beso de la Mujer Araña," told the heartbreaking story of Molina, a gay window dresser, who shares a cell in a Latin American prison with Valentin, a Marxist revolutionary. Molina, an eternal romantic who loves movies, escapes fear and terror by imaginatively conjuring a screen goddess named Aurora. He uses the cinema as his waking dreamscape.

Like Scheherazade of "One Thousand and One Nights," Molina tells Valentin movies he remembers from his childhood. Scheherazade recounted stories to entertain and seduce her husband, the Sultan Schahrich, to avoid execution. Molina relates them to Valentin to keep him alive after the horrific tortures he endures.

Through Molina's compelling, imaginative powers, both men are able to escape into a fantasy world to survive. As the men fall in love ... or do they? An omnipresent observer in the prison is watching ... the Spider Woman ... an imaginary representation of death itself whose kiss is deadly.

It's unlikely material for a musical, right? Ebb got the idea in 1986 after seeing the movie adaptation, directed by Hector Babenco, and starring Raul Julia, Sonia Braga and William Hurt (who received an Oscar for his portrayal of Molina.) Ebb took his idea to John Kander. They, in turn, proposed it to director Harold Prince. He agreed. "Kiss" was to be his next musical after his blockbuster, "Phantom."

Ebb was attracted by the exotic romanticism of Puig's novel. He believed that musical theatre could add a lovely, romantic element to what he considered to be a lyrical story. "The story covers so many areas of human experience that it gives you many different ways to express yourself musically," he said back then. "When the emotion gets so high you can no longer say it in words, you sing it. I think `Kiss of the Spider Woman' is the perfect example of that."

Playwright and book writer Terrence McNally believed the musical made the contrast between reality and fantasy more sharply than the movie did: "In the movie, you went from film to film. Here, we're going from a very different kind of lighting tonality, one that emphasizes the grimness of the prison circumstances to a movie on this gorgeous, Technicolor set."

Now ... as evidenced in "The World Goes 'Round ... Kander and Ebb were renowned for choosing unconventional source material throughout their career together, from Charles Isherwood's "I Am A Cabaret" for "Cabaret" to Maurine Dallas Watkins' 1926 play about corruption in the criminal courts of Prohibition-era Chicago that became the vaudeville-inspired musical of the same name.

Kander always wrote his scores in the style of each musical's location and setting. "Cabaret" evoked the Kurt Weill-sound of 1930s Berlin and "Zorba," based on Nikos Kazantzakis' novel "Zorba the Greek," suggested Greek bouzouki influences. The score for "Kiss" incorporates styles ranging from the flamenco of the title song to tango, samba, rumba and cha cha cha to Cuban mambo and Andean pan flute music, played on an instrument known as a zampoña.

"Kiss's" instrumentation includes the bandoneon, a traditional Argentine concertina used to accompany tango dances, and such exotic percussion instruments as the cuica, a Brazilian friction drum distinguished by its large pitch range.

The show's orchestration is also unique. Traditionally, orchestrations are centred on the violin. In "Kiss," the focus is the viola, creating darker and mellower musical textures and colors.

The musical went on to international productions in Vienna, Austria (Küss der Spinnenfrau) and Buenos Aires, Argentina (El Beso de la Mujer Araña).

What remains gratifying is how "Kiss" has touched so many people not only as a musical, but as a testament to musicals themselves. As David Richards commented in the New York Times, "`Kiss of the Spider Woman' celebrates not only man's will to survive, but the power of theatre to remake the world."

That is just one of John Kander and Fred Ebb's many legacies.

"The World Goes 'Round runs from February 5th to 21st with matinees on Feb. 8th, 15th and 21st. Tickets are regular $27 and $25 for students and seniors. Group rates of 10 or more are $24.

The show will be presented at:

Scarborough Village Theatre

3600 Kingston Rd., Scarborough

(Northeast corner of Markham & Kingston Rds.

To order tickets, call the box office at (416)267-9292. Order online at boxoffice@theatrescarborough.com or www.theatrescarborough.com

To post a comment, you must register and login.