Stage Review: 'Curtains' rises on cynicism with glitz
Salute to musical theater also slaps with a cutting edge
During the making of the 2007 Broadway musical "Curtains," three key members of the creative team died. The book writer went first, then the orchestrator. Last was the 76-year-old lyricist, Fred Ebb.
The executive producer of Theatre Memphis, Debbie Litch, plays double duty as Carmen Bernstein, the feisty producer of the show-within-a-show in the Kander-Ebb ''Curtains.''
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The irony wasn't lost on anyone associated with the comic musical thriller about the cast and crew of a Broadway-bound show getting picked off by a murderer.
And though no mystery surrounds the real-life deaths, "Curtains" is now the last great hurrah from one of the 20th century's top songwriting duos, John Kander and Fred Ebb: co-creators of those other great musicals "Chicago," "Cabaret," and the one that starts with a K, "Kiss of the Spider Woman."
As a grand finale, "Curtains" is a clever salute to a world that Kander and Ebb advanced -- the world of musical theater. Like their previous efforts, "Curtains" is dripping with cynicism cut with bursts of glitz and comic gusto. After a bad actress bites the dust, a wry director (played by John Rone) remarks that mourning could be a good acting exercise for the cast.
It turns out that the diva's death is murder most foul. But for the detective assigned to the case (an irrepressibly upbeat Marques W. Brown), the only unthinkable tragedy is canceling the show.
With a killer in its midst, the company continues to tweak "Robbin' Hood," a cornpone Western full of cowpokes and buffalo gals. One cheesy number spells out K-A-N-S-A-S, in the "Oklahoma" style. Of course, nobody presumes that art is being made. As the show's producer (played by real-life theater producer Debbie Litch) sings, "I'd do the Kama Sutra with a Richard Rodgers score (if money is to be made)."
Theatre Memphis' season closer is expectedly flashy and vibrant. The Wild West scenery by Christopher McCollum has a cartoonish fun-house look, like the backdrop of a Yosemite Sam cartoon. The costumes, a mixture of dapper 1950s society dress and Rogers and Evans Western wear, are another feather in the headdress of Andre Bruce Ward.
Irony is the one thing the ever-fabulous Theatre Memphis never pulls off well. Camp actors such as Litch and Rone seem way off-target with their sarcastic quips and salty words delivered to the audience, slowed down to emphasize the shock of humor in the script. The backstage scenes -- as actors, composers, producers and stage crew labor to make canned entertainment -- should be the opposite, a droll de-emphasis of the histrionic so that when director Mitzi Hamilton rolls out her spectacular production numbers, the audience feels the cynicism behind Broadway cheese.
In playing the entire show as a nostalgic look back on the "good old days" of showbiz, Hamilton gives the audience the kind of enjoyable, humorous experience that they can expect from a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.
As for Kander and Ebb, those guys are still just a little ahead of their time.
"Curtains"
The show continues through June 28 at Theatre Memphis, 630 Perkins Ext. Shows are 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $28 adults, $15 students and $10 children. Call 682-8323.
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