The Burt Bacharach Discussion Forum

The revival of the musical of the film? Bring it on ...

Clare Brennan
Sunday December 11, 2005
The Observer


Promises, Promises
Crucible, Sheffield

When CC Baxter (Jack Lemmon) makes a date with Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) in The Apartment - the 1960 Oscar-winning film co-written by Billy Wilder and IAL Diamond - he waits for her outside a theatre decorated with a banner that reads 'One of the Best Musical Comedies of Our Time'. Miss Kubelik doesn't show. When Richard Frame makes a date with Emma Williams in Promises, Promises - the long-running 1968 Broadway hit musical of the film - he is stood up outside a baseball stadium. Maybe Neil Simon, who adapted the story, or Burt Bacharach, who composed the music, or Hal David, who wrote the lyrics, felt that comparisons would be odious.

Comparisons with the film are, however, inevitable. The story of both is of Baxter, an aspiring young clerk who loans his bachelor flat to philandering bosses in return for promises of advancement, only to discover that Kubelik, the co-worker he has fallen for, is the plaything of the biggest, baddest boss of all, JD Sheldrake.

Angus Jackson's revival of the musical deftly plays with these comparisons with the originals: his Baxter is also small, slight, with dark wiry hair; Kubelik's hair is cropped rather than bobbed, but her colouring is as copper gold, her cheeks as soft and her eyes as wide. But Frame and Williams do not languish in the shadows of their screen originals: in the beautifully harmonised duet 'I'll Never Fall in Love Again', for instance, they reveal touching new interplays between the characters. These lead performances are among the many strengths of this production that easily stands up to comparison with its models for slick stylishness and entertaining professionalism.

The musicians, silhouettes behind a cut-out New York skyline, kick the show off with a jump-from-your seat energy that never lets the swing sag. The outlines of the set are as sharp as the cut of the costumes (design by Robert Innes Hopkins), the colours bright and garish like Sixties LP sleeves or posters come to life. The dancers incorporate iconic period poses (legs bent, knees together, one arm up, the other down, head turned to the side - a la Austin Powers minus the camp) into a fluid choreography (Adam Cooper) that lucidly expresses the exuberance of the office Christmas party or the frustration of a quartet of middle-aged adulterers.

Simon's book and Bacharach's music actually tauten the film's rather loose action. They intensify its comedy as well as its pathos, both of which reach a climax of perfection in the faultlessly funny performance from Sarah Ingram as Marge 'I am not interested in sex' MacDougal, Baxter's tipsy Christmas Eve pick-up.

What the musical also heightens is the underlying cynicism of a film in which most men are sordidly selfish and women mere objects to be had. Baxter, deciding he has a hope of winning Kubelik from Sheldrake, rehearses his speech to his boss: 'I would like to take Miss Kubelik off your hands. It would be the thing to do - solutionwise.' Sheldrake (Martin Turner smoothly self-centred) pre-empts him: 'I'll be taking Miss Kubelik off your hands.' Although true love wins through in the end, the sweet pleasures of film and musical leave a bitter aftertaste.

The celebrated musical that Miss Kubelik fails to show up for in The Apartment is The Music Man; it ran for 1,375 performances on Broadway, just ahead of Promises's 1,281. Would Promises too justify a banner proclaiming it 'One of the Best ...'? A good test of superior merit is: does the pleasure of remembering a show equal the pleasure of experiencing it? As an experience, the Sheffield production is certainly a contender, even if the pleasure of the memory is tainted by the misogyny of the book.

The Times - Theatre: Promises, Promises
Sam Marlowe at Crucible, Sheffield

SONGS by Burt Bacharach and Hal David; a book by Neil Simon based on Billy Wilder’s acclaimed movie The Apartment. What’s not to like? Yet despite its mouthwatering credentials, Promises, Promises isn’t the delicious bittersweet confection you might expect, especially in this uneven production by Angus Jackson.
Chuck Baxter is a toadying underling at a New York insurance firm. When an ageing executive borrows his apartment for some extramarital fun, word gets around, and soon Chuck has eager suits queueing to use his home for illicit liaisons. Sordid though it is, he tolerates this in exchange for the promise of career advancement. But he hasn’t bargained for Sheldrake, his sleazy boss, commandeering the flat to bed Fran, the gamine girl from the canteen whom Chuck loves from afar.



Chuck’s moral spinelessness makes him difficult to warm to, and David and Bacharach’s songs, though gorgeous, do little to move the plot forward. They are pretty, twinkling ornaments to Simon’s script which, while it hints at the seamy side of the Swinging Sixties, lacks any real satirical sting.

But this orgy of easy-listening pleasure is also easy on the eye, thanks in part to Robert Innes Hopkins’s stylish period costumes, but above all to the choreography by Adam Cooper, which is slick, playful and full of detail. Strutting secretaries click-clack purposefully in their heels and flash stockinged thighs in high kicks from their swivel chairs. Three groovy chicks in fur-trimmed red minidresses and white boots go-go dance on a desk at the office Christmas party; mackintosh-clad couples glide elegantly through rain-soaked streets. The giddy romanticism complements the lush music.

Richard Frame, a mass of Lee Evans-style tics, is a hangdog Chuck and struggles vocally, particularly in the show’s glorious title number. He’s outclassed by Emma Williams as the appealing, unlucky-in-love Fran, and by canny cameos from Jack Chissick as his worldly-wise Jewish doctor neighbour, and Sarah Ingram, tragicomic as the drunk and disillusioned dame that Chuck picks up in a seedy bar on Christmas Eve. But the choreography is the star of a show that promises more than it delivers.

I'm pleased to say that I've actually seen this new production and thoroughly enjoyed it. As far as the representation of the score is concerned, the only disappointment was the non-inclusion of 'Tick Tock Goes the clock' which had been incorporated into the London Fringe version from 1996 and with stunning effect - it was the highlight of the show. To make way for it then they dropped 'Our Little Secret', still quite easily the most expendable song in the show. One of the revelations of the show as a whole is how different musical themes from several of the songs act as a kind of soundtrack throughout the show. As for the cast, the two main leads are fine but the undoubted star is Sarah Ingram who is hysterical as Marge, the drunk Chuck picks up at a bar.

Hi there! Did they include the song written for the City Center Encore series? It's called You've Got It All Wrong.

No, they didn't include 'You've got it all Wrong'. In fact the song list was the same as the original Broadway cast recording with subtle differences, for example part of the long chorus of 'Knowing when to Leave' gets a second outing.

http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/a ... +Arts+News

The Boston Globe

STAGE REVIEW
'Promises' partly lives up to its word
By Thomas Garvey, Globe Correspondent | December 14, 2005

Few creative teams have held more promise than that behind ''Promises, Promises." With Burt Bacharach and Hal David penning the score and Neil Simon renovating Billy Wilder's ''The Apartment," what could go wrong? Yet after its original Broadway run, ''Promises" has rarely been revived, and a sweet but uneven new production from Animus Ensemble can't disguise the reasons why.

In short, the musical fulfills its promise only late in the game (with the classic ''What Do You Get When You Fall in Love?"), and until then it has problems, problems.

Bacharach has of late seen his artistic stock go blue chip, with everyone from Austin Powers to Elvis Costello appreciating his breezy hits for the harmonic and rhythmic marvels they are. But ''Promises," alas, is mostly generic Bacharach. And his idiom, so perfect for hinting at heartbreak, can't quite deliver the real thing, which is what powered the film's script (by Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond), an unlikely mix of acid and romance that Simon waters down to one part schmaltz to two parts spritz.

Simon's book still follows up-and-coming C.C. Baxter, who finds the key to career advancement in the key to his bachelor pad, which he loans out as a love nest to executive birds of prey. Baxter quickly climbs the corporate ladder (and descends the moral one), but is hoisted on his own petard when he finds that the apple of his eye, the sweet, vulnerable Miss Kubelik, has been bedded in his own bed by his own boss, the heartless J.D. Sheldrake (Jerry Bisantz).

The resulting triangle is one of Wilder's sharpest conceits, and ''The Apartment" turns increasingly dark before its finish. But in ''Promises," director John Ambrosino seems uninterested in any thematic depths to be found in the material; instead, he styles it as a Day-Glo korporate komedy -- a kind of ''How to Succeed in Business (and Attempt Suicide!) Without Really Trying."

The arch approach hangs together for the first act, buoyed as it is by choreographer Josie Bray's herds of hipsters who bop about, tongue firmly in cheek, a la Linus and Lucy in ''A Charlie Brown Christmas." Costumers Courtney Dickson and Meghan O'Gorman provide gloriously groovy go-go gear, which looks great on Peter Watson's orange/avocado set. And Ambrosino does score some up-to-the-minute laughs by closeting a few gay executives in that apartment.

But as the story goes sour, Ambrosino's direction heads south. Jeff Mahoney, a deft comedian and appealing average Joe, can't tap into the self-contempt of Baxter, while Aimee Doherty, a porcelain beauty with a voice to match, makes rather a blank Miss Kubelik. (And both struggle to be heard over the brassy orchestrations.)

The production does bounce back, however, in its cameos. As a lonely floozy, Jennifer Condon not only steals the latter half of the show, she almost saves it. Meanwhile Richard Carey slices the ham with clean precision in his shtick as Baxter's neighbor, even as Jackie Davis sashays through the role of Sheldrake's former flame and Gus Kelley grimly nails Miss Kubelik's tough-guy brother. In its supporting performances, ''Promises, Promises" does indeed deliver on its promise.



© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company


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http://theedge.bostonherald.com/artsNew ... eid=116906

Boston Herald

Musical’s audience left with broken ’Promises’
By Terry Byrne
Wednesday, December 14, 2005

When an ambitious young theater company takes on a legendary musical, expectations are high. But with â€￾Promises, Promises,â€￾ both the production and the musical disappoint.

The show, which opened on Broadway in 1968, boasts a pedigree that includes music by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David and a book by Neil Simon, but its story is relentlessly unpleasant and it’s so painfully dated you can almost smell the mold. The show does include the hit song â€￾I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,â€￾ the title number and even â€￾Turkey Lurkey Time,â€￾ but beyond them is the tale of a man who lends his apartment out to horny, middle-aged married executives for sex with subordinates. When you get to the line, â€￾no decent girl would go to a motel with a man she just metâ€￾ (but she would go to a stranger’s apartment), you begin to wonder what world you’ve entered.

Animus Ensemble, which has already carved a niche creating challenging but rewarding theater, seems completely at a loss here. Director John Ambrosino keeps scenes moving quickly, but he has no idea how to create a ’60s sensibility or even a patina of believability. At times, things come together - Peter Watson’s abstract scenic design works with David Kahn’s lighting to support a go-go girl cage scene, and the number â€￾Upstairsâ€￾ is buoyed by a rolling set of stairs. But these moments are so fleeting, we’re left waiting for something to happen or someone to care about.

Oddly enough, the most successful characters are the middle-aged executives (Harold Withee, Michael P. Hammond, Jim Jordan and Michael Kreutz) who create an amusing atmosphere of lascivious desperation. Jackie Davis, in the secondary role of Miss Olson, is also compelling.

The lead roles of Chuck Baxter and Fran Kubelik are played by the married-in-real-life couple Jeff Mahoney and Aimee Doherty, but onstage the duo has no chemistry. While Doherty does a lovely job with â€￾I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,â€￾ Mahoney isn’t quite up to the vocal demands.

Choreographer Josie Bray has obviously seen some of Bob Fosse’s work, but she doesn’t seem to understand that â€￾the arm bone’s connected to the shoulder bone,â€￾ so there’s no fluidity to her dancers’ gawky moves.

Music director Brian D. Wagner can’t seem to keep his singers or his horn section in the same key, which is a problem when you’re playing the big,brassy Bacharach numbers.

â€￾Promises, Promisesâ€￾ is certainly beyond the abilities of Animus Ensemble, but this revival proves that sometimes it is better to let sleeping dogs lie.