The basic problem with the show was that it had too much script, too much music, and far too much dancing. by Aristophanes, freely adapted by Burt Shevelove, even more freely adapted by Nathan Lane." There's nothing wrong with the quality of the new book per se, and the new Sondheim songs and musical sequences are mostly terrific. The Frogs includes a lengthy contest to decide which of the two can better address the major issues facing humanity by using the words of his own writings.Īccording to the whimsically worded credits, this version of The Frogs is "a comedy written in 405 B.C. If you didn't see the show, you may well ask: What are Shaw and Shakespeare doing here? Well, its sort of hard to explain, but at the very beginning of the show (and the recording), Dionysos tells us that "the time is the present, the place is ancient Greece." He then announces: "I, Dionysos, God of drama, am going to travel to the Underworld and bring back a great writer who can speak to the problems of our society and give us comfort, wit, and wisdom." His choice of dead playwright is Shaw, but there is apparently an underworld rivalry between G.B.S. They led a company that included Burke Moses as Herakles, Peter Bartlett as Pluto, John Byner as Charon/Aeakos, Daniel Davis as George Bernard Shaw, and Michael Siberry as William Shakespeare. The resultant full-length musical opened at Lincoln Center on Jto mixed reviews, with Lane as Dionysos and Roger Bart as his slave, Xanthias.
This eventually prompted Lane to collaborate with Sondheim and Susan Stroman on an expansion and revision of the piece. When he starred in concert presentation of the original version of the show as part of Stephen Sondheim's 70th birthday celebration at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., Lane ad-libbed a line and Sondheim said: "That sounds like Burt. In 1979, Nathan Lane found a copy of the script at the Drama Book Shop and was very intrigued by it. The cast of that production included the young Meryl Streep, Sigourney Weaver, and Christopher Durang in the ensemble. The antecedent of this production was an adaptation of Aristophanes' seminal comedy The Frogs by Burt Shevelove with a handful of songs by Stephen Sondheim, presented in 1974 in the swimming pool (yes, in it!) at Yale University by the Yale Repertory Theater. But, in the case of The Frogs, the situation isn't quite so simple.įirst, a bit of history, most of which is recounted in the excellent notes by Wendy Wasserstein and Nathan Lane that may be found in the wonderful, photo-laden, 48-page booklet accompanying the new CD. The reason for such discrepancies is usually the obvious one: some musicals have great scores but lackluster or downright lousy books, so they create a much better impression on recordings that include little or no dialogue. You can add PS Classics' newly released recording of the recent Lincoln Center Theater production of The Frogs to the list of cast albums that are more successful on their own terms than the shows that yielded them.
0 kommentar(er)
