Withering Glance: A course in how to speak 'musicals'

Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, etiquette, culture, relationships, grooming and more.

By Rick Nelson and Claude Peck, Star Tribune

Last update: June 27, 2009 - 5:20 PM

CP: I know a little French and Spanish, but I speak hardly a word of "musicals." You do.

RN: Oh, please, I could teach the Berlitz course.

CP: Well, then, m'aidez! It's Pride weekend, and I need a fast refresher so I won't make my usual conversational blunders among men who all seem fluent in "Gypsy." What does a novice need to know?

RN: First off, there is a big difference between a Broadway musical and a Hollywood one. Case in point: "A Chorus Line." Glorious on stage, dreck on celluloid. That happens a lot. "Rent," "Mame," "Hello, Dolly!" They all took it on the chin when Tinseltown got hold of them.

CP: I will need to redo my Netflix list. Your top five movie musicals?

RN: I only get five? My late friend Andrue, who had a Ph.D. in show tunes, would have said, "Nothing after 1960." I don't entirely agree, but I'd start you on a diet of "The Bandwagon" and "Singin' in the Rain," and then feed you bits of "Funny Girl," "Cabaret" and the 1954 version of "A Star Is Born" to give you the essential Barbra-Liza-Judy tutorial. I'm getting lightheaded just thinking about it.

CP: Easy does it. Sometimes at a musical I still wonder, "Why are those people singing instead of talking?"

RN: Since my family will burst into song to celebrate the opening of an envelope, I've always found Julie Andrews pealing her dialogue to be perfectly normal.

CP: Is it wrong that "Hedwig" is my favorite musical? And that I am unable to hum a single Sondheim tune?

RN: "Hedwig," while hardly mainstream, is pretty brill. As for Sondheim, the genius of his work unfolds by listening, over and over, obsessively, until you find yourself buying a lifetime subscription to the Sondheim Review, the quarterly publication devoted to the writer/composer. My suggestion is to load your iPod with a few different recordings of "Follies" and go from there. I own four. You'll be belting "Who's That Woman?" in the shower in no time.

CP: What do you hate in the musical theater?

RN: A thin orchestra. I saw the "A Chorus Line" tour two weeks ago at the Orpheum, and it sounded as if there were about six musicians and a Moog synthesizer in the pit. Marvin Hamlisch deserves better than that. Compare that with the glorious 30-member orchestra at the "South Pacific" revival I caught last month in New York City. By the time the overture was over, I was a puddle.

CP: Wow. Sounds like I have a long way to go. I vow to keep practicing until I, too, can be made incontinent by an 11 o'clock song.

E-mail: witheringglance@startribune.com. Become a friend of Withering Glance on facebook.com.

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