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Broadway Breakdown
PROMISES, PROMISES w/ Adam Elsberry
02:47:50
A snowy blowy convo about a turkey lurkey show
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Transcript1,009 lines
- [00:00]
A
Sam. Hello, all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history und legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. This series is called problematic, covering shows you're mad at and their possible redemption. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts.
- [00:51]
B
And with me today, it's already begun.
- [00:54]
A
I know. Gunkle of the pod is back, y'.
- [00:57]
B
All.
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A
To our delight and detriment, please welcome back Adam Ilsbury.
- [01:03]
B
A snowy, blowy mistletoe Christmas to you.
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A
Matt Koplik, A loosey goosey boosie trucy Christmas to you.
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B
Mmm. Love that goosey poosy.
- [01:13]
A
Adam. Hi. So I don't see Adam ever, everyone. I gave him a lot of shit before we recorded how the only way I can see him is if I say, do you want to record again? And he says, absolutely.
- [01:24]
B
That's changing very soon. That's all on me.
- [01:27]
A
I say, adam, I'm really going through it. I'm having a terrible time. Can I see you and you be my friend? He goes, I'm a little busy. And I go, okay, well, what about tomorrow to record a podcast? And he goes, I'll be there 8am sharp.
- [01:38]
B
I know. We'll talk through your problems on here.
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A
It's true. That's what this is.
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B
They're gonna align with this one too, so.
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A
I know it's true. We literally said all of this today.
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B
Last night on a text.
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A
Last night in the text. Yeah, we were texting about it. I was like, I'm so sorry, but this play does line up with a lot of my life. And Adam's like, oh, I know.
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B
Yeah, no shade. But I know.
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A
Yeah, it's.
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B
It really is no shade. I just. I happened to recognize the parallels was all.
- [02:11]
A
Yeah, no, a lot of them, for sure. It's.
- [02:14]
B
It's a lot.
- [02:15]
A
But yeah. Adam, what are we talking about today?
- [02:19]
B
We're talking about promises. Promises. Those kind of promises can just destroy your life.
- [02:24]
A
I don't know how I found the nerve to walk out. If I shout, remember, I feel proud. I'm dancing out loud. I'm laughing out loud. Yeah. This show was submitted by a listener. No one else submitted it. This is the only show that only got one submission. Oh. Everything else, I tried to make it two or more submissions. Okay. Decided. But this was one where I was like, interesting. And I wanted to cover it because as I did some research, it has a very fascinating history artistically and critically. And Then also, just because the source material is so fabulous that I want to talk about that as well, because that also has a very fascinating history. Artistically, creatively, critically speaking. Sort of like the. The two show. The two works, Promises Promises and the apartment on which it is based on have sort of swapped narratives in a way. And we'll talk about that in a little bit. But, Adam, how did Promises, Promises find its way into your life?
- [03:21]
B
I really have to deep dive on this one because I think I. Oh, actually, I can tell you my brain is fast tracking backwards in my mind. I know for sure. When I was in school, my musical theater teacher, I didn't get any songs from this show. But I remember somebody singing she Likes Basketball. An actual straight guy singing she likes basketball, which is rare. Cause girl do a YouTube search. The LISPs on that song are rampant.
- [03:55]
A
She.
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B
And I'm like, does she? She does. Do you?
- [03:57]
A
Yeah. No, it's a different she. When a straight guy does it, It's a love song. When a gay guy does it. Oh, she likes basketball. Isn't that wild? From a simple beginning, like this may get somewhere.
- [04:11]
B
Including, as I was looking for clips of songs from this show or videos of this show on YouTube, including a performance by our own New York City drag queen, Marcia, Marcia. Marcia in college. Oh, look it up. Anyway.
- [04:26]
A
Oh, how the mighty have gotten better, right?
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B
Truly sorry, Marcia. Not your best. Nice cartwheel.
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A
She did a cartwheel.
- [04:33]
B
She sure did.
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A
Okay, Boko.
- [04:36]
B
Yeah. Boho all the way. Yeah. Anyway, but so choices, choices, choices. Hey, white, white, white is the color of our carpet. But yeah, in. In school, I remember somebody singing she likes Basketball. And then one of the girls in my class saying, whoever you are, I love you. Okay, so those are my two intro songs to the show. Plus, I know at some point I heard I'll never fall in love again. Yeah, whatever. But then, like a lot of people within our decades and ages, mine and yours, that is my big introduction to. It was Turkey lurky time in the movie Camp. And then I was like, I need to know more about this show and whatever this choreography is that most of these kids can execute.
- [05:21]
A
Yeah, it's okay. Same Z. So we'll bring it up so we can get it out of the way. The manor, everybody.
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B
Sticks.
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A
Stagedoor Manor. Ali Gordon. I now call it the Manor.
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B
And what a regal manor it is.
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A
Oh, Regal Manor. When the movie. The movie Camp came out right after my first summer at Stage Door, and it was a really big deal for all of us. And for a movie that Ultimately made no money. It has a very big artistic legacy in the theater world. I think it's only grown since then, but, I mean, I remember it being huge when it came out. It was huge for Stage Door. Like, Stage Door went from my first summer of us having, like, $2 budgets for, like, wooden sets and half the camp was full to, like, the following summer. It was completely full with a wait list and was like that for years and years and years.
- [06:07]
B
Yeah, that came. It came out the summer before. Right before I moved to New York. I moved here in October of 2003. And that was. It came out that summer.
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A
Yeah, it was that August. September.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And the movie has a lot of iconic moments to it that have become canon. Anna Kendrick's Ladies who Lunch, as well as her speech.
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B
Listen, Rummy.
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A
Oh, no. Oh, save the speech, Rummy.
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B
She's five.
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A
I'm ready. And the goddamn show must go on.
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B
So let's get cracking, shall we?
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A
Film debut of Robin De Jesus, as well as Sasha Allen and Todd Graff, God bless him, really took the opportunity in that movie to not just go for the easy jokes of, like, Sweeney Todd or Into the woods.
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B
Like, no, he did a deep dive.
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A
He did a deep dive. There's Follies in there. There's, you know, does Dream Girls and all this stuff. And then most importantly, does Promises, Promises, like, has the central dance piece, the big production number of any number he could have done. He does Promises, Promises. And there's a reason for that. And we'll talk about it with this show.
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B
With the Bennett choreo.
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A
Most of it is the Bennett ch.
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B
Well, Jerry Mitchell recreating most of the Bennett choreography.
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A
It is Jerry Mitchell recreating the Bennett choreography for teenagers. So it's a little simplified, but it's. It is relatively on the mark, and.
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B
It'S a lot smaller of a stage, too.
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A
And also they do the cast album cut of the song, so it doesn't have that other mini section, the.
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B
The Donna solo section.
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A
And it's also important to know that this was done before YouTube.
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B
Right.
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A
So most people, definitely no one my age had ever seen this number before. It was only existed in the memories of people who had seen it on stage in the original or on tour or wherever.
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B
Yeah, no, I like, I remember when that. When it finally first appeared on YouTube and it was the real one. Not even this. Not even the camp one, but for there. Because there's two versions of the original Broadway company on YouTube. Well, there's the original company, and then with a few replacements On Ed Sullivan from a few. A couple years into the run. Yes.
- [08:05]
A
It's the Tony Ward performance where it's Jerry Orbach doing she likes basketball into Donna McKechnie leading the entire original company.
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B
Right.
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A
In Turkey lurkey time. And then it might not even be a few years later.
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B
It might actually the next year.
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A
Yeah. Because Donna went out to open the tour and.
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B
And then she went to London.
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A
Yes. Actually, no, I think that's what it is. I think Donna went to London and then did the tour. So it might actually have been like around the year mark. Because it probably was like for an Ed Sullivan Christmas special. Because Turkey lurkey time is for the Christmas party. And it's because it's two of the three women. Biorically four foot ten. She's still playing Ms. Wong of.
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B
She's the only original of the three.
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A
No, the middle. The middle one is the one used to be to the right of Donna. She's now playing De La Hoya.
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B
Is it? I'm pretty sure it's not Margot Sappington.
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A
She was the. Well, Margot Sappington left early to choreograph. Oh, Calcutta.
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B
Oh, yeah.
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A
Or something else. She left. She left early. Of the three women on the Tonys, the one with the long hair is not Marco Sappington. She left early. It's another bitch.
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B
That makes sense. Okay. It's Julie something. Yes, yes.
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A
And that bitch, Long haired bitch, she became the new De La Hoya. And then Bayork was the final De La Hoya and.
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B
Oh, right. Yeah. I gotta say that the long haired bitch, Julie whatever her name is. I mean, I love Donna on that Ed Sullivan number. She whips that hair around like nobody's business and it is killer.
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A
Well, because she knows she doesn't have Donna's spine or neck. So she's like, I gotta play to my strengths.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Like there are certain dance moves that Donna does on the Tony Awards that you're like, oh, that's ferocious. And then long hair bitch does it.
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B
Right.
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A
And it's not that it's bad, but it's like. It's not. There's a reason why Donna McKechnie was Michael Bennett's muse because like everything just looks good on her body with his choreography.
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B
And she was made of rubber.
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A
Yes, exactly. And this woman, she does it and you're like, oh, you're not totally Gumby. So like it's a little weirder, but yeah. That's all I really knew of the show. I didn't even realize it was Based on the movie the Apartment, a movie that I had seen many times because my father, Peter Koplik, friend of the pod, Boo Boo. He has been really big on my cultural knowledge. He, you know, this is the man who showed me Boys in the band early in high school. And then I realized that Promises, Promises was based on the Apartment. And then I would only read about it. I never got the script. I think I had listened to the cast recording once or twice in high school. I did the title song in college for a class, and that was it. And I knew that Encores had done it at one point. And then I read up more about that when the revival happened. And the revival happened. That was my first time seeing it and will probably be my only time seeing it. Just because no one does this. This show anymore.
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B
Right.
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A
But what's fascinating about this show is the kind of reception it got when it opened and sort of where it is now in history. And then also when you compare that to the reception of the movie of.
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B
Which it is based.
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A
So, Adam.
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B
Yeah.
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A
For those uncultured fucks out there, what is Promises, Promises aboot.
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B
Okay, Promises, Promises, Based on the 1960 Billy Wilder film the Apartment, which won for Best Picture, Best Director and a bunch of other things.
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A
Picture, director, screenplay. I want to say production Design. It won five. I know, five. Shirley MacLaine famously lost Best Actress. And I want to remember that because it'll come up.
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B
Yes, okay.
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A
It sure will.
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B
We won't forget. So. But it's based on. It's based on this film. It was an original film, not based on. Based on any specific source material, but it's centers around CC Baxter, Chuck Baxter, who works at an insurance company in New York City and is kind of on the lower rung of things. And in an effort to climb the corporate ladder a la how to Succeed, but in a very different way, comes in touch with some of his older male office mates who are higher up than he is, and works out a deal with them to loan out his apartment on certain evenings so that they can have having extramarital affairs with lady friends. And in exchange for this, they all put in a good word to him to the upper boss on his floor, Jeff Sheldrake, who ultimately gets wind of this and reaches out to him and offers him a promotion in exchange for being the sole holder of the key of the apartment for trysts with his lady friend. Meanwhile, Chuck has a crush on a woman who works in the office. In the movie, she is an elevator operator. In Promises, Promises, she is a server in the executive cafeteria. The two of them have a light flirtation, but it's revealed to us pretty early on, to complicate matters, that she is, in fact, the sidewoman of a lovely Mr. Sheldrake. And complications ensue, given that he says he's going to leave his wife, but he doesn't actually want us to leave his wife. And eventually Chuck Baxter finds out that. That this triangle is happening, and all sorts of craziness goes down in Act 2, including a suicide attempt.
- [13:11]
A
Sure is. Yeah. We will be talking about that kid. So if that is triggering to you, I apologize. But it's part of the plot and it's very important to discuss, and these things do happen. So if. If adultery upsets you, if suicide attempts upset you, if miniskirts upset you, you might want to skip the rest of this episode. If Shirley MacLaine upsets you, you might want to skip the rest of this episode.
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B
Give him Hail Rex. It's really weird to watch. So I watched the Apartment last night, and it is so weird to watch Shirley MacLaine at 22. How old is she?
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A
I think she's 25.
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B
25. And just imagine Weezer Boudreaux. It's really quite the transformation.
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A
Yes. Because she is so. Not to the Shirley MacLaine we eventually know in that movie. She is a. She is an ingenue.
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B
Yeah, she's. She's adorable.
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A
She's adorable and heartbreaking. It's a. It's a phenomenal performance.
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B
Yeah. So. Yeah, so that's. That's the plot, the basic plot of the Apartment.
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A
So this.
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B
And. And Promises, promises.
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A
So the movie the Apartment came out in 1960, in April of 1960.
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B
And.
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A
And the idea of it came from one Billy Wilder, who is, in my opinion, the greatest screenwriter in the history of film, wrote Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, the Lost Weekend, Witness for the Prosecution.
- [14:28]
B
Some Like It Hot.
- [14:29]
A
Some Like It Hot, of course, adapted Sabrina and has the Apartment. He also, speaking of Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon in the movie, also did the Irma Leduce movie adaptation with them, which is really fun. Just a phenomenal, phenomenal talent. And by the way, English was his second language, and he still was a better screenwriter and of the end of crafting dialogue in the English language than most of his contemporaries. So, yeah, so, you know, suck it. But the Apartment came about because in the late 30s, there was that movie Brief Encounter, which there was a play adaptation as well, in which there was also an extramarital affair and the couple in the movie. They consummate the affair, or they almost consummate it in the apartment of a friend of the male lead. And Billy Wilder saw the movie and he was like, I wonder what that character is like. Because that character doesn't actually. You don't ever meet that friend in Brief Encounter right there. It's. It's one of those things where they're in the room and it's. Whose room does this. Does this belong to a friend of mine? We'll never meet him. Don't worry about it. And then most.
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B
We never do.
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A
And most people in the audience are going like, absolutely. Who cares? Back to the romance. And Billy Wilder's like, get to fucking, y'. All. Exactly. And Billy Wilder's like, who's this friend?
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B
Right.
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A
That's the genius of Billy Wilder. Because he was like. Because what Billy Wilder said really got into his brain. And it took like 20 years, 20ish years for him to finally act on it. But he was like, what's it like to have to get into bed that night knowing that two people had just fucked in it? And it's someone. You know. You know, it's not. This is before Rubber Sheets. Before Rubber Sheets. Before Scotchgard.
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B
Yeah.
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A
So those things were staining. But. So he had that idea. And then he wrote the screenplay with. It's Ila Diamond. I think it should be on the COVID of this. Ial diamond is who Billy Wilder wrote the Apartment with. He also wrote Some Like It Hot with that man as well. And he directed the film with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. Comes out in April of 1960, and the movie was a really big hit. It was in the top 10 grossing movies of the year. Maybe top five even, depending on what charts you're looking at. But critically speaking, it was exceptionally divided, which is insane to think about, because now it's considered one of the greatest movies ever made.
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B
Oh, yeah, it's always on the. It's. It's definitely on the AFI 100.
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A
Oh, yeah, it's on. It's definitely on the AFI 100. I don't know its placement in my. It's either like number 90 or number 10. It's. It's one of those two. I would put it in the top 30 best films ever made, especially considering the fact that at this point, it is 63 years old and it is still. It still fucking slaps.
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B
It's very effective. I was so. I watched it with my boyfriend last night and he did not enjoy it. He doesn't like the story.
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A
What doesn't he like about it?
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B
I think it's just that it's so incredibly dark and sad and that it doesn't. Because he didn't even like Mrs. Promises when he saw it, but he saw the revival, so let's be honest.
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A
We'll talk about her.
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B
But still, I think it was just that it. The movie itself, sort of at the beginning, Promises, ha, ha. No pun intended, to be a bit lighter than it actually is. And it just. I mean, honestly, once it gets about halfway into the movie and once Fran tries to commit suicide, it's pretty much sad for the rest of the film. There are some. Some. Some sweet moments, but it really is a. A bit of a downer. It didn't. It doesn't bother me, but it's because the performances are so great and I. And the direction is great. The cinematography also is stunning. Yeah, it was nominated for cinematography. Didn't win.
- [18:09]
A
They didn't win. That shot of Shirley MacLaine on New Year's with the crown, her pearls, that's. Yes, that shot is art. But the thing is, for me, and maybe it's because I'm a sad sack. Eeyore cynic. Like, I know it does get sad. It doesn't get depressing to me. I feel like.
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B
No, I'm the same. I agree.
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A
It's such a human sadness that I don't think the movie masturbates to. It's just. It just lives in it in a very uncompromising kind of way. So I don't feel gross or depressed. I'm just like, you know, these are two lonely people.
- [18:45]
B
Yeah. I just. I think I've. Because I hadn't seen the movie in several years, I sort of really, viscerally reacted because I'd forgotten how physical it was when one. When Margie McDougal, who I can't wait to talk about later, when Margie McDougal gets kicked out of the apartment when the doctor's coming in. And that is almost a physical altercation. And it's a little bit upsetting.
- [19:07]
A
Yeah.
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B
Just in the way that he handles her. Because you just. I think part of it too is that we as a society just don't see women especially get handled in that way in films anymore because it's obviously not great. I mean, it definitely speaks to the time that it was filmed. But then also, once they've pumped Shirley MacLaine's stomach, she takes an overdose of sleeping pills. If you're not familiar with the story, and the doctor is trying to wake her up I mean, he slaps her probably eight times very hard. And it's really upsetting and terribly sad. And yeah, I mean, it really. I reacted much more viscerally to it than I expected to.
- [19:46]
A
Yeah. The movie. So what divided people on the movie? Because this was still technically in the Hays Code. I mean, the Hays Code was going to like officially die in 66, 67.
- [19:57]
B
Right.
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A
But. And, and it was starting to weaken because something like It Hot had come out the year before and came out sort of against the wishes of the Hays Code and was this massive, massive critical financial hit and became a pop culture phenomenon. And the whole reason why the Hays Code existed and, and why it was able to just have power for so long was that they perpetuated the myth that studios needed them to succeed with their films. Because the idea was the American movie going public only wants moral stories told. Anything that is sexy or, you know, lives in a gray area they don't want. So believe us, we're like, we're doing this for your own good. So once movies like Something Hot come out and goes against the Hays Code and is actually incredibly successful when Psycho comes out the same year as the Apartment is also incredibly successful and the Apartment, the Hays Code is just going holy, holy, holy. And, and it's, it's a little bit of like Pleasantville whenever, when people start singing colors and, and there are words in the books and people go, wait a second. I don't just have to eat Rice Krispies treats and play basketball every day. I can, I can think thoughts. But. So critics were divided because some saw it as a deeply unsettling immoral film. The fact that it dealt with adultery, the fact that Fran herself was a sexual person who made these very messy mistakes. That cece Baxter is not a perfect gentleman. They were like, how dare they? How dare they make this movie? And in fact, Fred McMurray, who plays Sheldrake at that point post Double Indemnity, he had sort of made a career in Disney films and doing a lot of family films.
- [21:43]
B
And was he. Wait, now I can't remember. Was he? Was he. He was My Three Sons. Wasn't he? Wasn't he the dad on My Three Sons?
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A
Maybe. Maybe that's what I'm thinking of.
- [21:51]
B
And, and then he did Disney stuff in the 60s. Post apartment.
- [21:55]
A
Okay, well, because.
- [21:56]
B
But he also did Absent Minded professor.
- [21:59]
A
Before the Apartment between the Apartment between Dublin Denman and the Apartment, he had done mostly family friendly stuff.
- [22:05]
B
Right.
- [22:05]
A
And granted, you could argue anything was. Since everything was approved by the Hays Code. But like, you know, there's a difference between Gigi and Cat in a Hot Tin Roof, even if they're both approved by the code. Right, but so when the apartment came out, he told a story that like multiple women on different days, when he'd walk down the street, would come up to him, be like, how could you make that dirty movie? And then on the other side you had. Critics were like, no, no, this is a brilliant indictment on the sexual politics of the workforce right now. Because what's. I was, I was watching this video essay talking about the world in which the apartment was written and then shot in. And we also have to talk about it in regards to Promises, Promises because you know, haha, that's the musical we're talking about as well as the revival.
- [22:53]
B
Right.
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A
And some mistakes that they made among many. But so, you know, the apartment essentially, you know, takes place and comes out 1960, the very year that the first season of Mad Men starts. So think about that. And the video essay was sort of talking about how, you know, women had obviously had jobs before, but something shifted during World War II when men had to go overseas and fight. And there were all these jobs that women had to then perform that they never had before. They had to take over for men in a lot of different positions. And when the war was over, the men came back and the women were expected to go back to being housewives and mothers. And the men had to go back to their jobs and the, and they were being sold through, let's call it what it is, propaganda through, you know, film, radio, print ads. The idea of you, what you want is to get a job, be part of a cog in a machine as a man, make your money so you can buy your house, get married to a nice girl, make some kids. That's the American dream, ladies, you should want to clean your house and, and pop out pearls and pearls and pop out some babies and attend to your.
- [24:08]
B
Man make a roast beef for, for six.
- [24:10]
A
Like that. And there was a push and pull about that that wasn't really being discussed but was getting a little bit of leeway in terms of at least women in the workforce. Women were like, no, we liked working. We, we really actually enjoyed that. And so, I mean it's. This is way oversimplified and, and no brushes over other years of history. But still, like the general idea is, once we get to the 50s, special jobs were then being created for women in the workforce. So they weren't exactly being CEOs, they weren't doing the jobs that men had had, but they were getting their own roles now. Switchboard operators, elevator operators, secretaries. I mean, obviously, you know, people had had secretaries before World War II, but by the 50s and 60s, it had become such a trope. There's like. And you know this because the 60s is the decade where so many storylines are about men and their secretaries or like, all those office politics, like how to Succeed, Guide to the Married Man. And the reason for that is because it became such a major thing by the mid-50s in a way that it never had been before. And because of this new dynamic, sexual politics had changed. Men and women were working in close contact with each other far more frequently than they ever had before. And because the American dream was pushing monogamy and hardcore Christian values, certain urges that people might have, some trappedness that people might be feeling that they couldn't express, were coming out in other ways, in maybe, if not immoral, not super cute ways. Sexual harassment was not a term you really heard. And being inappropriate in the office was still kind of being figured out of what that meant. In what way?
- [26:11]
B
Right.
- [26:12]
A
Which is not saying it's okay, but rather saying, like, this is the context for it. You know, any. The only way to know if something's not okay is to have time and distance. You have to kind of see the experience and the repercussions before you go. This is not cool.
- [26:26]
B
Yeah. I mean, in this film, there are. There's a big Christmas party that happens, which becomes. Becomes tricky, lurky time. And once Promises, Promises comes around. But there are two or three couples making out on the office floor, like in the middle of everything going on, and no one is even like, girl, yeah, what are you doing? They're just like, oh, yeah. They're just over there making out. And you're like, what?
- [26:52]
A
Yeah, yeah. No, it's. It gets very wild. And it's because everyone is sort of still figuring out what the boundaries are while also being like, we're. We all kind of feel it. What it is is that Billy Wilder was the one, at least on a public platform, mainstream artistic platform to go. Because, you know, affairs tale as old as time. And especially by this point, by the late 50s, early 60s, the concept of the man is the provider. You know, we talk about patriarchy. This is literally it incarnate of a man having a dominant role and the woman sort of being there for their. For any use that they might need, whether that is as a wife, as a secretary, as a plaything. And you have something like how to succeed, which is Purely a satire and is not condoning sexist behavior so much as it is sending it up, but not necessarily in such a harsh way that it's like, hey, you know, American men, stop doing it. But more sort of like, y' all know, you do it, right? How to Succeed is more everyone saying it's funny because it's true.
- [27:54]
B
Right. Well, and it's why that show kind of has managed to stand the test of time. And you can still do it and not feel totally gross about it.
- [28:01]
A
Yes. But with the Apartment and then Promises, Promises, by extension, is Wilder going like, those secretaries are women, and shocker, everyone, women are people.
- [28:13]
B
Right?
- [28:14]
A
He goes, they have lives. They've got things going on. He's like. And sometimes. He goes, sometimes affairs are two adults consenting adults with human urges just wanting to chow down. Sometimes you want to get plowed. And that's okay, because some people fall into it, though, unaware of how out of their element they are, and get taken advantage of. And those people get chewed up and spat out. It goes. And that's not being discussed. And so he discusses it in a very honest way that I don't think, you know, is super simple. It is complicated. I mean, I think you. The movie makes it a little more simplistic in terms of how you're supposed to feel about a certain character. Whereas the musical, I think, wants you to, if not empathize, at least find them less repulsive, which is essentially Sheldrake. I think Sheldrake in the movie is far more repulsive than he is in Promises, Promises.
- [29:11]
B
When he gives her that hundred dollar bill in the movie. It is gross.
- [29:15]
A
It's gross in the show, too.
- [29:17]
B
It's gross in the show, too, but it's really gross in the movie.
- [29:19]
A
Yeah, no, it's awful. It's. Well, okay, so first of all, let's now go into how Promises Promises came to be and how it was adapted in what way? But before we do that, you know what we gotta do. Adam, take a break.
- [29:35]
B
Billy, I'd beg to dimpa with you. How do you mean? You're the top.
- [29:38]
A
Yeah, you're an arrow collar.
- [29:42]
B
You're the top. You're a coolidge dollar.
- [29:52]
A
And we're back. So fun fact. Promises, Promises. The idea of turning the apartment into a musical. There once was a time, ladies and gentlemen, when a movie was not considered the first idea for musical adaptation.
- [30:09]
B
You don't say.
- [30:09]
A
I don't say. It started in the late 50s with, I believe, the musical O Captain. I think that might have been the first movie turned into a musical. Yes. I don't know what the source material was, but I do know. Oh, Captain was. Was originally a movie.
- [30:21]
B
Oh, wow.
- [30:22]
A
I.
- [30:23]
B
Things. I don't know. Interesting.
- [30:25]
A
The two other main ones of the 60s I know of for sure, obviously Carnival based off of Lily and then Sweet Charity based off of Knights of Kabiria.
- [30:34]
B
Right.
- [30:34]
A
I don't really know of any others in the 60s.
- [30:36]
B
Breakfast at Tiffany's, which never really made it, but they tried.
- [30:39]
A
Yeah. And that one, I think. Did they say it was based off of the movie or were they doing the. It's kind of based off of the book.
- [30:45]
B
I think it was kind of one of those things, like with applause where they couldn't get the rights to the film and so they ended up, like, working around it by, like, basing it.
- [30:54]
A
More off of the.
- [30:55]
B
The source material.
- [30:56]
A
Yeah, but. Yeah, yeah. Which is. I mean, that's what La Cage was. They couldn't get the rights to the film, so they had to do the play. But, like, if they had their druthers, they would have adapted the film.
- [31:04]
B
Right.
- [31:05]
A
But Promises, Promises at this point, let's say, like fifth musical adapted from a movie at this point. Sure. The idea came from Neil Simon and Bob Fosse, who had just done Sweet Charity together, and they went to David Merrick, the abominable Showman, and said, we want to make this into a musical. And he said, fantastic. And they got to work on it. But then Fosse got hired to do the Sweet Charity movie. But so Neil Simon started already working on the script and then Merrick started looking around for a director and the first person he thought of was Gower Champion because he had success with him on hello Dolly. But Gower Champion had just had a major bomb with the Happy Time. And it's also. Oh, when we talk about the critical reception of this show, it's important to think about what the season was before Promises, Promises. And then we'll talk about sort of the shows that came out. The season of Promises, Promises.
- [31:57]
B
Great.
- [31:57]
A
Because there is a book I've talked about before called the Season, written by William Goldman, who would go on to write the Princess Bride. And it's about the season before Promises Promises comes to Broadway. And it's a notoriously awful season. Like nothing's like. I think two things make money.
- [32:12]
B
It's the post Cabaret season, right? Yes. Yeah.
- [32:15]
A
Cabaret is 66 and goes 66 to 67 and then the 67, 68 season. So it's the How Now, Dow Jones, Ilya Darling the Happy Time, you know, just. No, no.
- [32:26]
B
Hit after hit.
- [32:26]
A
Exactly. But so he wanted Garage Champion first, but Gar Champion had just come off of Happy Time and Merrick was like, I'll come back to you when you're striking gold. Which was going to be a minute. And then after Gar Champion, he went to Hell Prince. And Hell Prince was, you didn't want me on hello Dolly, but you asked me. He's like. And I think this is the same thing. He's like, I don't think you really want me. I think, you know, I have Cabaret and that makes you think I'm, you know, right for this because I'm good. He's like, I'm not right for this. Especially because it was Neil Simon. So they were clearly going for a lighter tone than Prince probably would have. And I don't know exactly how many other people happened, but eventually they come to Robert Moore to direct it, which was a very out of left field choice because Robert Moore was a former actor who had actually been in some David Merrick shows and then became a director only recently with one show to his name, which was the Off Broadway production of the Boys in the Band, Bringing It All Back. And the Boys in the Band was a huge, huge hit, but it was an off Broadway play with one set. And so I don't know exactly how he got the job or rather like how he convinced Merrick that he could do it. I mean, have you read anything about it?
- [33:35]
B
I don't know. He's somebody who I only know by name. Like, I don't. And obvious. I mean, obviously. No. Did he end up directing the film of the Boys of the Band?
- [33:43]
A
No, that was Friedkin. William Friedman.
- [33:45]
B
That was Friedkin. That's right. That's right. No, but just in reading the copy of the libretto for the show, the Tams Whitmer libretto. Thanks, Rob Schneider. And seeing photos and stuff, I'm so fascinated and would have loved to have seen this production. It sounds like he directed it rather cinematically and like. And you know, kind of in the beginning of shows being a lot more free flowing as they are now, as opposed to, you know, blackout lights up type stuff. Yeah. And in ones.
- [34:22]
A
There are a lot of key components to this show that made it such a hit when it came out. Because the truth is, when this show opened In December of 68, it got the kind of reviews that shows rarely get anymore.
- [34:35]
B
Like, I got like Hamilton level reviews.
- [34:38]
A
I was about to say, like, I always hate going to Hamilton because it's become the shorthand for everyone to understand what that means.
- [34:43]
B
Right.
- [34:44]
A
But it was because these reviews were like. It wasn't just that the show was good is that the show was new, it was doing all these amazing things. And, like, this is where theater is headed.
- [34:53]
B
Well, it's actually a great comparison to Hamilton because, I mean, excuse me, I know that we'd had Lynne with stuff on Broadway before, but Hamilton was truly him taking contemporary form and putting it to theater. Bacharach and David doing music in the theater, they were like the pop songwriters of that moment. And so to get a Broadway musical score from them also, you were probably gonna say this, so sorry for stepping on your toes. But Burt Bacharach and Jonathan Tunick were the people who basically brought the sound mixing board into the Broadway theater. And like, doing live mix in the house as it is done now, like, that was. That whole concept was created for Promises Promises, where you're mixing not only the orchestra, but there were. There were four women singing in the pit and then with the onstage mics and doing all of that live mix in the theater to create a more album sound as you're watching the show.
- [35:55]
A
The if there. There are two things that started with the Promises promises production in 1968 that we now know for theater today. One is sound design. The way we have sound design today was pioneered by Promises Promises. There had been body mics, obviously, Right. You know, first it was no mics at all, and then it was floor mics.
- [36:13]
B
Right.
- [36:13]
A
And then a couple of principals had body mics. But Promises Promises. It wasn't just body mics, as you said. It was the soundboard. It was the mixing. It was the way the speakers in certain areas of the theater. So there was a blend and balance everywhere. And then the other was actually the production itself and the scene transitions, which we will go into a little bit when we talk about Bennett and Robin Wagner, two other major contributors to the show. But I'm looking at Robert Moore's IBDB page right now, because after this, he has Last of the Red Hot Lovers, which is a Neil Simon play which ran for just under two years. So that's a very.
- [36:47]
B
That's a. That's a success for a play.
- [36:48]
A
Exactly. Next one is the Gingerbread lady, which I think is another.
- [36:51]
B
That's a Simon. Yeah.
- [36:53]
A
And that was. That ran less. That was about 200 performances, which is not great. But for 1971, they might have been able to turn a slave prophet. Then he does Lorelei, which was probably his first, like, bomb. But even that was Nine months. So that's a shucked run, everybody for, you know, comparison. Cornbread Corn Fed does Death Trap. Huge hit. Hey, Huge hit. They're playing our song. Another huge.
- [37:15]
B
That was a huge hit. Yeah.
- [37:16]
A
And then Woman of the Year, which was also a two year run at the palace, like, starts off with Boys in the Band, Off Broadway and just hits. Hits the ground running.
- [37:26]
B
Pretty incredible. Yeah.
- [37:27]
A
You read Clive Barnes's review in the Times, and he's. The term he uses was, it's the kind of show that makes you want to send a telegram of congratulations to everyone involved rather than just write a review. He's like, I could sit here and tell and like, dissect the whole thing. He's like, I just want to send them all champagne. And so he was like one of the earliest champions of Hair. And Hair came out nine months.
- [37:51]
B
Six.
- [37:51]
A
Six to nine months before Promises, Promises did. We'll talk about that with the Tony Awards as well. I mentioned it in the Hair episode with Robbie Roselle of just sort of like the Tony Awards played really dirty that year when. When Hair came out. Because Hair came out what should have been the last week of eligibility for the 67, 68 Broadway season. And at the last second, the Tonys pushed the eligibility to, like, the week before Hair opened. So Hair was no longer eligible.
- [38:16]
B
That's bullshit.
- [38:17]
A
I know. Well, and everyone knew. And everyone was like, this is. We know why you did this. Because no one on Broadway actually really respected Hair. And again, we'll talk more about that with. With the Promises, Promises Tony Wars. If you watch it on YouTube, you can actually. You'll absolutely understand where the community's passion lied with Made with. I don't know which one. I didn't go to school for English. But Barnes was like, no, no. This show is not only is it highly entertaining and exceptional, it's very important. And Promises, Promises was the show that came after Hair that really kind of did what he wanted a musical to do it the way I'll put it this way. So the year that Promises, Promises was eligible. The season was eligible. Now that Hair got, you know, in the ass. The best musical nominees for 1969 were Promises, Promises, Hair, Zorba. And the winner, 1776. Promises Promises was somewhere in between 1776 and Hair in the sense of, like, it was a traditional musical with a sound that you could hear on the radio and was doing things with its staging and its design that were so compellingly modern and current.
- [39:28]
B
Yeah.
- [39:29]
A
That it didn't feel like we're going to the theater. But, like, I'm seeing something that's fucking alive.
- [39:33]
B
Well, and adding to the fact that, you know, I mean, Neil Simon at the. Although he does use the Wilder screenplay very heavily within his book that he writes, it is still very Neil Simon. Like, there's a lot of stuff that. There's a lot of setup and punchline that is very distinctively him. And he's at his height of 60s power, too. I mean, not only just post Sweet Charity, but like, he's had the Odd Couple and Barefoot in the park and all of these shows that have become, even in that moment, so incredible in, like, indelibly modern and. And popular just within that time period and has still continued to be well known since then. I mean, he was. He was in his prime in that moment, too.
- [40:16]
A
He was. He. I think he. He was about to go into a really interesting place artistically. The 70s is an interesting decade for Simon because he does still have hits. But again, if you read the season Goldman talks about the year before, Promises, Promises, Neil Simon had written Plaza Suite, which we just saw at revival of recently.
- [40:35]
B
Right.
- [40:36]
A
And Plaza Suite is three scenes with couples. And, you know, the first one is about a married couple. They've been together for, like, 25 years, and they're check. They've checked into the same room that they checked into the night of their wedding. And clearly, like, the passion has died and the wife is trying to rekindle it, and the husband couldn't care less. And it's not funny funny. It's got jokes, but it's. It's much more of a human dramedy. And Goldman talks about how audiences didn't really know what to do with it when the play opened and it was still a huge hit. It was the biggest hit of that season. And, you know, Simon's coming off of that as well. And Goldman also talks about how, like, Simon had become an institution at that point. Yeah, like, a Neil Simon play was always going to open with a huge advance, and if it was good, it was going to run at least a year and a half. But audiences liked him because they knew they were in for a good time and, you know, a good couple of laughs. And again, if the play was good, that just all the better.
- [41:37]
B
Right.
- [41:38]
A
And Plaza Suite was the first time he was like, I'm not just interested in laughs anymore. I want the laughs that come from story and character. He's like. And I want there to be some sort of human pathos involved. And he didn't fully succeed with Plaza Suite. And Goldman says this. He's. But Goldman was like. Whereas audiences don't know what to do with the first scene, and it is probably the weakest of the three. He goes. It. He goes. To me, it is the most interesting because it's something new. He goes. I look forward to seeing if. Where Simon goes from here, if he's taking this experiment and gonna go further and take the lessons he's learned from it and try more of this kind of. Or if he's just gonna go back to what he knows. And the truth is that Simon does eventually go in that direction, because the 70s is a little bit more of trial and error. But eventually we get Brian Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, Broadway Bound, and Lost in Yonkers, which have a lot of heart and a lot of gravitas to them. Yeah, Lost in Yonkers, especially. But Promises, Promises, I feel like, is the earliest success he has in that respect of the Neil Simon comedy and gravitas. And what helps is that he is going off of the Wilder screenplay for the most part.
- [42:43]
B
Yeah.
- [42:44]
A
And he definitely punches it up with more comedy and the comedy works. He also softens some of the edges, which you kind of have to in a big musical comedy, which I do think takes away some of the edge of the movie. And then also is probably why some people find the show problematic. Problematic, because what was interesting as I was researching this as well, because the listener who sent this in and gave me the reason why he wanted us to cover it, which was, you know, is this actually an indictment of sexual politics or is it actually just sexist itself? And I don't think it is sexist because I don't think you can be as faithful to the movie as this is and be, you know, guilty of condescension of women. You just can't.
- [43:26]
B
Right.
- [43:26]
A
But it does. People still have issues with the morality of the story of. Of the apartment. And critics even had them when they were writing reviews for Promises, Promises, which, again, I need to remind people, were straight up raves, like Hamilton Level.
- [43:43]
B
I mean, here. Do you. Do you want me to read, like, this tiny little bit of this?
- [43:46]
A
Sure.
- [43:46]
B
Like, so this. This is from. This is part of Clive Barnes New York Times review. Like, this is the kind of thing you would see in some, like, hyperbolic Instagram post nowadays. But, like, it actually means something. So this. This is verbatim. The words in this quote, it says, yes, of course, yes. The Neil Simon and Burt Bacharach musical Promises, Promises came to the Shubert Theater last night and fulfilled them all without a single breach. In fact, it proved to be one of those shows that do not so much open as start to take root. The kind of show where you feel more in the mood to send a congratulatory telegram than write a review. There's Matt's reference. Neil Simon has produced one of the wittiest books of a musical has possessed in years. The Burt Bacharach music excitingly reflects today rather than the day before yesterday. And the performances, especially Jerry Orbach as the put upon and morally diffident hero. Contrive. And it's no easy feat to combine zip with charm.
- [44:48]
A
There you. There you go, kids.
- [44:50]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [44:51]
A
And this was from the guy who went Follies.
- [44:53]
B
Meh. Yeah.
- [44:55]
A
And when company. Super. Meh. But what this production did on a technical level, because how are these. We talked this a little bit already, but I want to kind of go into it further. You know, you have Michael Bennett as the choreographer, and at the time, the feeling was that there wasn't that much choreography in the show. And the same with a lot of people. When Dream Girls came out, people were like, there's not that. That much choreography.
- [45:20]
B
Right.
- [45:21]
A
Because when people think of choreography, they think of newsies. You know, like dance.
- [45:25]
B
Right. Dance numbers. Yes.
- [45:26]
A
And it's. And with Bennett, where Bennett always kind of came from, was he want. He was wanting so hard to have a show of just constantly fluid movement that were totally character and story based. That was his always his. His goal. Like Jerry Robbins and Bob Fosse were his idols because Jerome Robbins was the pioneer of character, story based movement. Whereas Agnes DeMille. This might be controversial. I know Agnes DeMille talked a big game, but if you look at her choreography for Oklahoma. And Carousel, I'm like, on a psychological level, I see what you're doing, but like, this is not character based choreography because this choreography could be danced by someone from France as well as coastal Maine. Whereas Jerome Robbins was like, no, I'm gonna do ballet in west side Story, but have it be influenced by these characters and where they're from. And then Fosse went even further. He still went in his own style, but it was more sort of like how Fosse does the upper class, how Fosse does street walkers.
- [46:24]
B
Right.
- [46:26]
A
And then Michael Bennett went even further with that with Promises, Promises. He had just come off of two major flops where he was very much highlighted as, you know, the only good things about it, Joyful Noise and Henry, Sweet Henry. And so for this, he recognized that the show was good for finally he's like, I finally have a good show. And there was a lot of dance out of town that just kept getting cut and cut. And so he would find ways to incorporate movement throughout the show. And what he and Robert Moore agreed upon was that the show should never stop. It should always be moving. And technology with scenery had advanced quite a lot at this point, but it still wasn't where we know of it now.
- [47:06]
B
They had turntables and tracks in the floor and stuff, but it wasn't as the. The first scene.
- [47:11]
A
Yeah, the first show to get rid of the curtain down, curtain up scene transition was the original South Pacific. And the way that that was handled was basically like they had a couple of different painted scrims that could sort of go across and people would come on in front of the scrim. It still was the curtain up, curtain down thing of people coming on stage, doing a scene while another scene change happened. But it was done far more inventively, so there were just no blackouts. The whole thing felt far more fluid. And then people kind of took that idea and just advanced upon it. So, you know, hello, Dolly. You know, elegance happens in front of a scrim, and then the scrim goes up and you're at the Harmonia Garden. So, like, technically speaking, you haven't had a blackout or anything, but you aren't having any scene transitions. Promises Promises was really the first Broadway musical to have not only scene transitions, but, like, heavily designed, choreographed, detailed scene transitions. You know, Michael Benda would have ensemble members come on as characters, as members of the officer members at a bar, and doing, like a little mini dance scene with props, with sets. And like, they. One thing I read in one of the Michael Bennett books was, like this, the transition into the executive dining room. He would have members of the ensemble in character, like, pushing on the tables and chairs for the dining room, while the rest of Robin Wagner's set sort of like, slid into place like a dance, Wagner says, And audiences and critics couldn't get enough of it. And that is. That is the beginning of the scene transitions as we know them today. You know, you think about Susan Stroman's shit in New York, New York, like, it was that, but new, right? Because it's very important to know that the whole point of Promises, Promises was that it was New York in that moment. And I think it's. I think in Clive Barnes's review, when he's talking about the design, he says that the costumes are so current that they're going to have to change them out every three Months. There are detracting detractors to this. Edward Albee famously said that he saw Promises Promises the night after it opened and Neil Simon had taken out all the jokes. And what he means by that is like, it was again, it was so current, it wasn't funny anymore. And my dad saw Promises Promises I think like the week after it opened with a date and my. So my dad would have been 17 at this point, maybe 18. So like right up his alley. And he saw it and he did not like it and.
- [49:28]
B
Oh, interesting.
- [49:29]
A
Yeah. And his take. And I think part of it was, you know, they had read all these reviews that were like, Jesus titty Christ, this show is so high.
- [49:36]
B
It's the best.
- [49:37]
A
Yeah, like my, like nothing has been like this before and my dad and his date see it and what my dad says is like, Promises, Promises was so on the pulse a week later, it was dated. You know, it's, it's, it's the equivalent of your, your parents getting in on a tick tock joke three weeks after it stopped being funny. Sure, that is how a lot of people felt with the show later on, but for a good solid chunk, it was the show of the moment. And if you watch the 69 Tony Awards, it is definitely the show that the community is most behind because it has the cultural relevancy of hair, but the respect of 1776.
- [50:18]
B
Right. It's still the traditional book musical, but with a modern sound. Sound. Yes.
- [50:23]
A
And, and feel and things that you could see on the street.
- [50:25]
B
Right.
- [50:26]
A
Ultimately, 7,076 wins, which I do think is objectively the better musical. But I mean, it's. I, I don't think we would have, we would have looked back on Promises Promises winning and have been embarrassed. And I think a lot of people went, I think a lot of people went in expecting it to win. That, that definitely is sort of the feeling of it. What's something you want to bring up with this show?
- [50:48]
B
Well, I think we should talk about the music.
- [50:49]
A
Yay.
- [50:50]
B
If you're able ever as listeners to get your hands on back in 2011, the, the album or the. Bruce Kimmel has a, an album company, a music producing company called Kritzerland. And they managed to get their hands on the original eight track recordings of Promises Promises. And this cast recording did. The original cast recording did win a Grammy Award for best cast album.
- [51:18]
A
It did.
- [51:18]
B
However, if you had. If you've listened to any other released versions of this album, you will hear how out of tune a lot of it is. A lot of it is Jerry Warbach, and the men in general are all a little tired sounding. It's. And Jerry Orbach was. Was always a little pitchy anyway. But he. For anybody that doesn't know, they used to. And they used to record cast albums the Monday after the opening weekend of the show. And so cast members are not only, like, exhausted, they're also, you know, in need of a break. Their voices are wiped because they've been doing, you know, rehearsals and previews and blah, blah, blah, plus opening. And then they're expected to come in and sing all of these songs for posterity. So. Especially on albums up until. I mean, when did they stop that practice?
- [52:12]
A
The 80s of the Monday after.
- [52:14]
B
Yeah, Yeah.
- [52:17]
A
I would actually probably argue it started in the mid-70s.
- [52:21]
B
Okay. So.
- [52:22]
A
But I don't think it became a regular practice until the late 80s.
- [52:25]
B
So up and. So up until then, and including this, that was definitely something that would. That would be the case. And. And so a lot of the voices were a little more tired than they would normally be in a theatrical setting. And then you add in, like, multiple takes on songs, and voices just get wiped. Glynis Johns famously, actually, if you listen to the little night music recording, her voice sounds really tired, and it's because she was sick and it was right after they'd opened. And normally her Son and the clowns was a little beltier than it actually is on the album. Although I think it works really well on the album.
- [52:58]
A
I mean, I think. I still think it's definitive.
- [52:59]
B
She's perfection.
- [53:00]
A
Yeah. I will not hear a single bad word about Glynn's.
- [53:04]
B
I Love Her. But anyway, this. But this. This score, which, I mean, we can. We can discuss individual songs, which I would love to do, but as we've already said, the music is for that time, so contemporary. But also, there's never been another score that's. That sounded like it on Broadway, really. With the exception, technically, I'm going to say, put a technicality in Of Company, and that is because Jonathan Tunick, this was his first big, big Broadway orchestration gig, and he was heavily influenced by Burt Bacharach's charts that he would do for percussion. And so. But this was the. I think maybe the first Broadway show that introduced pit singers.
- [53:48]
A
Yes, it is.
- [53:48]
B
And so if you listen to the Promises, Promises recording back to back with the company recording, you do hear a lot of similarities in the. In the orchestration and the performance of the. Of the pieces. But the musical styles obviously are quite different. But, I mean, I don't know. I Mean from the get go. Matt knows this. And I probably talked about it on the. On here before. Like, I love a crash, boom, bang orchestration. I love something that just like punches you in the face and is like, I'm fucking here and I'm loud and you're gonna like it. Yeah. And. And we just. We don't get it that in quite the same way anymore. Mostly because orchestras are smaller, but also just because. Because now we, you know, they can turn up a sound dial and everything sounds louder. But with the size of the orchestra that they had and with the new sound technology that they were using, you really got a score that like slapped you hard in the face. Yeah. With. With modern pop.
- [54:49]
A
I mean, for me. And this isn't Bacharach or Tunic necessarily, although, you know, they're connected with this. Every Michael Bennett show for me is musically speaking identifiable because the drums slap so hard. And Bennett was known as a choreographer who started with rhythm and beat.
- [55:08]
B
Like he and Fosse both.
- [55:09]
A
Yeah, yeah. Like with. With Chorus Line. If you read up about Chorus Line, when they were Start when they were doing the very first workshop before a single bar of music was written by Hamlisch and they were just coming up with dances and. And combos.
- [55:22]
B
They just had a percussionist and. And Jonathan Tunick in. In a rare turn at that time anyway. Just because a lot of orchestrators for Broadway shows were pulled really thin because of the number of shows that were coming out and because of how time consuming writing out orchestra parts was without software to do it. He was one of the few people who would write all of his orchestrations for his shows. And Promises, promises, with the exception of 25 bars of the music leading into Turkey Lurkey Time was all him. Harold wheeler wrote the 25 bars leading into Merry Christmas. Yeah, the Merry Christmas, whatever. Yeah, but. And Harold Wheeler also did the dance arrangements for the. For the show which Tuna and Wheeler.
- [56:11]
A
I believe, did the orchestrations for Dreamgirls.
- [56:14]
B
He did, yeah. I mean, yeah. So if you're. So now you. Anybody listening is probably very familiar with Harold Wheeler's orchestrations from Dreamgirls, from Full Monty, from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, from Hairspray, maybe. But he has a great pop sensibility and really knows how to drive stuff again with percussion and really throw a.
- [56:38]
A
Modern edge into and huge theatricality as well. And reminds you that there needs to be a build to this. So something that Bennett was really a genius at. And actually, you know what it. Let's start with the Big Hog at the Beginning and talk about Turkey Lurkey Time.
- [56:56]
B
Great.
- [56:56]
A
Because if there's one thing musically, in terms of Broadway history that this show has given us, it is Turkey Lurkey Time. Which I was thinking about this, and sometimes I feel like when I'm in a show, as we're recording it, it's like one of my issues with Blank Check is sometimes I. I worry if I have Stockholm syndrome, where I just start thinking positively about things on the show more than I would if I was just sort of passing by it.
- [57:21]
B
Yeah.
- [57:21]
A
And you know, Blank Check does that all the time too. Like with every movie they cover with the director. Like, I always feel like they're a little more positive on the movie than they will be in a year from that moment.
- [57:29]
B
Right.
- [57:29]
A
Because they're just like. They're just so into the director at the moment.
- [57:32]
B
They're so. Deep dive.
- [57:33]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [57:33]
B
Dived in.
- [57:34]
A
Yeah, exactly. But so I gotta say, the more I think about it, the more I think Turkey Lurkey Time might actually be the greatest choreographed number in Broadway history. And it's. Those are big words. And the reason I say this is because Turkey Lurkey Time is a dumb fucking song.
- [57:53]
B
Oh, it's stupid.
- [57:53]
A
It has nothing to do with anything.
- [57:56]
B
No. So the origin of the song itself, if you watch the movie the Apartment, there, there is an office Christmas party, as happens in this show. And in the very first shot of this office Christmas party, there are four secretaries dancing on four desks pushed together. Yes. And so they used this, the writers of the show used this as an idea for a silly number during this scene. But the original women that they had dancing on the desks weren't great. Donna was the only one that was really a dancer. Dancer or they were also. It was supposed to be a stupid.
- [58:28]
A
Silly, put together number. So the thing about Promises, Promises, again, is that everything always just came from character and it came from story.
- [58:37]
B
Right.
- [58:37]
A
And so one could argue that from where they started with the show, they actually had over hired on the dancer front because Bennett had put the dancers for this show through their paces when they auditioned for it. Kelly Bishop says the final callback for Promises Promises was seven hours. So as Adam was saying, it's a Christmas party. And the idea for Turkey Lurkey Time is, you know, those four women on the desk. And originally the idea was much more realistic. They were putting on a little show and all the dance and Promises. Promises was supposed to just be. Be movement, character based and whatnot. And like, Michael Bennett was very proud of this. Like if you didn't know choreography, you would have thought that it was staging.
- [59:19]
B
Right. It was like play with music was the idea.
- [59:21]
A
Exactly. And some sequences were kept. Like, the Grapes of Wrath is apparently a very notorious bit of his staging, which I wish.
- [59:29]
B
God, I wish I could see it.
- [59:30]
A
I'm. Well, I think that there's meticulous notes on it because they had a million different productions of this show running.
- [59:36]
B
Sure.
- [59:37]
A
And by Arkley is, you know, the keeper of the keys. I'm sure she's got it down somewhere, but I want someone to recreate it because apparently it very intricate, amazing comedy staging of Bennett's. But Turkey Lurky time was dying. And as they were cutting more and more stuff, especially of Donna stuff Bennett and bought his assistant Bob Avian were like, we can fix this. And basically they were like, we know, we talked about how this. We wanted this to essentially be like a play with music. They're like, I. We need this to be a big showstopper production number. And everyone involved, like, to their credit, were like, I think that's right. Like, you know, everything's playing really well. But, like, we don't have any number that, like, knocks them sideways.
- [60:11]
B
Right.
- [60:12]
A
And even if it doesn't have to do anything with anything, we need it.
- [60:16]
B
Also, the end of act one is kind of a downer. So at least it, like, boosts you up before. Gets you in the crotch.
- [60:21]
A
Exactly. The end of Act 1 is a downer slash cliffhanger because it's a twist that if you know the apartment, you know it's coming. Right. But they don't end it with a song. They ended with a scene, but they're like. So before that, we get. We got to give them something. Especially because Act 2 is just like, it's. Well, it's. It's a dirge, but it's also. It's intimate.
- [60:37]
B
Right. Almost all of Act 2 takes place in the apartment.
- [60:40]
A
Yes. And it's mostly between Fran and Cece. Right. But so they come up with this. They come up with the whole staging for the number pretty much overnight. Like, they. The show ends at 10:30 that night. They go into their hotel room in Boston and like, by 8am they come out and they teach the dancers everything. And this became the only real dancing number of the show. And it is very silly, but it. It builds. And basically the whole idea of the number is just, you know, the way that Seth Rudetsky basically describes it is like, it's Donna Biorkley and what's her face, long haired, doing turkey Lurkey time and dancing and everyone in the office going, we don't get it. And after two by two and a half minutes, they go, we get it. We get it. Right? And that's. That's just what it is. And it ends with everyone doing this move that. How would you describe it? It's. Their arms are flailing. One up, one down.
- [61:30]
B
Yeah. I mean, if you just go on YouTube and watch it. But ultimately, it's arms moving in opposition and heads moving in opposition of arms with sort of. It's kind of like a turkey flap, really.
- [61:45]
A
The only thing that's really turkey ish about the movie.
- [61:47]
B
But it's one of those moves that. And I've heard Donna McKechnie say this on multiple occasions about Michael Bennett in general.
- [61:53]
A
She.
- [61:54]
B
She said he always knew what step, when done repeatedly by an ensemble, would get an applause. And so this is sort of one of those steps that, like, if you watched one person do it, you'd be like, oh, that was kind of fun. But watching a stage full of 20 dancers do this step for a long time over and over is. You're impressed by the. By the stamina, by the specificity and the accuracy of the timing of it all with everybody and just with the build of it in combination with the music that's happening.
- [62:27]
A
Yeah. And with all this, by the way, as Adam was saying, the neck is flapping to the left or to the right, whichever way, I'm not quite sure. But Donna McKechnie famously had a very limber body, and that's what made her work so well with Michael Bennet, why his dances work so well on her body line. Not everyone is built that way. And so Don is like, what's difficult about this final step with her crazy neck? And Kelly Bishop was like, the rest of us go into chiropractors twice a week.
- [62:55]
B
Right.
- [62:55]
A
Because of that. And, like, just that one number, and it's. It's a bitch of a number. And Donna, you know, would say, like, it was winding, but it was so worth it when the audience would applaud. And the team considered Donna in the show so important to what they called the temperature and the tempo of the show. So even though she didn't really have any lines and she only had that one number, in terms of how she carried out Bennett's staging and how her vibe of the show was so important that she was brought. She was the only company member brought to London to open the show for six weeks just to sort of set it out. She opened every national tour. And she would, like, come in and, like, give notes and feedback because she was considered that vital to the. To the temperature of it all. Which I think shows you how this production team, it wasn't a fluke. They knew what they were doing. When people have something to prove, that's when shows tend to be at their most exciting and best.
- [63:45]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and this. So do you want to keep talking about Turkey Lurkey Time?
- [63:50]
A
No, I will, because. So the thing about Turkey Lurkey Time, as we said, you know, really has nothing to do with anything. Correct. The lyrics are stupid and intentionally so. Like, everyone's kind of drunk doing a little Christmas show. The reasoning in the script is, attention, everybody. The Christmas committee has asked the idea committee to come up with an idea for the Christmas party. Right, that's it.
- [64:11]
B
Right, so here we are, and here's Ms. De La Hoya from wherever. Petty Cash. Right?
- [64:15]
A
De La Hoya from petty cash. Ms. Wong of Mimeographs. Ms. Polanski of Accounts Receivable.
- [64:21]
B
Well done.
- [64:22]
A
Thank you so much. And I said that. I said that in reverse order.
- [64:27]
B
Sorry.
- [64:27]
A
No, it's great. It's fine. But it's such an indestructible number and so iconic, and it is. It is truly character based. Like, you could deconstruct the whole thing over and over and over again because everyone's doing little something. It builds in this very fascinating way. And Bennett is so smart in how he does it, because first of all, the number is high energy. It's not like a small sound that then expands. It's just a exciting sound that just gets bigger and faster and bigger and faster. The dancing, though, absolutely builds. You know, it starts with just the three of them doing these cute little moves. They don't do anything particularly exciting, but.
- [64:59]
B
No, and a lot of them are like, indicational moves. It's like. Like there's the.
- [65:04]
A
It's a shoulder shrug.
- [65:05]
B
They do, like, climb up and bring it down for me is like them doing a little ladder climb. And then they sing. That's something I would like to see. They point to their eye and then they, like, do the searching with their. Their hand over their. Their eyebrow where it's like. It's very indicative. Indicative.
- [65:19]
A
But you. But if you watch the video both of At Sullivan and on the Tonys, you can see how the ensemble as they're watching are. Are building into it slowly. Like, there's subtle hints, right? And it's not by accident because they.
- [65:34]
B
Including the first crazy that starts just swinging her head on the bench, on. On the desks behind them. Oh, yeah, yeah. Who just is, like, waiting out.
- [65:41]
A
And if you watch her journey, you see how she gets there. Because. And that's the thing is, like, they talk about how, like, Grapes of Roth took forever to stage. And it's not. And it's because it was so intricate.
- [65:50]
B
And because, well, they were in a clump.
- [65:52]
A
Yeah. And Bennett wanted everyone to have a character and a thing. And. And what Kelly Bishop says was like, yes, I hated the final callback of Promises, Promises. But it was the first time the dancing ensemble were treated like actors. More like west side Story. Everyone was a part. Everyone was part of a giant ensemble. Promises, Promises for the first time where, like, you had your principal characters and then a dancing ensemble, and the dancing ensemble were actors as well, even though they may not have had, like, lines. And if you watch Turkey Lurky Time, like, you see one executive looking at one move that they're doing and, like, trying to do it himself. And you see, like, the one bitch who eventually will swing her head like she's the one who's most into it when they do. That's something I would like to see. And they start dancing. And even though the camera's on Donna doing her solo, you see Biore go off to one executive and they start to dance. And Long Haired Bitch is going to her executive and they start to dance, which then gets two other people dancing and one person dancing on her own. And then one woman gets on a table to join them in that head flappy bit, which then gets every. All the other women to start dancing on their own. And then the moment it all starts to sync up. Exactly. And again, it's so small because you think it's gonna be like, oh, great, everyone's gonna dance as one. Nope. The executives all get into a semicircle and they just do a little foot touch.
- [67:00]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [67:01]
A
In unison, but a foot touch. While the women get wilder and some are on desks and some are not.
- [67:05]
B
And then. Well, and the moment that it really, before it explodes is when everybody gets in a clump and Donna has a solo dance moment and they're all clapping behind her, going, go, go, go. It's so stupidly exciting. It should not be as exciting as it is.
- [67:20]
A
Cause then after she does that, then Biore and Long Haired Bitch. What? We need to find out her actual name. It's not Margot Sappington.
- [67:27]
B
No, it's Julie something. I swear it's Julie.
- [67:30]
A
Julie Long Haired Bitch.
- [67:30]
B
Julie Longhair. We'll call her Julie Longhair.
- [67:33]
A
Julie Longhair. Sorry.
- [67:35]
B
I'm sorry. Julie. If you find your way to this.
- [67:37]
A
She's beautiful.
- [67:39]
B
She's stunning.
- [67:39]
A
And I have a thing against beautiful, white, thin women. I just don't trust them within an inch of my life. It's why Mean Girls does nothing for me. The musical. I could, I could watch the movie every day till I'm dead, but I just thought it was awful. Sure. And the movie, the remake, looks equally awful. Actually, worse. It looks worse. We digress. But the Donna Biore and Julie Longhair, they break out and they start dancing even more like, even wilder because it gets wild at this point. And then where the audience. There are two moments where the audience has their. And, and depending on what you watch or listen to, where they might applaud because on the. There's audio of the opening night performance of Turkey Lurky Time, which Adam and I were listening to. And it's fast and crazy. And then there's the Tony performance. The audience applauds at this part, which is when the entire office is now not only dancing wildly, but dancing the same dance move. It's the beginning of all one move. And it's them basically doing.
- [68:35]
B
It's kind of like a jive kick.
- [68:37]
A
Run, essentially, which they do in a figure eight. And then the women who are not in the figure 8 and on the desks are doing the same move just in place. But it is the same move everywhere. And on the opening night audio, that's when the audience is losing their shit. They don't applaud yet. On the Tonys. They wait till they all spread out and do the snowy blow at Christmas.
- [68:55]
B
Yeah.
- [68:55]
A
And then they go into the Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells. And it is one of those things where truly your head has left the building. Your heart and your pelvis have taken over. It's Robin Williams. Something goes from your heart and reaches your pelvis. So it's heart slash pelvis. And it's.
- [69:10]
B
And it's just like you do an eclectic celebration.
- [69:13]
A
Fosse, Fosse, Fosse. But like, I, I, I know I've mentioned this before. Schwartz, Stephen Schwartz, has talked about, like, when he saw a Coruscant to the public and they were doing the finale and he sat there and he kept going like, oh, they're gonna kick now. And they like, he, it was delayed gratification of. They kept almost. But not kicking. And then when they finally kicked, he went. I went from going, they're gonna kick to they're kicking, they're kicking. And it's you, like jaded me sits there every time and goes this dumbass number with these stupid lyrics that Hal David probably wrote while high on ketamine. And Bird Bacharach wrote on a popper's high. And Michael Bennett and Bob Avian probably choreographed it after butt fucking a cup of sailors in Boston. And Don mckeck, and he's like, I'd like to try pegging. And you watch it. By the time it's over, you're just like, none of that matters anymore. I just want to see this number 10 more.
- [70:06]
B
And thank God for YouTube.
- [70:08]
A
I would like to meet Donna again and be like, you, Donna between. Between girlfriends.
- [70:12]
B
You peg.
- [70:13]
A
You pegged, right? You. You pegged Michael, right?
- [70:16]
B
Oh, my God.
- [70:19]
A
Okay. But it's so funny because of, like, all the things about Promises. Promises that were so innovative for its time, the thing that has lasted so long. And this is why I actually say that I feel like the number might be the greatest choreographed in history. And I don't mean, like, the most artistically successful or the one that's the most groundbreaking, but the one that is so iconic, so indestructible, the one that, like, you can't choreograph a way around it. You can't do a new version that's equally as good or better.
- [70:45]
B
Nope, you sure can't.
- [70:47]
A
Sure can.
- [70:48]
B
But I. But I think it truly does. I think it's a number that you could show like a teenager now, and they'd still be like, this is old. But then they'd be like, that was crazy and fun and weird and, like. But it would still elicit an excited reaction out of someone.
- [71:08]
A
Builds to a moment where this number in Promises is the exception to the rule in every way. It has nothing to do with shit. The one thing you can say is that Bennett worked very hard. And again, we talked about this. You look at the intricacies of the choreography and the staging of making sure that it builds in a way that makes sense to that environment and those characters. So even though it is, you know, just sort of like, let go and let God and let musical theater. Let the musical theater gods take over, he still incorporates elements of that storytelling. So that way it's not totally far gone. And I don't know, it's. It's. It's the magic of musicals where it's like, it's bonkers, but it only could work in this environment. And. And it gives you the kind of high that you can't get from so many other things. And, yeah, that's why I think it's so phenomenal and so far up there in the echelon of works.
- [72:05]
B
It is, to use a very overused word. It's iconic.
- [72:09]
A
Yeah.
- [72:10]
B
Like it stands the test of time. And Michael Bennett, really between Michael Bennett and Bob Fosse in terms of especially what we recognize now as iconic musical theater. Not even tropes, but like visuals. They're.
- [72:27]
A
They.
- [72:28]
B
The two of them really. Even, Even if it. A lot of it came from osmosis, from people that they loved and. And took from really created stuff that has, has managed to just continue to be exciting and interesting and feel individual.
- [72:47]
A
Yeah. Well, what they did, which we don't realize because we think of Broadway choreography as, you know, newsy, you know, over, you know, it's, it's, it's so you think you can dance. It's. Show me what you can do. Show me what you got. Give it all to me. But Bennett and Fosse, first of all, Fosse was the master of restraint. You know, he definitely has his more energetic numbers out there. Sing, sing. And dancing is huge. But like think about, hey big spender. Where they don't move for full on minutes. And when they do, it's short, it's fast, it's hot. And they go right back.
- [73:27]
B
Yeah.
- [73:27]
A
Bomb. It's so exciting. A rich man's fruit. You know, you, you. It's. It's all tight and compact and a lot of Bennett stuff like, you know. Yes. There's, you know, God, I hope I get it. Which opens big because it has to be. It's. It's a audition. But then you get into things like hello 12, hello 13, hello love. And like it. The dance in that doesn't get wild until the last 90 seconds of a 19 minute montage.
- [73:52]
B
Yeah.
- [73:52]
A
And then turkey lurkey time. I bring up turkey lurky time every time I talk to people about something that always bugs me about current Broadway choreography and that no number builds anymore. There's no structure. It. People just kind of start wild and end wild. And even if it's impressive, it doesn't excite me because I'm like, you shot your wad in the first minute and now I'm left with come all over my chest.
- [74:14]
B
Right. Yeah. No, it's true.
- [74:15]
A
Yeah.
- [74:16]
B
I mean, you don't get a. Because even. I mean, even. Yeah. Nowadays it's. I'm. If you held a gun to my head and we're like, think of the most recent. One of the most recent things I can think of that has Build is probably I Got Rhythm from Crazy for your.
- [74:33]
A
Yeah. Or Slap that Bass.
- [74:35]
B
Right. A Stroman number.
- [74:37]
A
Yeah, but that.
- [74:38]
B
But she. And she understands how to build things. But, you know, a lot of the younger choreography choreographies, the choreographies of the day, a lot of the younger choreographers don't seem to have that. Yeah, it is like balls to the wall immediately where you're like, where do you go from here?
- [74:56]
A
Exactly. And there are very brilliant artists in the industry right now. We don't have a lot of geniuses. And Bebe Neurath talks about this in her chapter of Nothing Like a Dame where she. She makes the distinction between being brilliant and being a genius. She goes, I've worked with a lot of brilliant artists. She goes, and I've all. She's like, I've also been fortunate to work. Work with a few geniuses. And Shapiro's like, what's the difference? And she was like, genius is a kind of an ability that comes from you. It's nothing that you can. That you can be trained with. It's innate. You just have it in you. And it's. It's like a sixth sense. Like Michael Bennett, Bob Fosse, Joan Robbins. A sixth sense of what a moment means. All right, Turkey Licky, out of the way. Great number. You want to talk about?
- [75:40]
B
Well, I mean, just sort of the score in general. I think that it's. It's. Well, we haven't really talked about the. Actually, we haven't talked about the. The people that star in the show, which will kind of go along with songs, what we're used to. So Jerry Orbach, what was he fresh off of at that point? He made his big premiere in New York in the Fantastic, which is what sort of put him on the map. Yes. And then.
- [76:02]
A
Oh, Carnival, then Carnival, and then Guys and Dolls, where he got his first Tony nom to place as Sky Masterson.
- [76:08]
B
Where was that? City Center.
- [76:09]
A
I think those. Back when City center shows were Tony revival or.
- [76:12]
B
Yeah, yeah. I guess technically revival, they didn't really.
- [76:15]
A
He did the Granny get your Gun with Ethel and I think. I know that's it. I think. I think that Guys and Dolls, that brief Guys and Dolls revival was the last thing he did.
- [76:27]
B
Sure.
- [76:27]
A
So he was. He wasn't a name name. He was a community known actor. Who to?
- [76:33]
B
You know, he was up and coming.
- [76:35]
A
Yeah, for sure. The audiences knew him from Fantastics and from Carnival.
- [76:39]
B
Oh, you mean in terms of like putting his name over a title?
- [76:41]
A
He and Jill O' Hara were not over the title.
- [76:43]
B
Right.
- [76:43]
A
They were the closest to it underneath it.
- [76:46]
B
Right. Yeah, they. Well, he. Yeah, he was top billing. And Jill o' Hara and Ed Winter were side by side.
- [76:51]
A
Is that true? I thought it was. I thought he and Jill were side by side. Oh, okay. I was looking at something different.
- [76:56]
B
I mean, maybe it was different on.
- [76:57]
A
Different, but still under the title, their.
- [76:59]
B
Names are all the same size, so. Yeah, there you go.
- [77:02]
A
Continue. And Ed, what did Ed Winter just. Oh, Ed Winter had been in Cabaret two years before where he was Air Schultz and Tony nominated for that as well.
- [77:09]
B
Right. So. But you have Jerry Orbach. You have Jill o', Hara, who at that point had been. She'd been in George M. I don't know what else she had been in.
- [77:18]
A
First of all, Wei Han. Oh, he also was in Threepenny Opera.
- [77:23]
B
Oh, right.
- [77:25]
A
Okay. So Orbach, Threepenny Opera, the big one, the one that was huge with Lotta Lenya, but he was a replacement in that. And then I think that led him into Fantastics, which then led him into Carnival, then the Guys and Dolls, where he was Tony nominated in 65, then Granny in 66. The Natural look, which opened and closed on March 11, 1967. And then Promises. Promises.
- [77:47]
B
Great.
- [77:48]
A
Jill O'. Hara. It was George M. Are we sure?
- [77:52]
B
I know she was in George M. As his sister.
- [77:56]
A
Yeah, she was in George M. For a second. Because technically speaking, George M. Was the same season as Promises. Promises.
- [78:03]
B
She. Yeah, she's on. I think it was. It. Was it the same. Was it the same voting season?
- [78:09]
A
Because they won choreography over Promises. I mean, there was more choreography in George M. For sure, that. You know what? I think George M. Is a show that suffered from the hair. Fuck you. Where they moved the. The deadline.
- [78:25]
B
Oh.
- [78:26]
A
Because it's April 10th, and I know that Hair opened in April as well. So my assumption is that the Tonys moved it to, like, the last day of March that year. But also, to be fair, Tony's moved around a lot in the 60s and 70s, like the year of Night Music and Pippin. The Tonys are in mid March of 1973.
- [78:44]
B
Oh, wait, I take it back. I don't think she played a sister. I think Bernadette Peters played his sister. She was his girlfriend.
- [78:48]
A
Sounds about right. Agnes Nolan. Yes. She was in it from April of 68 to August 24. She went right from here to Promises.
- [78:55]
B
Got it.
- [78:55]
A
She left that and went straight into rehearsal for Promises.
- [78:59]
B
And then after that, did she go into Hair?
- [79:02]
A
Oh, you know what? She was the Original Sheila off Broadway in Hair, but she didn't do it on Broadway.
- [79:07]
B
There we go. And then. And then Edward Winter. But I mean, it's. It's interesting when you listen to this recording. These are not voices you get very often on Broadway albums. No, I mean, Jerry Orbach. Yes. We've heard him on a lot of different things. But like, Jill o' Hara's voice is very distinct. I happen to love it. Yeah, it's very befitting of the character. It's youthful, it's broken. I love that she has a very distinct break in her voice. She can belt up to a certain note and then she's like. And I have a lovely airy head voice to get the rest of it out. But it works so well from a pop perspective. Their first duet together.
- [79:53]
A
You'll think of someone.
- [79:54]
B
You'll think of someone. Which is a cute song.
- [79:56]
A
Yeah, it's fine.
- [79:59]
B
I think it's just interesting. I said this to Matt back when we were first discussing that we were doing the show. Like, one of the things. I have conflicting feelings about this score in that I think the music for every song is a fucking bop. Yeah. Every single song can bop it. Hal David's lyrics in context, in the moment. They're fine. If you like. If you really examine them outside of the moment. Not on all the songs. Some of the songs, I will tell you my. The songs that can get it for me, like anytime. I think she likes basketball is a great song. I think Knowing when to leave is a great song. I think. I actually think where can you take a girl Is a solid comedy song.
- [80:46]
A
It is. And I know they changed some of the lyrics for the revival. I. I think to make it more PC.
- [80:53]
B
Yeah.
- [80:54]
A
But I mean, I don't think. I don't find the original lyrics to be upsetting because it's sung by sexist.
- [80:59]
B
They're sort of the 4. 4 Villains of the show. So it's.
- [81:02]
A
Yeah. And they're comic villains. So, like the number is a bop while they're being dumb and assholes.
- [81:07]
B
Dirty old men. Yes, exactly. And then I think, whoever you are, I love you is a beautiful song. And obviously never fall in love again. And promises, promises, like half the score is really solid.
- [81:18]
A
There is, in my opinion, one major, major clunke. Well, actually, so there's a song that is.
- [81:24]
B
Wait, I want to guess what it is. Is it an up tempo or a ballad?
- [81:27]
A
There is one song that is a good song that I don't think should be there. And then there's a Song that I just think is objectively a clunker.
- [81:34]
B
Okay. The song that you think is good but shouldn't be there is out of temp or a ballad.
- [81:39]
A
Do you really want me to give you that hint?
- [81:40]
B
Yeah.
- [81:42]
A
Good song. Doesn't need to be there as the ballad.
- [81:46]
B
Is it one of her songs? No, it's not wanting things. It is because. Okay, see, because I was gonna guess that that was the clunker. There are some lyrics in that song that are weird.
- [81:57]
A
Well, I think it's also, I think the lyrics also are weird because of who it's coming from.
- [82:01]
B
Right.
- [82:02]
A
But also I just think that song shouldn't exist. But that also goes into how they treat that role.
- [82:07]
B
But that's okay. So that song, though, lands in my list of it kind of. Actually, it was the song I think I was listening to when I said to you every song in this show is a bop. Because like Edward Winter, that Ed Winter, that voice on that song sounds good. He is creamy dreamy on that song. And I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll rub my thighs a little bit for you. You can kind of get it. But like, the lyrics themselves, in certain moments you're like, maybe I should listen.
- [82:34]
A
To the lyrics again. I, I, I'll be honest. That was a song where I did tune out on the lyrics. I was like, the melody's good. This. Do you know what song I think is a couple clunker?
- [82:43]
B
Is it an uptempo song?
- [82:45]
A
Kinda.
- [82:46]
B
Is it pretty girl like you?
- [82:48]
A
No.
- [82:48]
B
Okay, that song.
- [82:50]
A
That's another song.
- [82:51]
B
That's just a weird song.
- [82:52]
A
Yeah, that's another song. I'm like, I don't know if I think this should be here. It's, it's weird to have it in this moment. It's our little secret. I think that song's a clunker. Oh, yeah.
- [83:00]
B
Well, especially I will say that that is one song. So when they, when they re released this album with the, the pitch, correction, that is one song that still is struggling when it comes to the pitch. Correction. But a lot of it comes from the style in which they've been directed to sing it. It's a lot of scooping up on stuff. And it's because it's to make, it's to make it funny.
- [83:23]
A
Yeah.
- [83:24]
B
Because it is kind of a. Because what they're talking about is a little smarmy.
- [83:29]
A
Yeah.
- [83:29]
B
And so in an effort to make it the song more of a joke, they do this sort of scoopy thing on every they sing. It's our little Secret, Little secret, Little secret. And it's. Yeah. To the point where you're like, this is uncomfortable.
- [83:48]
A
I can. What I imagine is that in the original production with those two and then Bennett and Moore working on it with.
- [83:53]
B
Them, it probably was hilarious.
- [83:55]
A
Very charming.
- [83:55]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [83:57]
A
With Tony Goldwyn and Sean Hayes doing it on the mammoth broad Broadway stage, directed by famous comedy man Rob Ashford. It just died. But I. Even listening to it, I don't like it. It's. It's also. It's one of those songs where, like, you watch a Golden Age musical and you go, I feel like this was there to pad time for a scene change. And it just doesn't make sense to me. It's when Sheldrake gets Baxter to give him the key to the apartment and then says, you're no longer giving this key to anyone else. Just me. And it's what promises. Promises and the apartment both do is that there's a lot of sex and no one actually ever says the word sex or even admits to it. Yeah, it's always just implied.
- [84:39]
B
Yeah.
- [84:40]
A
And so, yeah, it's. It's. It's that.
- [84:44]
B
Okay. And then the one other song I will talk about, and then we can maybe do. I don't know, maybe we're talking about. Are we going to talk about the really problematic parts of anything anytime soon? Or do you think we've covered them already? We should.
- [84:55]
A
No. Okay, well. Because we got to talk about the revival.
- [84:58]
B
Yes. Okay. So the last thing that we will discuss before, which will actually get us moving nicely into the revival, I Will say Yes, Ma' Am is a song that, on its own is fine. It's cute. It's a duet for two drunk people, and those people are Chuck Baxter and a character that Neil Simon fleshed out from the original Screenplay Named Margie McDougal, who is a woman that Chuck meets at the top of Act 2 in a bar while he's drowning his sorrows, when he discovers that Fran is Sheldrake's side piece and she, in fact, is the one who's gonna be fucking him in his apartment.
- [85:41]
A
Yes.
- [85:42]
B
And so at the top of Act 2, we meet Margie McDougall, who Neil Simon has turned into a character who, I guess, hard to get is her game.
- [85:55]
A
So in the movie.
- [85:56]
B
In the movie, she's just sort of a weird, awkward flirt.
- [85:59]
A
She's not even much of a flirt. She's kind of similar to Chuck in the sense, you know, she's a. She's a lonely soul at a bar. It's Christmas Eve, right? And, you know, they're drinking at the bar and they kind of just connect in the sense that they're both alone.
- [86:12]
B
Right.
- [86:12]
A
But she's got some fun one liners and a few of them.
- [86:15]
B
That she's cute. She's cute.
- [86:16]
A
Yeah. And, you know, I think part of why not only her, the physical, the almost violent physical handling of her out the door upsets us watching the movie, but also, like, she is not as vivacious and calculating as she is in the show. She's a lot more earnest and. And dumb and sweet.
- [86:35]
B
Right.
- [86:36]
A
So when she's handled in that, like, really brisk way, you're like, part of you wants to like, step in and be like, there's an almost dead girl in the bathroom. They don't have time. I'm so sorry. Please, please go right. It's not you.
- [86:45]
B
Yeah. It's like, she didn't do anything. No. Be nice to poor Margie. Like, she's not expecting.
- [86:50]
A
But also, we have to remember, like, the movie knows this because if. If the movie didn't know that, they wouldn't have made her that way. True, true, true. And it's, it's. It, it's. You know, it makes sense that that's how Cece Baxter would handle the situation, which is truly life and death. He's got Fran almost dead. He's not even sure she is dead or not in his bedroom. And he's freaking out. And the doctor who lives next door, he's like, I gotta save her. So he just has no time.
- [87:11]
B
Right?
- [87:12]
A
Could we. Could his bedside manner be better? Could have handled. Yeah, but in the musical, no. Margie is a very calculating barfly. She's got a game that she plays and she plays it well, depending on who is performing it and how.
- [87:26]
B
And she. Wait.
- [87:27]
A
This is a role that has won.
- [87:28]
B
Two Tony Awards for this role.
- [87:30]
A
Two Tony Awards for this role. Marian Mercer in the original production and Katie Fenneran in the revival. This. This is a princess track if ever there was one.
- [87:37]
B
Oh, man.
- [87:38]
A
She's nowhere to be found in act one. She's at the top of act two. She's got the TV big. She's got this one scene in this song, has a brief scene later on.
- [87:45]
B
She's in like a third of act two, and that's about it.
- [87:48]
A
And then she's out the door. And the audience lives for her every time.
- [87:52]
B
Yeah.
- [87:52]
A
And you can play her very differently. There's video of Katie Finneran in the revival, and there's video of Christine Baranski. Doing it with Martin Short at encores in 1997.
- [88:02]
B
And there's also a video of a transport group did a concert version of Promises, Promises, and Donalyn Champlin and John Cariani doing the scene. Has some funny moments, I'm sure. Yeah.
- [88:14]
A
So of that, the one I like the most is Baranski, and I'll. And I'll talk about why in a second, but I want to hear more of your thoughts on Margie McDougal.
- [88:24]
B
I just think that this character is. It's a character that doesn't further the plot necessarily, but I don't know, I guess I'm just sort of fascinated by the character and the fact that they chose to expand her so much for this show because, you know, I guess. I guess if they didn't expand it, it would be a completely, you know, disposable role that doesn't really need to be there for anything. I mean, it's. Because what does she do? Like, what is. What do you think her purpose is other than some comic relief before we really go deep dark in the actual.
- [89:04]
A
I think she ties in thematically with the show in the sense of sexual agency for women.
- [89:11]
B
Yeah, she. Yes, I agree. I was. I was asking you because I. I think the same. I think that she. She is like, She's. We've seen men playing a game this entire time, and now you get to see a woman sort of playing her own.
- [89:24]
A
Yeah.
- [89:25]
B
Sex game with, you know, with. With a. With an unexpecting individual.
- [89:30]
A
Yes. And what I like about how it's written, how Baranski plays it, is that she plays the coy vapid card to the hilt. And she's also very sheen. She's also very good at picking who. Exactly. It's going to work on. Because this game would not work on Sheldrake. And I think that Margie McDougal is perceptive enough to know that she's very smart. She's done this enough times that she knows exactly what kind of guys it would work on. A CeCe Baxter, who is cute, you know, Jerry Orbach in 1969 could get it short, could get it in the 90s. Sean Hayes, at one point, could get it. It's. Listen, you watched the first seven seasons of Will and Grace and, like, yeah, you could still get it, but, oh.
- [90:14]
B
I had such a crush on him.
- [90:15]
A
Oh, yeah, he's so cute in it. But, like, it's a specific kind of handsome. It's. You can't go for the dapper super mask, and you have to Go for, like. It's like a little weakness.
- [90:24]
B
Well, she. I mean, she says it herself in that scene. She talks about how her. Her former husb husband Jerome was. Was very masculine. He shaved four times. Three, sometimes four times a day.
- [90:37]
A
They don't make him like that anymore. Right.
- [90:38]
B
And she says to him. She says not to imply that you're not masculine.
- [90:42]
A
She goes, in your own weird way, you remind me of Jerome, if I recall him correctly. Right. It's. It's so. Okay, what. So what Baranski does is she is both very transparent and also very coy. And you can watch it. She and Martin Short do the whole thing just sitting in two chairs facing up. Partly because it's encores. Like, you don't have time to do a whole thing.
- [91:03]
B
Right. And their scene is slightly abridged.
- [91:06]
A
Again, very slightly, it's encore. So they do have to make some cuts. So, like, I think their scene is maybe half a page shorter than what it is. And also, you don't know, like, if maybe Bransky skipped a line, because she does that sometimes. But for the most part, it's pretty close to what it is. She also isn't dragging it out as much as Finneran and Hayes do. Right. But certain things, she does that show kind of the. That. That agency I'm talking about, she goes, my former husband, Jerome. And Martin Short goes, oh, a widow and there's a bee. And she goes, I think so. And she's like, couldn't care less. Jerome isn't here rather attractive. You is. And it's that. It's that nonchalance of, like, yeah, whatever it. And then also. And then there's also just the fact that, like, while she is smart, she is not cultured. And this is actually really good, sophisticated writing on Simon's part that makes the humor work so well, which is when things like cece looking at her outfit and going, love your outfit, Trey Chic. And she goes, gracias.
- [92:09]
B
Yeah.
- [92:09]
A
Him using French and then her using Spanish. Or also, I love the. You go, C.C. okay. Cece Baxter. Oh, Cece Initials. Very fancy. I'm just plain old Margie McDougal. And he says, oh, I don't see.
- [92:22]
B
Anything plain about you. Is that what he says?
- [92:24]
A
Yeah, he says, I said, I don't see anything plain about you, Marge. And she. And Christine goes, oh, touche. It's just so fucking good. Because it's the attitude and it's the vapidness combined. But again, it is a game. And, I mean, you could all point it down to the way that Margie gets her drink, which the carefully clueless. Have I finished this stinger already?
- [92:48]
B
Right. And then, oh, my drink is empty. What do I do? And then he says, oh, you know, whatever.
- [92:53]
A
He orders her another drink and she goes, oh, that's so sweet. That's really not necess. Double on the vodka, Eugene.
- [92:58]
B
Yeah.
- [92:58]
A
Like she's. She's in it to win it.
- [93:00]
B
She. She knows what she's doing. Yeah. And. And Katie Veneran giving what I. What I described to Met Cop, like, as a Beth level performance. A Beth level, level performance. Yes. Of just chewing every piece of wood on that bar that they're. That they're sitting at. Yeah. Yes. It is equally hysterical, but also stretched out. I really wish that there was footage of the original just to get a sense of what that was.
- [93:32]
A
I need one of the homos that clearly has the soundboard of the opening night from 1968 to release it, or at least that scene, because there is audio available. We talked about how Turkey Lurkey is available, but also the first eight minutes of the show. Yeah.
- [93:47]
B
The overture and the first song, half as Big as Life, as well as.
- [93:49]
A
The I'll Never Fall in Love Again and scene after it is out there. One of the things that Simon does with the book is he has Chuck Baxter address the audience a lot to give sort of his inner thoughts. And it's cute. And it's one of the things that critics were first to point out because by. By the time 1968 happened, the apartment was finally considered, like, a great work of cinema.
- [94:15]
B
Right.
- [94:15]
A
It had one Best Picture by that point was. It was a popular hit. But, like, critics finally went, okay, like, those of us who are on the fence.
- [94:21]
B
Well, it's good.
- [94:22]
A
It's good. And so they were saying, like, oh, and Simon's book adaptation is so masterful because the source material is so good. And they all point out him addressing the audience as being a clever device. It is, you know, not new to theater, although I don't know how many Broadway musicals at that point had direct addresses.
- [94:40]
B
I don't think there was a lot of fourth wall breakage prior to that in. In musicals. Yeah, but it. But it's using something that Billy Wilder used in a lot of his films. I mean. I mean, they do it in the Apartment where Jack Lemmon narrates a fair amount of it, but it was.
- [94:52]
A
He only narrates, I think, the first 10 minutes, and then it's done.
- [94:54]
B
Oh, does he? Okay, but.
- [94:55]
A
But there is narrative.
- [94:55]
B
But he does it In Sunset Boulevard, he does it in Double Indemnity. I mean, it's. It's something that he. Is that. That Billy Wilder used frequently with his lead character to sort of get you at least into their mindset so you get. You sort of understood why they were doing whatever crazy thing they were doing.
- [95:11]
A
It gives it. Yeah, exactly. It gives context to things.
- [95:13]
B
Yeah.
- [95:14]
A
And. And Wilder, you know, he could. He understood economy as much as anyone. So even though there's voiceover, it's not like long monologues would be three lines about one thing.
- [95:22]
B
Right.
- [95:23]
A
With the Book of Promises, the thing that Simon. Okay, actually, this. This is where I will. The thing about Chuck and Franz connection in the musical that he makes a change with that I don't like in the musical. The whole thing about Chuck Baxter is how, first of all, Simon shows us the origins of how Baxter started lending out the key to his apartment.
- [95:48]
B
Right. We get that in the Grapes of Roth scene. Yes.
- [95:51]
A
And in the musical kind of has Baxter. I mean, I guess you could play it anyway if. Depending on the actor and director, but you could very easily play that scene. Is Baxter being dumb to what's actually happening? Because it's the executive with a girl saying she's running a fever, she's sick. Oh, she's like a pistol. I gotta have her lie down somewhere. And Baxter. On paper, it looks like Baxter kind of gets what's going on, but is choosing to believe the more innocent version. And then when a second executive comes in, that's when he's like, no, now I know what's going on. I'm doing it anyway. But, like, innocently got roped into it. Whereas in the movie, you know, he's already knee deep in this situation. Definitely knew what was up. Like, for all we know, he probably approached an executive, you know, early on.
- [96:34]
B
Right.
- [96:34]
A
In the movie version. But on top of that, the whole point of CC in the. In the show is that he's kind of invisible. That's what the whole point of Half As Big as Life. I'm not right. I haven't reached my potential. People don't notice me. Fran, who works in the cafeteria, you know, he's obsessed with her, and she definitely recognizes him, but she doesn't know his name. They don't actually have a connection, a relationship that's different from the movie. In the movie, they have a relationship. They have a friendship, which I think is.
- [97:01]
B
It's a passing relationship, but they are familiar with each other enough that they notice things about each other.
- [97:06]
A
Yes. And those details are Important God is in the details. Because in the movie, obviously, she's an elevator operator. And in this giant office building, each elevator is for certain floors, for certain wings. So he's on her route, so he sees her every day. And obviously they had to change her profession because by 1969 they actually make a reference to this. In the script, the elevator operator job went out of fashion once elevators became automatic. Exactly.
- [97:32]
B
Yeah.
- [97:33]
A
That's something that they. Simon gave Fran as a line, and I have to believe that Simon did that as a reference to the movie is why she's no longer an elevator.
- [97:39]
B
I'm sure.
- [97:40]
A
Yeah. But in the movie, like, you know, they're not romantic and. And she. It's not flirting really, but they. And they talk every time they're in the elevator. He's the one that she likes. He doesn't make passes at her. He notices that she chopped off her hair.
- [97:54]
B
And I will say this. In the movie, even though Fran herself, when it comes to love, is mixed up, she's messy.
- [98:05]
A
Yeah.
- [98:06]
B
All of the women are strong characters and have no problem telling men off when they're being assholes.
- [98:15]
A
Oh, we're gonna get to Ms. Olsen.
- [98:16]
B
Who?
- [98:16]
A
Oh, who?
- [98:17]
B
Edie Adams, baby.
- [98:19]
A
For everything that Todd Graf and Anna Kendrick gave to gay culture with Camp, they refer to Ms. Olsen as the secretary role in the movie Camp. And I went, how dare you? She has a name and it's Ms. Olsen. And you'll respect the mother.
- [98:30]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I. I kind of wish that it was a bigger role in the musical, but I see how it doesn't.
- [98:36]
A
Yeah, well, Simon gives her a kind of more ferocious send off in the musical, even though she doesn't have as much to do during. But also something I was realizing in between the Apartment and Promises Promises, there was a major shift in the feminist movement. Betty Friedan's feminine mystique had come out in between those two. What's her face? Gloria Steinem's I Was a Playboy Bunny comes out in between those two. Like in terms of what feminism meant and being independent meant and how you wanted it portrayed changed between the Apartment and Promises Promises. So there are certain things that Simon does with the book, with the women roles where it's not so much that they're stronger, so much as the subtext is said. And again, you know, tiny things like Ms. Olsen having a stronger send off. You know, Fran being a little more cold and standoffish with her first interaction with Sheldrake in the restaurant and having more zippy one liners. It's. You know, I agree with you. I think the women roles in the apartment are beautifully, well, rounded, opinionated, especially for that time. Oh, yeah.
- [99:40]
B
Because you get the very first. In the very first hookup scene between. I don't remember which of the executives it is, but the woman that he brings over, let's say Kirkby, why not? Right. But he says something about it's too late at night and he's gonna have to send her home in a cab. And she says, well, then you're gonna pay for it. Which, you know, and. And then she calls him on it later and she's like, you owe me 45 cents. Like she's not letting it go, that he's treating her like.
- [100:06]
A
And. Well, because the women in the. The apartment and promises, promises, other than Fran, who have these extramarital affairs, do it on their own accord. And they don't. I don't think any of them necessarily expect to marry these men.
- [100:18]
B
No. There's no love going on.
- [100:20]
A
No. It's transactional. They get gifts.
- [100:22]
B
Gifts.
- [100:23]
A
They get perks at work, probably.
- [100:24]
B
Yeah.
- [100:24]
A
And, you know, if they're lucky, a decent pounding. But probably not that decent.
- [100:29]
B
Right.
- [100:30]
A
But, you know, maybe some of them are like, yeah, the sex is pretty solid.
- [100:33]
B
I mean, Ms. Olsen probably got a promotion to secretary when she threatened to say something before. I would imagine.
- [100:38]
A
We'll talk about Miss Olsen. I don't know. I don't know what her role was, the before, during and after.
- [100:44]
B
Sure.
- [100:45]
A
But it shows you the fact that. That her role is her role and Sheldrake is who he is in the music musical. Like, I don't care how much you try to soften him a bit and make him more, like, conflicted. Neil Simon, Burt Back. Rockhald, David. He's still kind of a douchebag monster. Yeah, No, I know, I know. But he's more so in the movie and a narcissistic liar.
- [101:04]
B
Yeah. He's gross. Yeah.
- [101:06]
A
What the. What?
- [101:07]
B
Wilder and Fred McMurray is really good at it.
- [101:09]
A
Well, what Wilder and Simon are good at, at least with the Sheldrake stuff, is when he's with Fran, especially in that first scene. McMurray plays it so earnestly as well. Like, they do the whole, you know, wooing bit of, you know, I love you, I still love you. I'm miserable. And there's even the line where she's like. Where Fran says, you know, oh, what did I expect? You went off and. And went back to your wife. Because that's how it always goes And I'm the discarded whatever. And he's like, and why do you think, you know, married men cheat because they're unhappy at home. He's like, I'm unhappy, Fran. And like, you made me feel better. And she buys it for a while. And I think McMurray does a really good job of being like, you know, what if I, like, caught feelings for this dude and I came back to him weeks later and, you know, he said all the things I wanted to hear, I probably would. Would buy it too.
- [101:58]
B
Right. Well, and especially at that age too. I mean, when you're. When you're that age and you don't have a lot of experience with love or relationships and you don't know what somebody actually means when they say something or you don't. Or you don't know when to believe what they're actually saying. Yeah, it really.
- [102:17]
A
Yeah, it's because the Fran Sheldrake relationship is. They had a summer affair while his wife and kids were out of town. Because there was. Back in the day, a lot of things that would happen would be like, there'd be these summer camps for families and adults.
- [102:29]
B
Seven Year Itch, literally.
- [102:31]
A
It's the plot of the Seven Year Itch.
- [102:32]
B
Yeah. Also a Billy Wilder movie.
- [102:34]
A
Yes. Well, a Billy Wilder adaptation. Right. But the thing would be, you know, the wife and kids would go off for the summer. Husband would probably go up front on a weekend, but had to stay in the city and work.
- [102:44]
B
Right.
- [102:44]
A
And that was prime time for a lot of affairs. And that is what happened with Fran and Sheldrake. You can fill in the blanks of how it happened. You could say it's possible that Fran got caught up in it and thought she was having a little bit of fun and then caught feelings and that led to messiness and heartbreak. It could be that, you know, it started slow because in the movie it's made very clear that she doesn't give any man in the office an inch time of day.
- [103:09]
B
Yeah.
- [103:10]
A
Here.
- [103:10]
B
The other change with her character that I thought was really odd and interesting and I still don't know why they made the change. And I can't decide if it makes sense for me is that in the movie she lives with her sister and brother in law.
- [103:22]
A
Yes.
- [103:23]
B
And in the show she lives with her dad and all of her brothers.
- [103:26]
A
Just one brother.
- [103:27]
B
Okay. Well, still. Yeah. So it's just. I think it was weird to me that in the show they had her living with strong male figures, which seems as far as like character wise writing a character it seems odd to have someone who lives with strong male figures, but ends up in this sort of situation where it makes more sense from a writing perspective of having somebody who lives with a sister and a brother in law and maybe like absent parents to have more like dad issues or whatever you want to.
- [103:59]
A
So I think it could be one of two things. Yeah, because they. I think they highlight Fran being young more in the musical than in the movie. Yeah, Part of that is because Shirley MacLaine, you know, little girl voice that she has, she also, you know, there is a wiseness and a sadness to her that comes off as more mature than her age. But I think also I view Fran in the movie as probably like living in the big city with her sister and her brother in law. Like, they probably moved from a different state or whatever. And so, you know, she's. She's alone in a big city, feeling like a third wheel in an apartment and probably gets off on her own messes on her own while her sister and brother in law do their own married couple shit.
- [104:40]
B
Right.
- [104:41]
A
With the brother and the dad. I get the. I think you could make it a possibility that maybe she's babied in that household. So she's not really a grown woman there. But at the same time, if her dad lives there, one wonders, like, is she a city kid then? Like, did she grow up in New York, right. Or did they move there from somewhere else?
- [104:59]
B
I mean, they could live in Queens. They could. You know what I mean? It's.
- [105:01]
A
Sure. But I'm like, if she's a city kid, like, she's gotta have a little bit more grit than what she's got in the show. Having, I think having it be the brother and not the brother in law on the stage show makes that scene actually better, in my opinion, in terms of how he'd. Sure, you know, him punching Cece and all that stuff, I just, you know, it's a little more personal. Even though I think all like the little tweaks Simon does to the dialogue are not nearly as good as what Wilder does. But. Yeah. No, I don't know. And. And Wilder even has the line to Fran in the movie where he's like when he. When he comes back to Cece's apartment and. And collects Fran learning sort of why she's there. And he basically says, like, I don't want to hear it. Your sister might think that you're a girl Scout, but, like, you know, whatever you do on your own accord, like, just don't be messy about it, right? And she even says to Cece, like, I may wear a uniform, but I'm no Girl Scout. Which is a good point to say that the movie, I think, is. Does really well. Like, you know, don't put people on pedestals. Everyone's got their mess. And, you know, women can still be, you know, a life partner and not virginal.
- [106:07]
B
Right.
- [106:07]
A
Which it takes Cece a minute to learn. Because at first he's not heartbroken that of what he's been doing with his apartment and realizing all of a sudden, when he finds out that Fran is Sheldrake, he's not like, oh, my God, like, the women who go into my apartment are people too. No, he's heartbroken because he's like, my virginal dream girl is. This is the slam piece for my boss.
- [106:29]
B
Right?
- [106:30]
A
And he's like, her. She was supposed to save herself for me. Didn't she know? But then when he sees the repercussions of. Of what's happening with her, that's when it all comes crashing down around him. Which we should also get into. Before we do that, let's take one last break.
- [106:46]
B
Billy, I beg to differ with you. How do you mean? You're the top. Yeah.
- [106:50]
A
You're an arrow collar.
- [106:52]
B
You're the top. You're a Coolidge dollar.
- [106:57]
A
You're the nimble tread of the feet of red. And now we're back. Okay, before we do any of that, I feel like we're cut off about something you wanted to talk about with either a song or the role of Fran.
- [107:09]
B
Well, the listeners will have to remind us because I've forgotten. Oh, I know. I mean, I think. Oh, I was just gonna say that I didn't know if we wanted to talk about. Before we move, actually move into the revival, because I was gonna use Margie McDougal to move into the revival.
- [107:23]
A
I think we should use Fran to move into the revival.
- [107:25]
B
Yeah. So. But I think so in doing that, I think we should talk about her suicide a little bit. Yes.
- [107:32]
A
Her suicide. Attempt.
- [107:33]
B
Attempt.
- [107:34]
A
Yes. So Fran and Sheldrake get back together in the middle of act two, basically, you know, in. We've been talking about the movie a lot. We should talk more about it in the context of promises. Promises. You know, Chuck keeps trying to connect with Fran. She keeps on forgetting his name, all these other things. And when Sheldrake makes the trade with Chuck to have the key to his apartment so he can move Fran again, he gives Chuck tickets to a Knicks game, which leads to the song she Likes Basketball because He asks Fran to go with him. First she says no, and then she ends up saying yes.
- [108:10]
B
That's a great song.
- [108:11]
A
It is a great song. And what I realized is almost none of the lyrics rhyme.
- [108:15]
B
No. But it's I that I have to. That song. I. In my re. Listening of this cast album for coming in and chatting with you. I've listened to that song so many times. Mostly because I've fallen in love with Bacharach's. I guess you'd call it a theme or motif, the bump that he uses. But it's echoed in every instrument in that pit. And it always sounds different every time it's used. Whether. Cause sometimes it comes in harder with the trumpets. Sometimes it's lighter, like with the piano. My favorite combination is there's a muted horn with. With flute. That's really good. But, like, just musically, it is so satisfying. I mean, that's. And it's a major bone to pick when we talk about the revival. Is that song.
- [109:04]
A
Well, as well as staging. But I actually. I love that the lyrics don't rhyme. Except for two. It's the someday it might be basketball and me. I think the rest of it don't rhyme. And I. Yeah. What I love about that is because he's so joyful. Like, he can't. He can't think straight enough to make rhymes. He's just so happy. Obviously, you want to have things in common with the person you're with.
- [109:24]
B
Right.
- [109:25]
A
You never want to. I don't think you should always look at a person you want to be with and go, you know, well, what are the things we like? Do we like the same movies? You know, those are surface level stuff. But ultimately you do need an in somewhere. And with Chuck, he doesn't actually have any ins with Fran until this point. And he doesn't. She's always this big pipe dream for him. So when he finds out that not only is she willing to go to the basketball game with him, but she knows her about it. That's he. It's him going like, I have an in. Right. It's like we have a connection now. It's not just in my head. Like, there's something we both like. And it's so. It gives him. The fact that that one thing gives him so much joy is really endearing.
- [110:02]
B
Yeah.
- [110:03]
A
And then, of course, she. She's meeting him later because it's a double header. So she's meeting him for the second game, essentially.
- [110:09]
B
Right.
- [110:09]
A
Because she has to have a drink with Sheldrake first. She promised him a drink. And she ends up missing the date because she ends up getting caught up with Shell Drake, unknowing when to leave because he gets. Tells her all the things she wants to hear.
- [110:20]
B
Which side note, two seconds. Which in the movie is not a basketball game. They're supposed to go see the Music man. And you actually get to see the front of house for the Music man at the Majestic Theater. It is so freaking cool to see that on a. On a movie screen. Every time I see it, I'm like, that is exciting to see that, like, in, like, real life. Anyway.
- [110:38]
A
No, it's fantastic. He gives Sheldrake the compact that Fran threw at Sheldrake when they were in the apartment, not knowing it's France. He goes, oh, your lady friend left her compact. The mirror was broken when I found it. Just want you know. And he goes, yeah, she threw it at me. So you already know that. You know, Fran and Sheldrake, even though they're back together, it's not. She's not happy. Things aren't going great. Sheldrake promised some things that he's choosing not to follow up on. The movie makes this extraordinarily clear because he says to, you know, he tells Fran when he's with her, I want to get a divorce. I want to do it. I want to be with you. And then, of course, starts backpedaling. But when he talks to Chuck alone in the movie, which I think his name is Bud in the movie, they nickname him Bud.
- [111:17]
B
They call him Bud. Yeah, but it's. They call him CC Or Bud. Yeah.
- [111:20]
A
In the movie, he says to him, you know, you go out with a girl for a couple of laughs, and immediately she wants you to leave your wife. And so you, like, you know where Sheldrake's head is at. Whereas in the musical, they soften him a bit. They give him a song, wanting things, things they have a little more conflicted about not going to the apartment when she tries to kill herself. And I'm just sitting there going, like, he's still doing the things he's doing.
- [111:40]
B
He's still a dick.
- [111:41]
A
It doesn't matter if he's conflicted. He's still being selfish. Yeah, but so Act 2 comes around. Oh, actually, what happens is this is where we should talk about myself for a quick second at that famous Christmas party, right before turkey Lurky time, no less. Fran shows up because Sheldrake has told his wife, oh, I am meeting the rep from Kansas City to take him to the Knicks game. Take him to music band. And Ms. Olsen stops Fran. She goes, well, if it isn't the. The rep from Kansas City. She goes, I used to be the rep from Atlantic City or whatever, right? And. And tells her about all the different women Sheldrake has hooked up with in the office. And it's. And to make it very clear to Fran, because she's not saying this to hurt friends, she's being like, fucking run, right?
- [112:25]
B
She's been like, get the fuck out.
- [112:27]
A
Yeah. She's like, I know you're feeling things.
- [112:28]
B
Yeah.
- [112:29]
A
She goes, let me tell you something. That Chinese restaurant that you think is just yours, I went to that. She went to it. She went to it. She goes, last booth, fried chicken with dipping sauce. And because, like, when Fran and Sheldrake are there, she talks about, like, they don't make it the way they used to. Like, this used to be our place in our song. And you find out he did this with everyone.
- [112:47]
B
Yeah.
- [112:47]
A
She wants to believe she's special, but she's learning very clearly. She's not.
- [112:50]
B
She's the end of a long line.
- [112:52]
A
Yep. Up she has that amazing line when Cece realizes that she's the woman by opening up her compact and seeing the broken mirror.
- [113:00]
B
Oh, God.
- [113:01]
A
And he says, your mirror is broken. She goes, I like it that way. It makes me look the way I feel. And so Sheldrake brings Fran back to the apartment where she's sobbing in Act 2, learns that she's learned about Ms. Olsen and the others. And he's trying to comfort her, but only in a way that placates her. Like, he's not trying to make her feel better. He's not trying to.
- [113:21]
B
Oh, yeah. He's just trying to get her to stop crying and, like, patch it up enough that he can leave.
- [113:26]
A
Yeah. Well, first he wants her to stop crying so they can fuck. And then when it becomes clear that that's not gonna happen anytime soon, stop crying so he can head home, right?
- [113:33]
B
And she's given him a gift.
- [113:35]
A
And he said, oh, I was gonna give you a gift, but I thought I was gonna see someone I knew in the department store. You know, I didn't wanna have my secretary get. You know how people talk. So here's a hundred dollars. Buy yourself something.
- [113:45]
B
Which is obviously a lie. Yeah, it's obviously him being like, I didn't plan on anything. I'll pay her off.
- [113:51]
A
Yeah, here's 100 bucks. And this is 1968, so, you know, money. And Fran takes off her coat, takes off her Gloves getting ready to get down and dirty with like the deadest of faces on. On. And he goes, fran, you know, because maybe if we. You know, if we had. He literally says, if we hadn't wasted so much time, I. Like, I could. You wasted so much time. She was sobbing because the man she loved, she realizes, treated her like every other woman. And her. What? When he says, we can't do this now, what does she say?
- [114:21]
B
She says, well, you did. She say, you should. You might as well get what you paid for.
- [114:25]
A
Yeah, I said, I figure since you paid.
- [114:26]
B
I figured since you paid for it. Right?
- [114:28]
A
Yeah. And then he's like, listen, I gotta go. She goes, I gotta fix the rest of my face. And then he goes, she sings, whoever you are, I love you, and then decides to take her own life. This gets interrupted when Cece comes home with.
- [114:39]
B
With good old Margie, who put.
- [114:41]
A
And pushes her out, grabs the doctor from next door, who also, by the way, there is the running joke that the doctor and his wife next door think that Chuck Baxter is a giant gigolo.
- [114:51]
B
Oh, yeah, they think he's. They think he's fucking every woman on the Upper west side. Yeah.
- [114:54]
A
Because his apartment, five days a week, is taken up by the executives. And so until 3 in the morning.
- [114:58]
B
Every night they hear music and screaming and. Yeah.
- [115:02]
A
Yes. There's a great line that Simon actually embellishes on from the movie. In the movie, the doctor says, oh, like, will you donate your body to science for me?
- [115:11]
B
Right.
- [115:12]
A
And what Simon has in the musical is there are a couple of interns at my lab. Half of them want to study you, half of them just want to shake your hand. It's a. It's a. It's a good line.
- [115:21]
B
It's great.
- [115:21]
A
But the doctor ends up coming in and helping save Fran's life. And he doesn't do it on account of Chuck. He does it on account of Fran. The musical. In the movie, make it clear that the doctor and his wife do not care for Chuck because they don't know what they don't know.
- [115:33]
B
Right.
- [115:33]
A
And just based on the surface level, they're like, you fucking scum. You know? First they don't like him because he's a nuisance and they keep them up at night. Then they don't. Then they extra don't like him when they see Fran.
- [115:44]
B
And they think she's. He's. They think she's just another person he's taken advantage of. Yes. And that she's taken the pills on account of him. Yes. Yeah.
- [115:52]
A
And they don't like how callous. They. They find him to be right about it all, when really what he's doing is he's trying to cover the tracks of Mr. Sheldrake. Because if Mr. Sheldrake gets caught, that could impact his promotion.
- [116:04]
B
Right. And lots of other things.
- [116:07]
A
Yeah. But. So this is where I want to kind of talk about the character friend a little further as we head into the revival. I really think this is a better segue than Margie, but I want to talk about how you got to Margie from the revival as well. We've all had heartbreak. No one wants it, but we've had it.
- [116:24]
B
Yeah.
- [116:25]
A
It really. When you fall in love with somebody, it is. It's this chemical feeling that just does not. Your brain can't really help you out. It's just. It's this. We're animals, right? We're animals and we. And we act based off of instincts. What I wish for no one is discover. Discovering that the love you have for someone, while it might be real, the person you love, doesn't totally exist. They gave you only a part of yourself and you want to believe in. It's because of the messiness of mankind. You don't want to believe you got played.
- [117:04]
B
Right. Well, and even. And, And I. And even as someone, if. If you. Who knows that they're an intelligent person, you feel like a complete idiot.
- [117:12]
A
Yeah. How could I get played?
- [117:14]
B
Yeah.
- [117:14]
A
And so part of you wants to believe that the person that you fell in love with who might have played you has something in them that you could still love. That and it could maybe even work out. And there's something about the way that Fran talks to Sheldrake in the movie version that's not as well done in the musical, my opinion, because they try to make her much more, like, add a little bit of that feminine mystique. I was a Playboy bunny. Is like, yes, she's being honest, but there's a little bit of the sad sackness about her that Shirley MacLaine does where it's like. Like, it's almost as if she's trying to make him feel bad enough so that way he will come crawling back and, like, beg her to be with him. Because ultimately, that is what she wants.
- [118:01]
B
Yeah. She's trying to use her own form of manipulation. Yes. Yeah.
- [118:05]
A
It's a conversation where she does want him to say the things.
- [118:09]
B
Right.
- [118:09]
A
And listen. A true, honest, healthy conversation is you say your truth, another person says their truth, you listen to each other, and then find your Compromise. It's not about. I'm saying what I'm saying in a specific way. So you will respond how I want you to respond.
- [118:23]
B
Right.
- [118:23]
A
That is.
- [118:24]
B
But when you're. But when you're in her position, the last thing you want to do is bleed your heart everywhere, because then it just makes you even less appealing to the person who already is. Like.
- [118:34]
A
Yeah.
- [118:35]
B
On the other side of things.
- [118:36]
A
Because he says to her at one point, like, you used to be so much fun.
- [118:39]
B
Right? Right. Because you're. You're no longer fun. You're just an emotion.
- [118:43]
A
Yes. Yes. And it's Bec. And what. He's. What Sheldrake is so unaware of because he's truly a narcissist. Because the. Because America has told him at this point, you came back from the war, you did the thing, you married the woman, you popped out the kids, you made the money. Enjoy the things of the world. Don't worry about where they came from or who it hurts to get it.
- [119:03]
B
Yeah. No, take your prizes.
- [119:05]
A
Exactly. And he's so unaware of how much Fran is bleeding and how much everything he does selfishly just is another stab in. In the body for her. Listen, when it comes to taking one's own life, everyone's journey towards that ending is different. Ultimately, the. The thinking is, you know, it's a conclusion. It's not a decision.
- [119:33]
B
It's.
- [119:33]
A
You know, something leads you to it.
- [119:35]
B
Right.
- [119:36]
A
For so many people, I just want the pain to go away. I want the. I want the heaviness of my existence, of getting out of bed every day to just go away. And I've never gotten to that point in my life, but I have had dark, dark depressions. A lot of it connected to person. But the thing is with. With that kind of heartbreak where it's. You still care about someone so much, and part of you goes, I want them to care back. Why don't they care back? What is it? And you stop and you start blaming yourself, and you start. And you start thinking irrationally of ways to get them to feel bad, to come back to you. It's that Jenna Moroney quote that, like, I'm gonna take a bunch of pills and be all your fault. That's the comedic extreme.
- [120:17]
B
Then they'll be sorry. It's that feeling.
- [120:20]
A
Yes, But I think with Fran, it's less of the. Then they'll be sorry and more sort of the final straw of, I thought I got a little smarter. And not only are we right back where we started, but it's worse, right.
- [120:34]
B
You made me feel cheap. You made me feel stupid. You made me. You. Yeah, it's. And I. I don't. You're. And you're. And you're no longer the same person, and we don't get to be together. It's like.
- [120:46]
A
It. And. And she even says, like. And just when she does survive and she's talking to Chuck about Sheldrake and all the terrible things that he. He can be, she says, the worst part of it is I still love him. And it's not a choice. It's a feeling that she has. It's. It's a. It's a raw, animal connection. And the thing. I can only imagine this in the back of her brain when she's alone singing whoever you are, and has the bottle of Seconal in her hands is just like, why doesn't he care? Why can't. Like, I love him so much and I am miserable. Why does that not matter to him? And rather than thinking, I need to disconnect myself from this man, I'm in love and miserable. She was. I just. I need the pain to go away. And rather than separate from him, she separates from the world.
- [121:32]
B
Yeah.
- [121:32]
A
And luckily, the story wants her to succeed, so she doesn't get to have that ending.
- [121:38]
B
Yeah.
- [121:39]
A
But I can see what got her there.
- [121:41]
B
Yeah.
- [121:41]
A
And people might think of that as weak, but that is a very honest, human situation. Mm.
- [121:46]
B
Well. And bringing it to the musical, again, just as to talk about that song, whoever are I love you is a. I mean, lyrically, it's so simple, but it really does convey kind of everything that we're talking about here where she. Where. Where all of a sudden, she's not recognizing the person that she thought that she really knew. But that. I mean. Okay. Because one of the lyrics. Someone I know is the man I love, but then when you leave, it's. You're so untrue and just. And the juxtaposition of everything that he promises versus what she gets out of it. But. But Jill o' Hara's vocal on that song, if you. Especially if you're listening to the recording, not familiar with the context of the show, knowing what's coming after that song and hearing the hurt in her voice. Voice. It is a. It's a beautiful rendition of that song.
- [122:44]
A
Yeah. She's so young, and she's so hurt and raw, and it's just. Guys, I really do wish that none of you have to feel that kind of pain. It sucks. It sucks so hard. It sucks so hard. And to it. It Makes you. Because I talked about this in the carousel episode, and I don't know if carousel is going to come before this or after this. But the thing about depression is that, like, it's not so much that nothing matters anymore. It's not that nothing good is happening to you. It's that you can't see the good anymore. And the only. And anything you hear that's negative is the only thing that you believe. Believe in. Like, it doesn't matter if someone gives you a compliment of, like, no, you're wonderful. Like, no, the thoughts that live in your head are the ones that are the meanest. And.
- [123:40]
B
Yeah. Well. And it's. And it's just so easy to immediately talk yourself into that space. Yeah. Where you can. Even. Even if you have a moment of levity, you know, it's so easy to be. To be like, okay, great, I've got this, or whatever it is. And all of a sudden. And then. But. But so quickly, especially when you're left to your own devices, when you have a moment with yourself, to whatever it is that's going on go, but why? And why me? Why would I be deserving of that when you know there's a million other people that deserve it and already have it and then I don't have it, and you just. It's a rabbit hole. And it's. So Depression feels so different than you think it's going to feel. Yeah. As somebody else who's also been through it. And, I mean, I. Luckily, I have it under control, but it is not. But it is something. I don't know. I think it's like alcoholism. It's something that you just always.
- [124:31]
A
Yeah.
- [124:32]
B
You. You are someone who is depressive.
- [124:34]
A
You work with it every day.
- [124:35]
B
Yeah. But it. It really is something that will eat you alive if you let yourself sit with it.
- [124:42]
A
Yeah.
- [124:43]
B
And. And it's. It's. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. To get there. Take care of yourselves out there, kids.
- [124:49]
A
Yeah. And you know, when someone treats you in such a way, you really. It's only a reflection of yourself if you keep letting it happen. What the person does to you is not because of you. That is on them. If you continue coming back for more, that is your choice. And you can't keep questioning the ways of the world if you keep coming back to the scissor shop and get cut.
- [125:17]
B
Right.
- [125:18]
A
I can't think of a metaphor. I'm on the verge of tears, but.
- [125:23]
B
Oh, sorry, I misquoted the lyric. It was. And it was better. It's someone I know is the man I love or the man I wish I never knew. That's the lyric.
- [125:29]
A
Yeah.
- [125:30]
B
And that's.
- [125:31]
A
That's a real feeling that every now and then, hell, David comes through with a fucking gut punch. Yeah, in the dick. Also, someone like Sheldrake, I can only imagine, is similar to. To my person in a sense of. When people want something from you that they know that they shouldn't have. Wanting things, as a song might say, they will paint you a picture that's partially true. You know, it's that thing where a really good liar doesn't tell a total fabrication. They tell a version of the truth. And, you know, usually it's more sort of keeping certain pieces of information out of it. And then over time, little pieces of information get slipped in. And so after a few months, you have more of the picture. And because it's been given to you piecemeal, it doesn't seem as bad until you tell someone who hasn't heard any of it and they go, say what now? Right? And I'm sure someone like friend, he probably hasn't told anyone about sort of what's going on with her, but if she did, it's more sort of like, I know you don't understand. Like, I'm not. I. Not the. Again, I don't know if I ever talked about this, but when I was with Bub, both times, I remember talking to Sarah, best friend Sarah, about a conversation he and I had had where it. It was a. It was not an argument, it was bad. And then it. Like, we smoothed it over. And when I was telling her about the smoothing over part, she was like that, no, I don't like that. And I went, no, I'm not. I was like, I'm not saying it right. And she's like, no, you're saying what he said. I don't like what he said. And I kept being like, you need to hear the tone. She was like, I'm not in love with him. So I can't hear the tone you're hearing. I can only hear the words. She goes, and I don't like those words. And that is absolutely the kind of thing that Fran has with Sheldrake where it's like in the. When she talks about the good moments, you know, I'm sure there's an intimacy, there's a sweetness. But someone like Ms. Olsen would stand on the outside and go, I hear the words, and the words ain't good.
- [127:30]
B
Good. Yeah.
- [127:31]
A
And Ms. Olsen, we find out at the end of act one as I mentioned already, like, she had Sheldrake, and he kept her on as his secretary once they ended and she had to watch the parade of women after her. That is sociopathic. Yeah. That is evil.
- [127:50]
B
It's gross.
- [127:51]
A
Well, total gross and disregardment. And the movie. And the movie is very aware of how gross that is. Because when she has her final moments with him, she's like, when he said, I'm letting go of you, she goes, you let me go a long time ago, and you were cruel enough to make me sit here and watch, like, the women after me.
- [128:06]
B
Yeah. Well, it's kind of an amazing reveal in the movie that we don't get in the show because we don't really get Ms. Olsen until. Do we get her at the end of act one?
- [128:15]
A
We do. We get her at the end of.
- [128:17]
B
Act one, and then at the end of act two when she. When we find out that she is revealed to Mrs. Sheldrake what's been going on?
- [128:24]
A
Yes. She's the reason why Sheldrake breaks up with his wife. Because she tells the wife, and the wife not kicks him out.
- [128:29]
B
Yeah. Anyway, Fran, where are we going?
- [128:32]
A
Revival. Yeah, we're going into the revival now.
- [128:34]
B
Great.
- [128:35]
A
So this leads us into the first revival that promises promise has ever had. It had an almost revival in 97 with the encores production with Martin Short Baranski and a young Carrie o' Malley as Fran. And that pretty much got killed by Brantley's review. Who? He didn't hate the encore's production. He had two problems. Problems. One was he was resentful that Post Chicago encores had put more money into their presentations to be more Broadway transfer ready. He was like, that's not what your mission statement is, so stop trying to make fetch happen.
- [129:07]
B
Fair?
- [129:07]
A
Fair.
- [129:08]
B
I still feel that way. Yeah.
- [129:10]
A
It's. It's gotten worse now.
- [129:11]
B
Yeah.
- [129:11]
A
And he. Back when he was still a Times critic, he would say so even when he would like an encore show, he'd be like, I'm. He's like, I'm gonna be very clear. I don't want this going to Broadway. Like, these are. This is not what Encores is supposed to be.
- [129:21]
B
Right.
- [129:22]
A
You hear that? Lear. But it's important to talk about that revival and how it came to be and what it almost was and what it ended up being. So first of all, who starred in the revival in 2010?
- [129:33]
B
Sean Hayes, Kristin Chenoweth, Tony Goldwyn, and Katie Finneran. Yeah.
- [129:39]
A
Do you remember who it was supposed to be in the workshops? Not Chenoweth but I don't.
- [129:44]
B
Was it Hathaway?
- [129:45]
A
It was Anne Hathaway.
- [129:45]
B
I was gonna say this feels like such a Hathaway role.
- [129:47]
A
Yes.
- [129:48]
B
Although she. I'm sure she'd be very good in.
- [129:49]
A
It, but she would have. She would have been lovely.
- [129:52]
B
Yeah.
- [129:52]
A
I'm convinced. And Finneran said so in her interview. She was like, Hathaway was great. And she couldn't remember why she didn't go to Broadway with it. I think the obvious answer is she was a movie star.
- [130:02]
B
Yeah.
- [130:03]
A
She was also just hot off of a. Of an Oscar nomination. So she was probably getting 10 times more movie role than she.
- [130:10]
B
Because she was supposed to do that Guys and Dolls revival at one point, too. Or there was a. I think it was the. The West End revival that initially happened with Krakowski. They were trying to move it over here, and it was like her.
- [130:22]
A
And so it's unclear. So there were three different times that Hathaway might have come to Broadway. The first was when she did Carnival at Encores, and that was supposed to transfer. And then I think the truth was they just could not get a schedule together that she could commit to.
- [130:34]
B
Sure.
- [130:35]
A
You know, because. Because Broadway, in order to turn your investment, especially in a musical, like, you need your movie star to commit to, like, nine months or more. And most movie stars are like, I don't got that kind of time. So that got next.
- [130:47]
B
I gotta film another Avengers movie.
- [130:48]
A
Yep. And then I don't know if Guys and Dolls was next or Promises. I feel like it was Promises. I don't know. But the. The Guys and Dolls, what I understood was it was. It was possibly her Messing was gonna be Adelaide.
- [130:59]
B
That's who it was. It was her and Missing.
- [131:00]
A
Yeah. And I think Patrick. Patrick Wilson.
- [131:02]
B
Yep.
- [131:03]
A
And then I don't remember who Nathan was supposed to be.
- [131:05]
B
I don't either. But those. Those are the three names that I ever previously. And.
- [131:08]
A
And I don't know if it was the Donmar revival that was going to transfer, if it was a new production. And it wasn't even official. It wasn't like, this is coming. It was like, these four are. Are in negotiations for a revival. And again, my assumption is, like, one of the four couldn't lock down timing, and then the rest of it, and.
- [131:26]
B
Then it just fell apart. Yeah.
- [131:28]
A
But yes, they did a workshop of it. They did. I think they did two workshops of it with Hayes and Hathaway. And so this was 2008 and 2009. When they did. When they did these workshops, and Ashford was The director and then Hathaway couldn't do it. And Chenoweth came in. And I remember at the time, the two of their castings was considered very odd, both because of age and. For another thing we can talk about in just a hot second. Chenoweth was not known for dramatic roles. This was not the style of music she usually sung. And she. What she had said in her interview was people didn't want to see her in that role. They wanted to see Funny channel. She was like, I had to do that show for me. I wanted to try it out.
- [132:12]
B
Sure.
- [132:13]
A
But she blamed that thinking as to why some critics were cool to it. I disagree with that. And I think this is why we're translating transferring from, you know, Fran talk into this revival. You know, Chenoweth was 40 something when she did this production.
- [132:29]
B
Yeah.
- [132:30]
A
And obviously, you know, an argument could be made for an older Fran and how that would go.
- [132:34]
B
Sure.
- [132:35]
A
But I think that Fran is Ms. Olsen, an older friend. Older friend is just Ms. Olsen. Right. And especially Chennai within that production where we talked about, you know, you might. As I figure since it was already paid for that moment, China with revealed herself in a full black, you know, negligee.
- [132:53]
B
Yeah.
- [132:54]
A
Looking like Maggie the cat.
- [132:56]
B
Yeah.
- [132:56]
A
And that is not what Fran is supposed to look like in that moment.
- [132:59]
B
She was bombshell.
- [133:00]
A
Yeah. And it's. You gotta see sort of like it shouldn't look sexy. It needs to feel ugly almost in that way. And the last thing you should think about is like, oh, my God, this curvaceous woman.
- [133:12]
B
Yeah.
- [133:13]
A
And they added two songs for her. It was a whole thing. There's a lot. We need to have a lot of things with the survival. The first thing they did that I thought was a huge fucking mistake was they moved it from 1968 to 1962.
- [133:23]
B
Oh, yeah. Because. Well, because. Because Mad Men was super hot at the time. And so it was like, let's make the connection to Mad Men. And immediately it made no sense because the music itself does not sound like 1962.
- [133:35]
A
No.
- [133:36]
B
It sounds like the mid late 60s.
- [133:38]
A
And I know that six years does not sound like a lot of time, but the 60s.
- [133:42]
B
But in that. That time, in that decade.
- [133:44]
A
It was the 60s was a very influx decade where each following year was so different from the year before.
- [133:49]
B
It massive changes again.
- [133:51]
A
Remember we were talking about how the apartment comes out in 1960. Promises, promises, comes out in 68. All the things that happened in those eight in those eight years alone.
- [134:00]
B
Yeah.
- [134:01]
A
And, you know, to. So to move it even Six years is a huge shift. And it was definitely the madman connection. They tried to get away with the concept of. Well, the movie's 1960, so we wanted to move it closer to that original, like. No, no, the show. The show was very much a timestamp of December 1, 1968.
- [134:21]
B
Yeah.
- [134:21]
A
Leave it there. And so that was the first mistake. Rob Ashford, a choreographer who, I don't think one could ever argue, goes from character and story with his choreography. Definitely goes with athleticism. It's, in fact, the very first thing that Brantley says in his review for that production was like, well, those desk jockeys, they sure can leap.
- [134:42]
B
Oh, yeah, that's right.
- [134:43]
A
I remember that because.
- [134:44]
B
Yeah.
- [134:44]
A
Well, so, okay, an example being she likes basketball. Jerry Orbach in the original.
- [134:50]
B
I was fuming at the end of this number when I saw it live, I will tell you.
- [134:53]
A
Jerry Orbach in the original. How do Bennett and Moore stage it?
- [134:57]
B
It's literally him and his trench coat.
- [135:01]
A
Yep.
- [135:01]
B
And he starts this song and you. And over two and a half minutes, his joy just rises. Just sort of individual bounding around by themself in the excitement of having a connection with a person.
- [135:14]
A
Yeah. There's no dance in it. At least not. I mean, there's staging, obviously, like, there's.
- [135:21]
B
Staging, but there's no dancing.
- [135:23]
A
No, it does not look like it's pre planned. It looks very organic. Yeah, it's very. She Loves Me in that respect. And what Ashford did in the revival was, you know, basically having Hayes stand center stage for about two verses and then having the male ensemble come out and start reenacting basketball and push ups and all these things around him.
- [135:44]
B
Right to the point where at the end, they're doing literal, like, leap push ups over each other. And I. And you stop listening to the song. Yeah. Because you're just watching these guys, and they're so. So he's taking a number which should be effectively character driven.
- [135:58]
A
Yeah.
- [135:58]
B
And instead, you're just distracted by people doing athletic tricks behind him.
- [136:02]
A
Yep. And it's. I know that the opening in that revival was. Was inspired by the encores one. I know that.
- [136:10]
B
Oh, the choreography.
- [136:11]
A
Yeah. Rob Marshall. Rob Marshall. Rob Marshall also did a dancing overture at Encores. I don't know what that looked like. I don't. And I don't think that they filmed it for the library, so probably one can't tell. But what Ashford does in the revival is basically have everyone dancing on the desks, in chairs, swirling around Cece. So even though Sean Hayes is in the middle, he's not the focal point.
- [136:36]
B
Right.
- [136:36]
A
And you don't. Other than it being a bustling office, I don't know what story we're telling with it.
- [136:42]
B
It's just weird. It's. It's, it's. It's just a weird, weird choice. Yeah. It's. It's lots of, like, long legged women balancing on coat racks and everybody's spinning.
- [136:52]
A
Around and it's like chairs.
- [136:53]
B
What is this? What's happening?
- [136:56]
A
Absolutely nothing. And it's frustrating because to go from an original production where everyone on the production team was like, it comes from character, it comes from story, no matter what. Except for Turkey Lurkey Time. But again, if you're gonna do that, make sure it's infused with character.
- [137:10]
B
Right. Well, and speaking of, let's just, let's just call it out of all of the numbers to not just do the original musical staging for Turkey Lurky Time. Yeah. I honestly couldn't tell you a single bit of the staging of the revival because I was so unimpressed by. Really did just end up looking like the dumb song that it is.
- [137:35]
A
Yeah. It's. Well, so the first thing that Ashford did was he gave them. He gave the three women choreography. He kind of reverted back to what Bennett tried to do originally. So it begins as a quote unquote, realistic dance show for the Office.
- [137:52]
B
Right.
- [137:53]
A
So, like, it's messy. They're not in sync. One woman goes the wrong way, they're doing a lot of turkey movements. Like they have their arms as wings. And then the whole office just gets in on it immediately. They're all dancing in sync. It's all over the stage. They're lifting, they're carrying on. And it doesn't build anything. They even like. The dance arrangements are also different.
- [138:11]
B
Yeah.
- [138:11]
A
And people like to throw a lot of big words out when they get challenged with an opinion. Right. So, like, if someone did like that number and we're talking shit about it, they would throw the word traditionalist at us. Rigid traditionalist.
- [138:27]
B
Oh, right.
- [138:28]
A
You want it the way it was.
- [138:29]
B
You want a museum piece. Yeah.
- [138:31]
A
Twitch. I sit here going, have either of us said that? What we've talked about, the original is we have deconstructed exactly why it works so well. And the proof is in the pudding because we say, we talk about game. Just throw it up there and it's magic. It. It's proof in itself.
- [138:48]
B
Yeah.
- [138:49]
A
But then, you know when someone likes something that you don't like and. And you try to give an explanation, they say gaslighting. That's something that's been used a lot this past week with a certain show that's opened when people haven't liked us. Haven't liked it. The people who have liked it been like, I'm tired of people gaslighting me with. With, you know, what they say is wrong with it. I'm like. Like, they're explaining why they felt the way they felt in the same way where, like, if I didn't like it and you were talking about all the ways you liked it, I would listen. I would have a rebuttal, but I would listen.
- [139:17]
B
Are we talking about a show about singers?
- [139:19]
A
Yes.
- [139:20]
B
Okay.
- [139:20]
A
What I mean is that, like, you know, we're talking about it in this way, and I. I want to, like, be very clear. It's not us going, stick with what worked, but rather being like, you have to recognize when something is greater than you, when you're not better than the piece.
- [139:35]
B
Yeah.
- [139:36]
A
You also have to. Whenever you're reviving anything, you look at it. First of all, you have to like the show you're reviving. If you don't like it, it's gonna bomb.
- [139:45]
B
Then don't do it.
- [139:46]
A
Don't do it. But any. But, like, let me ask you this, Adam. Can you think of a single show where you've heard the director say, we're gonna fix it? And then they did. We're gonna make it better. And then they did.
- [139:59]
B
I don't know. I guess, based on reviews, and I have, because I haven't seen it yet, but the current revival of Merrily seems to have, like. Like, at least made something work that didn't entirely work before.
- [140:09]
A
I have yet to see this. Merilee. I'm supposed to see it in December.
- [140:13]
B
Which I. I'm seeing it December 6th.
- [140:15]
A
Okay. The person who's taking me, he's a Tony voter. And he literally said to me, I need you to see it so we can talk about it.
- [140:24]
B
Okay.
- [140:24]
A
Because he was like, they. What got me excited about it was, as far as I could tell, like, it just all looked like. Looked very straightforward.
- [140:33]
B
Yeah.
- [140:34]
A
I was like, what makes it so exceptional? Looks pretty straightforward to me. And he said to me, there are some bizarre choices. And I went, ooh, bizarre, you say?
- [140:42]
B
Love a bizarre choice.
- [140:43]
A
But, I mean, now that it's open, now that it's, you know, transferred and open, there are some people coming out of the woodwork being like, this doesn't fix the show. Like, a lot of them are being like, this is probably the best production of Mary I'll ever see. And it's. I still don't like it. Yeah, yeah, we digress with Promises. Promises, that was a production that was touted to be really huge and was actually not nominated for revival that year. That was the year that LA Cage won Finian's Rainbow. A little night music and ragtime. Of the four, Finian's Rainbow, in my opinion, was the best of the four. But it had closed by that January, so it was never going to win. LA Cage was still running, it was successful. It was a good revival. Yeah, it was good.
- [141:24]
B
Yeah.
- [141:24]
A
But I. I thought Finian's was more delightful. But I think that was also just the surprise of them taking a show that everyone was that fucking war horse. And then you were like, am I having the best time at Finian's Rainbow? It was so surprising. It was truly that kind of the revival that you want, where you go and you went, oh my God, am I enjoying myself?
- [141:43]
B
This is actually really enjoyable.
- [141:44]
A
I'm having a blast.
- [141:46]
B
The only thing I will say for the revival of Promises, save for Cadi Finneran's performance, which we can expand on in a second, is that the orchestrations were mostly intact. And it did. The band sounded really good.
- [142:01]
A
Yeah.
- [142:01]
B
And I've not told you this. So that production opened in 2010?
- [142:05]
A
Yes.
- [142:06]
B
I turned 30 that year and my friend Rob Berman was conducting it at one point and I was over at their apartment and I said, because, oh. Because somebody said, oh, it's. Oh my God, it's your 30th birthday that's happening. And I said, it is. I said, rob, you know what I would love for my 30th birthday? And he goes, what? I said, I would like to sit in the pit at Promises Promises. So that's what I did for my 30th birthday was I sat in the pit at Promises Promises. And I got there and he said, well, what side do you want to sit on? And I said, I don't know if. Does it make a difference? And he said, well, to my right hand side is going to be. You're going to need earplugs because. Cause it's all the horns and the percussionist. And on my left hand side it's the strings and the reeds. And I said, put me on your right, baby. So I sat between the horns and the percussionist for Promises Promises, which let me tell ya, that was a rockin night.
- [143:02]
A
I am so glad you're my friend. We are. Because I heard that. I'm like, that's so ridiculous. And also I 1000% get it. Like, yeah, no, girl, you are my friend through and through. You're my friend through and through.
- [143:19]
B
I'm like, I want to hear that. I want to hear that.
- [143:22]
A
That.
- [143:22]
B
That tunic, timpani on everything.
- [143:25]
A
Yeah. The thing about that revival is, like, it wasn't the kind of disaster where you. Where you put your head in your hands and go, like, what were we thinking? No, it was more just like constant missed opportunity after missed opportunity.
- [143:35]
B
It was a lot of meh.
- [143:36]
A
A lot of meh. It was so dry. And for a show that was touted, you know, 42 years prior to be nothing but heat and energy. It's like, how do we get that back? And you could blame the theater. You could blame people saying, oh, no one wants Chenoweth for that. She was miscast. I think Chenoweth 15 years earlier would have been a lovely friend.
- [143:57]
B
I agree.
- [143:57]
A
It was just that, that time of her life. That's not. Again, you can have argue for an older friend, but then the balance just goes everywhere and. And Hayes was honestly a little too old. What Hayes got criticized for in a specific article that we just have to talk about very quickly because I had listeners be like, please talk about that article. I think it was Time magazine that basically was being like, no, don't cast gay men in straight roles, because when we know they're gay, we don't buy it.
- [144:20]
B
Right.
- [144:21]
A
And it was a whole to do. It was about Groff specifically, as well as Hayes and Promises And I think one other person. It wasn't Neil Patrick Harris, for some reason, who I think would have been a good Chuck Baxter at that point of his life. Yeah, actually, he would have been a good.
- [144:35]
B
I would have rather seen him in that part than Sean, truly.
- [144:38]
A
But I think he was knee deep in How I Met yout Mother.
- [144:40]
B
Unfortunately, he would have had the level of dryness that you needed for that role, but also, like, found the jokes without needing to do like. I think Sean Hayes is a very funny performer and I do think that he is very talented, but it was not. His skills were not what was needed for that particular role. No, we. I didn't need Jerry Lewis as Chuck Baxter.
- [145:03]
A
You needed someone affable.
- [145:05]
B
Yeah.
- [145:05]
A
And especially because Chuck in the movie, Chuck is not a good person. He. He's. He's a nice person and he becomes a good person eventually.
- [145:16]
B
Yeah.
- [145:17]
A
And, you know, he's not mean spirited. He's just. He's opportunistic and he is a product of the time that he lives in. So even though he likes Ms. Kubelik, and he has good intentions, and he's a gentleman in regards to. To that he doesn't actually think beyond the scope of the patriarchy until the second half of the movie. And that's when he becomes a far more menchy person in the musical. He is meant to be a mensch off the bat and sort of, like, gets constantly tripped up into stuff.
- [145:41]
B
Right. Which is why they. Which is why they made him more like the invisible. Like, I just want somebody to notice me and that I. That I actually do have a lot to give. Like, I'm a good guy.
- [145:49]
A
That I got a lot of stuff to say.
- [145:51]
B
Yeah.
- [145:52]
A
But. And I think what's so interesting is, you know, that revival's tone and temperature is actually more in tune with the original movie.
- [146:02]
B
Yeah.
- [146:03]
A
Because the movie really is about loneliness. It is two very lonely people. The difference is that Fran knows how lonely she is, and Baxter is. Doesn't know how lonely he is until they spend those days together in his apartment with him sort of nursing her back to health and them really bonding in a really, you know, phenomenal way. Because it's not romantic, really. It's just them connecting.
- [146:23]
B
Yeah.
- [146:23]
A
Talking about their past. And he talks about the girl he was in love with who was married to his best friend and he tried to kill himself. It didn't work out. And now, you know, she sends him a fruitcake every year, which I love that. That becomes a shorthand for them later. Like, they. In the final scene, they have, like, their own language already. But the thing with Hayes about the gay stuff, they made a joke of that when he hosted the. To. Because he hosted the Tonys that year as well.
- [146:46]
B
Huh.
- [146:47]
A
And she. They did a joke right off the bat where channel came out, and she was like, sean, I just want to tell you I'm wishing you the best of luck. And he says, thanks, Kristen. They look at each other. They made out, and then she walked off so awkward. It was. It was. I did like the joke later on because she wasn't nominated that year, and she came out to give an acceptance speech. She goes, kristen, you didn't win. She goes, I don't understand.
- [147:08]
B
That's great.
- [147:09]
A
He says, you didn't win. You didn't win a Tony. And she goes, I've never heard that phrase before. And he goes, kristen, you weren't even nominated. And then she fainted.
- [147:19]
B
Oh, yeah. Now I remember that. Yeah. Good for her. Yeah.
- [147:22]
A
She's a great sport from every. I met her once backstage at Apple Tree, and she Was amazing. But from everyone I know who's worked with her, I met her. They were like, she's a fucking pro and she's the sweetest person alive.
- [147:30]
B
Yeah, she's lovely. Yeah.
- [147:32]
A
What's something else we can talk about this show before we eventually start wrapping shit up? I don't know.
- [147:36]
B
I think we're almost there, but. Well, I'll say really quick. Katie Finneran's interpretation of Margie McDougal is, like I said before, it is. It is. Beth. Level scenery, chewing. It is super funny. There is a full bootleg of the show on YouTube. If you skip ahead to just watch her scene. Like, if you watch just that scene out of context of the rest of the show, it is fucking hilarious. And it is like. It works great. It works as a standalone, just funny scene between the two of them. I think tonally, I probably do prefer somebody a little more chill in that role for a better production of that show. But as far as, like, pulling a show out of the dirt where it was at that point, she really does kind of come in and, like, give you the laughs that you've been wanting to have all night with this Neil Simon book.
- [148:25]
A
And then Molly Shannon replaced her for the end of the run.
- [148:27]
B
She did. She was actually the one that was on when I was in the pit.
- [148:31]
A
Oh, no way.
- [148:31]
B
Yeah.
- [148:32]
A
Do you remember anything about her performance moments?
- [148:34]
B
It didn't feel like she was going as hard as Finneran did. But no, I don't have any, like, major memories of that per. Of her. Like, anything that particularly stuck out that was funnier sounding that what Katie had done or anything like that.
- [148:47]
A
Because I think Katie was pregnant and had to leave early.
- [148:50]
B
Yeah.
- [148:51]
A
What Katie does is she basically plays Margie. Like she already had two drinks before everyone else at the bar got there. So she's just like a little.
- [148:58]
B
Oh, she had a screwdriver for breakfast.
- [149:00]
A
Yeah. Like. Like she's someone who's a. She's a functioning alcoholic and only really barely functioning.
- [149:05]
B
Yeah. Well, and I will say she. For the revival, they added one line for her at the. On her exit. Yes. Which is a great line. And I would hope that if. For any future productions of the show, they keep it, because normally.
- [149:22]
A
Well, Simon did do some.
- [149:24]
B
He did some rewrites.
- [149:25]
A
Yes.
- [149:27]
B
So that's right. That's right. In the original production, when Margie is being ushered out of the apartment. But she's playing very put upon and how could you do this to me?
- [149:38]
A
And also because she sees Fran on the bed and then the doctor Comes in, rushing in, so people run.
- [149:43]
B
She thinks it's an orgy and that she's being left out. She's being left out of. But at the end of the scene in the original, she turns to him and she just says, don't you. You ever call me again. And slams the door behind herself. And in the revival, she says, and don't you ever call me again. Slam. And opens the door and says, unless you want to. And then closes the door and leaves. And it's just. It was.
- [150:06]
A
Yeah, it's. It's a good line. It's a good final line. And. And fall. And it more falls in line with how Katie played the role. I don't think that final line would work out with how Baranski played it.
- [150:16]
B
No.
- [150:16]
A
When the show finally comes to a conclusion. Yes, because, you know, Fran does survive and Chuck helps her sort of get back to health. The musical has the doctor be a bit more of a prominent figure because in the movie it's the doctor and his wife. Like, he saves her life. The wife comes in and, you know, she kind of gives because they both think that Chuck's the one who brought her to that moment. And the movie also kind of makes it a bit more of a what's it gonna be, Chuck? Situation where, like, he starts quoting certain things. Things from his. From his superiors, like the. The likewise book wise thing. And that actually has now become a. Something tied to the apartment. That's how they promoted it.
- [150:56]
B
Like, oh, yeah, it's on the poster.
- [150:57]
A
Yeah, there's been nothing like the apartment. Laughs Wise romance wise, heart wise, whatever. So because Chuck is starting to quote one executive who does that where he's. That's the way the cookie crumbles. That's the way it crumbles. Cookie wise. And then he quotes Sheldrake's line about you take a girl for a couple. Laughs. She thinks you're talking marriage. And, you know, the doctor's wife hears that and she was like, you fucking prick. And she goes in and she, you know, helps nurse her back to help the musical. It's just the Doctor because, you know, we can't pay that many people.
- [151:24]
B
Right.
- [151:24]
A
The final moment for Chuck's storyline is Olsen tells Sheldrake's wife about all of his infidelities. She kicks him to the curb. And Sheldrake then goes and takes Fran off of, you know, Baxter's hands. That's the first twist is, you know, Baxter thinks, okay, maybe there's a shot for me and Fran only for Sheldrake to come in and be like, it's actually happening. My wife and are getting divorced. Sorry.
- [151:45]
B
Yeah.
- [151:46]
A
And first, Cece's willing to take that defeat. Well, she does love him, after all. And this is what she says she wants. And then Sheldrake says, I'm gonna need that key again because I'm staying at the New York Athletic Club. I can't take Fran there. It's simply stag. So, you know, we need a place for New Year's. You know, all the hotels are booked. I need a place. And Cece says no. And he gives him the key to the executive washroom. And he goes, I'm out. Sings the title song. Promises, promises. I'm gonna do it now. You know, for. For a cutting edge show. It has a title song, and that's pretty old fashioned, if you ask me. And that's really the last song of the show. And then the final scene is he's going back to the apartment to pack up his stuff, and he and the doc decide to pop open a bottle of champagne. They pop it. Fran rushes in, they have a little meet cute. And then we learn that she's left Sheldrake to be with Cece. They start playing gin rummy because that's again part of their love language. Now. He was. They were playing it when she was in bed recovering. And the famous last line is, you know, him saying, I love you, Ms. Kubelik. I absolutely adore you. And she looks at him, smiles and says, shut up and deal.
- [152:58]
B
It's great.
- [152:58]
A
It's a great line. They obviously, for the sake of economy of theatrical storytelling, they, I guess, couldn't do this. But we miss the moment in the movie when Fran realizes that she's in the wrong place. And it's so good because it's the line if, when you read the script, part of you goes, I don't know how we got here, but when you watch Shirley MacLaine do it, it. And it's the power of good writing and good acting and it's sort of gelling in this wonderful way and so.
- [153:29]
B
Well, and the power of like, what you can do on film.
- [153:32]
A
Yeah. But I think also it's one of those things where I'm like, you can do it in stage. You just have to. You have to think it through a little more.
- [153:41]
B
Yeah.
- [153:41]
A
Because you don't have the benefit of a close up, but you do have the benefit of, of maybe landing it. Giving. If you give yourself 30 seconds of air and let the actress find it.
- [153:51]
B
Yeah.
- [153:52]
A
The audience will join her because they're waiting for her to figure it out, right? We don't ever see Fran figure it out in the musical. She figures it out off stage and comes on stage, the movie. Sheldrake and Shirley MacLaine. I'm mixing up names and actors and everything, but you know, they're at. They're at some club for New Year's.
- [154:10]
B
They're at the Chinese restaurant.
- [154:12]
A
Oh, is that really where they are? Yeah, they're back at the Chinese restaurant.
- [154:14]
B
It's just decorated for New Year's.
- [154:15]
A
Yeah.
- [154:15]
B
Yeah.
- [154:16]
A
And you can already tell that Fran is sort of over it. It there. She first, she's trying to keep her relationship with Sheldrake still under wraps. But like, I guess it's kind of come out. They're at the club and he's having the time of his life. He's kind of a bachelor again, sort of in his mind, even though he's told her, like, yeah, we're totally getting married, babe. Right? And she's sort of, you know, over it. She's, you know, she's got a party hat on. She's just sort of sitting there sipping her cocktail and she. He doesn't realize it, but she's actually quoting Ms. Olsen back to him about when she says the ring a ding ding.
- [154:46]
B
Oh, right.
- [154:47]
A
And he. But he's so fucking, you know, narcissistic. He doesn't realize what she's doing. And he lets slip. Yeah, no, we were supposed to go to Baxter's apartment. I'm sorry that, you know, we have to drive out to Atlantic City tonight to go fuck. But, you know, Baxter wouldn't let me use the apartment. And this makes Frank curious. And he goes, yeah. In fact, he said I wasn't allowed there ever again, especially with you. He goes, I don't know what he's got against you. And she goes, I don't know, but I guess that's the way it crumbles cookie wise. I would spell it out for you, only I can't spell. And then the moment it hits midnight, he turns around, he turns back and she's gone. You see her running down the street. She hears a loud bang from Chuck's apartment, bangs on the door. And we get the reveal that it's the champagne and then we do the shut up and deal. I love that moment.
- [155:30]
B
It's great.
- [155:31]
A
It's. It's so many things. Because it's the first time, I think, in Fran's life, at least since moving to the city where some she realizes that there's someone out there who cares that much about her rather than it be like this bulliant moment for her, at least in the restaurant. She's just like, it tickles her because it's. Again, because she's so smart.
- [155:54]
B
Yeah.
- [155:54]
A
It's one of those things of like, damn, I'm kind of dumb. Like, I just put this together and I gotta go. Yeah. She sees the fallacy around her. Like everything she's wanted around. She's like, oh, like, this is what I wanted originally. And I'm seeing how dumb it is now. And it's that thing where the movie ends because there's no more dramatic story left to tell at that point. Something that I've said before in the podcast and I've said in life as well, like, you don't want a relationship. You don't want a love story. That would make a good movie. Right. Because like, all the best stories in romcoms and sort of what my play is about. It's like they're messy, toxic. Toxic. That's what makes them good.
- [156:34]
B
Well. And a lot of rom coms end with the relationship really just beginning.
- [156:38]
A
Yeah. Yeah. Like, they finally get on the. On the even ground. And like, Baxter and Fran don't have drama with each other. It's like their own personal messiness.
- [156:50]
B
Yeah.
- [156:50]
A
That brings them together and then they connect. And once they connect at the end, it's like, yeah, no, they found the person. It's. It's relatively smooth sailing from here on out. Like, any bumps they have are not going to be Sheldrake level bumps.
- [157:03]
B
Yeah.
- [157:04]
A
So, you know, there's nothing left to see, folks. They're like, they're going to figure out and have a nice, good life together and they're no longer lonely. And that is why the story is the story. The question people have asked, like, is this show an indictment of sexist office politics or is this kind of a celebration of it? And that is what's always tricky with musicals. People always wonder, like, well, if a character singing, does this mean the show is endorsing it? Right. And I don't think the show is.
- [157:29]
B
I don't think it is either.
- [157:31]
A
I think it's having a little more fun with it than the movie has. Like, the. The movie is not a satire because it's not quite funny enough. Like, in the way that Guide to the Married man or how to Succeed in Business are satires. I would call the Apartment a either call it like the most cynical office comedy or like the most light Hearted, romantic drama.
- [157:52]
B
Yeah, it really straddles the line. Yeah.
- [157:54]
A
Because it takes its character so seriously and really makes you grapple with the fact that, like, with these, with these quote unquote, innocent, you know, sexy, dirty old man affairs, you know, like, no, someone gets hurt and it's usually the person with the least amount of power.
- [158:08]
B
Yeah.
- [158:08]
A
And it's 1960s. That tends to be the woman.
- [158:10]
B
Right.
- [158:11]
A
And like, let's talk about it. The musical keeps that, but does because it's a musical comedy and there's weirdly more money at stake, even though musicals cost less than films. But, you know, you want to give the audience as much as, as you think they want. So, like, again, we were talking about, like, some smoothing over and some ease there and, and, and letting go of some of the darker corners of this piece, which I think can make some people confused as to where the show stands. But I don't think the show in any way celebrates. Might be less sharp in its cutting, but I don't think that it, I think it's actually even more outwardly moral than the movie is. Like, they make, they make again, they make so much subtext text.
- [158:55]
B
Yeah. I think the only thing that I, I, I, I really think that they were smart in bringing in Neil Simon to give the book a little bit of levity and throw more jokes in, especially in the second half, to just kind of like, keep it moving and keep it from being so sad. My only real complaint about it is their source of knowing each other. But also with her character, I wish that she started off with just a little more silliness and levity, which I guess you kind of get in. You could think of someone, but it's not in the same way that you get their rapport in the elevator.
- [159:35]
A
In so many ways, the show does on paper what you need it to do.
- [159:38]
B
Yeah.
- [159:39]
A
But again, God is in the details, and certain changes work very well for Stage and others actually water down what's so effective in the movie. And because Simon follows the movie's formula so closely, I don't think we're really splitting hairs here with this. Like, there are certain things there's, like, I wish by, by making the relationship change in the show, you've heightened the fact that, like, CeCe is now the underdog we really want to root for, but you've actually weakened their relationship and have made us have to work harder to buy their romance.
- [160:08]
B
Right, right. Yeah, that's true.
- [160:10]
A
Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Anyway, that's that. So on that note, then, Adam, this show Problematic, not problematic product of its time. Oh, that's so hard. I know.
- [160:26]
B
I don't think it's problematic.
- [160:28]
A
I don't either.
- [160:32]
B
Oh, this is going to straddle the line between two of those. It's going to straddle between not problematic and problem of its end product of its time for me, I think. But I certainly don't think it's problematic. I think, you know, I. I think that anybody who's supposed to look bad in the show looks bad.
- [160:47]
A
Yeah.
- [160:48]
B
And anybody who. And, and. And people who are supposed to be the good people come out on top. I don't, I don't think that it's. I think that it definitely doesn't glamorize, you know, cheating on anybody.
- [161:03]
A
No.
- [161:03]
B
And. And for its time, I think even though there aren't a lot of female characters, I think that the female characters that exist there are strong. They're, They're. They have their own mind. It's, you know, it's. Yeah, it's. I think it's like. Yeah, it's a, It's a combination.
- [161:18]
A
I think the musical I said earlier, like, it definitely leans the female characters closer to where sort of we are now with quote, unquote, feminist roles, which is like, it's not about them being humans. It's about them spouting rhetoric that audiences agree with. So they know, like, strong woman.
- [161:36]
B
Right.
- [161:36]
A
Pants.
- [161:37]
B
Right.
- [161:37]
A
In this case, eyeshadow. Oh, yeah, yeah. So much eyeshadow. I think that the characters in this show still are far more complex than some of the female roles we have today, especially written by men.
- [161:49]
B
Well, and honestly, I mean, it is rare ever, ever anymore that we get a show as book heavy as this.
- [161:58]
A
Yeah, this is a very book heavy.
- [162:00]
B
Show, especially the second act.
- [162:01]
A
Oh, the last thing I was gonna say, because speaking of Shirley Maclean's Oscar win. And then we'll close it out. Something. Another thing in my video essay that I was watching was talking about again, the sexual politics of the apartment with women. And then how Promises, Promises leans into it.
- [162:15]
B
Yeah.
- [162:16]
A
Of not vilifying sexually liberated women. And it shows two ends of the spectrum of, you know, as we're saying before, women with sexual agency who have these affairs on their own accord and, like, they know what they're getting into. And then someone like Fran, where it's, you know, probably a little bit of both of heart and pelvis, as Robin Williams would say, but. And having this, you know, extramarital affair, but she doesn't get punished for it. She suffers as a human being. Would Suffer. But the movie doesn't end with her getting. Getting punished for having this affair, Right. She's just a human being trying to find her way.
- [162:49]
B
Right.
- [162:50]
A
Contrast that to the tracheotomy. She lost the Oscar to Ms. Shirley MacLaine. She lost to Ms. Elizabeth Taylor in the movie Butterfield 8, a piece of shit movie that even Elizabeth Taylor said so. She even wrote on the bathroom mirror after the premiere, piece of shit in lipstick.
- [163:08]
B
God bless that woman.
- [163:09]
A
That woman was. But we. We were saying this before, like, you know, people overuse the word iconic. Like, oh, my God, your iced coffee is so iconic.
- [163:16]
B
Yeah.
- [163:17]
A
Elizabeth Taylor, icon. Icon. Like the kind of icon that slurps you up with her pinky. But she won. And she also, like, had a lot of bad press because she, quote, unquote, you know, stole Eddie Fisher from Debbie Reynolds. And she was on the set of Cleopatra, where she was everybody, right? And Butterfield Date actually was relatively a big hit. And she was Oscar nominated partly because she was Elizabeth Taylor. She gets Oscar nominated, but she hadn't won at that point. And she almost died on the set of Cleopatra. She had pneumonia that clogged up her lungs. They did an emergency tracheotomy. She survived. And the. And the Academy basically was like, we didn't mean to punish you that far here. Like, she weirdly kind of had a cubic situation, like, almost died. Survived. And everyone's like, oh, we didn't mean it to go that far. Here's your Oscar. But her role in Butterfield 8 is a promiscuous woman who died in the end. She dies in a car crash. She gets her comeuppance for being promiscuous, because that was how the Hayes Code used to work. Was like, right, Anyone who's immoral has to get punished somehow.
- [164:13]
B
Right?
- [164:13]
A
So imagine a movie like the Apartment where Shirley Mlan's character, like, is sweet person in the sense that she's kind, she's smart, she's funny, but has extramarital sex. She is messy that way and doesn't get punished for it.
- [164:28]
B
Yeah.
- [164:28]
A
Gets to continue living her life.
- [164:30]
B
Life.
- [164:30]
A
Anywho, that's all we got to say. I think that the show is mostly a product of its time. I don't think it's problematic. I think if you're gonna do it, it is 1968.
- [164:39]
B
Oh, yeah. It has to staunchly live in 1968.
- [164:42]
A
Live in that world, baby. Adam, this has been delightful as always. As always. Thank you for coming on again.
- [164:48]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [164:49]
A
Thanks, Daddy.
- [164:50]
B
I like getting to Talk about. I like talking about plays with you, but musicals are more fun to talk about.
- [164:54]
A
Listen, let's throw on devices. We could talk all day long, but you've got work in the morning and I gotta get out of here.
- [164:59]
B
It's late.
- [164:59]
A
I know.
- [165:00]
B
So you're gonna cut this way down. I hope for the listener's sake, we'll cut this way down.
- [165:04]
A
I'm just gonna say this. However long this episode ends up being, the raw audio was four hours. So however long it is, just know that we did cut shit. We did cut shit. Adam, where do you want people to find you?
- [165:15]
B
I don't know. I don't really care. I mean, I'm so bad at social media anymore. Instagram is fine. It's just my. My first. It's. It's Adam Ells on the Instas.
- [165:24]
A
He is bad at social. He doesn't show any dick pics, and it's terrifying.
- [165:28]
B
Sorry, everybody.
- [165:29]
A
If you want to find me, I'm on Instagram only. Natcoplek. Usual spelling.
- [165:33]
B
Yep.
- [165:33]
A
If I write a review you don't agree with, you can block me if you want. I won't notice. If you like the podcast, give us a nice five star rating.
- [165:40]
B
Matt's eating a peanut butter cup, in case you're wondering what the chewing noise is. By the way. You couldn't wait until. You couldn't wait two minutes?
- [165:47]
A
I forgot I wasn't gonna do that anymore. I had people get mad at me about it.
- [165:50]
B
Two minutes.
- [165:51]
A
I'm sorry.
- [165:52]
B
Nearly done. You were so close.
- [165:55]
A
I was so close.
- [165:56]
B
Chomp, chomp, chomp. Shut up.
- [166:00]
A
Shut up. I'm not a cow, okay? No, you're not. I don't go.
- [166:05]
B
Okay, Bessie.
- [166:06]
A
Okay. Matt Koblick. Usual spelling. Five stars for the podcast. A nice review. If you like, we'll talk about it alongside the Lightning Piazza Overture. We do have a Patreon, which you'll find some video content from this series on there as well. Join us next week for. I don't know what. Because I've been recording something out of order, editing as I see fit. Adam.
- [166:27]
B
Yeah?
- [166:27]
A
What diva do we close out with today?
- [166:30]
B
I mean, I don't know when else you're gonna have. You're gonna have the opportunity to do a Jill o' Hara song because she didn't do anything else.
- [166:37]
A
It's true.
- [166:37]
B
So I think we got to do a Jill o'.
- [166:39]
A
Hara. Yeah.
- [166:40]
B
What are you gonna play? Are you gonna play knowing when to leave or.
- [166:42]
A
Oh, no, no, I want to leave. Are you kidding me?
- [166:44]
B
Okay, great.
- [166:44]
A
Come on. Come on. That's. That's such a fucking phenomenal song. And not enough women do it anywhere.
- [166:50]
B
It should be an audition staple.
- [166:52]
A
It should be. I'm afraid My Heart Isn't Very smart.
- [166:55]
B
Nope.
- [166:56]
A
And she likes basketball. She likes basketball. Isn't that wild?
- [166:59]
B
Isn't that wild?
- [167:00]
A
All right, so we'll do cartwheel. Cartwheel. We'll do multi Miss Jello hair. And a chorus line of men doing push ups and suits.
- [167:07]
B
Great.
- [167:07]
A
Great.
- [167:08]
B
Matt, shut up and deal with.
- [167:11]
A
And on that note, we're gonna close out. Take it away, Jill. Bye. When someone walks in your life? You just better be sure he's right? Cause if he's wrong? There are heartaches and tears you must pay? Keep both of your eyes on the door?
- [167:28]
B
Never let it get out of sight? Just be prepared? When the time has come? For you to run? Oh, hey?
- [167:41]
A
Say when the wind starts to blow? But like a fool I don't know?