THE NEW YORK TIMES
April 26, 2010
THEATER REVIEW | 'PROMISES, PROMISES'
Back in the ’60s: Let’s Tryst Again
By BEN BRANTLEY
For a bunch of desk jockeys, the boys from Consolidated Life are surprisingly athletic. In Rob Ashford’s revival of the 1968 musical “Promises, Promises,” which opened on Sunday night at the Broadway Theater, the male members of the chorus demonstrate that wearing skinny suits needn’t keep corporate executives from playing leap frog, turning cart wheels, bouncing off desks or frugging like, well, mad men.
Yet for all their gymnastic exertions, there’s no escaping the feeling that these guys are one set of really tired businessmen. No matter how high they jump or how much body heat they expend, they never manage to push the evening’s temperature much above lukewarm.
Even that singing sparkplug Kristin Chenoweth, who stars opposite a charming Sean Hayes in his Broadway debut, seems to feel the prevailing lassitude. “Promises, Promises,” which features a book by Neil Simon and songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, comes fully to life only briefly, at the beginning of its second act, when a comic volcano named Katie Finneran erupts into molten hilarity. Otherwise the white-hot charms this musical is said to have once possessed are left sleeping.
Tepid was not an adjective anyone was using after the opening of the original “Promises, Promises,” a story of sex in the office based on the Oscar-winning Billy Wilder film “The Apartment” (1960). “You feel more in the mood to send it a congratulatory telegram than write a review,” Clive Barnes, the critic for The New York Times, said of the show, adding that Mr. Bacharach’s music “reflects today rather than the day before yesterday.”
Of course, todays, especially the todays of the hip and trendy, have a way of turning into yellowing yesterdays. When “Promises, Promises” was revived by the Encores! series of concerts in 1997, its leering view of secretaries as disposable playthings seemed uncomfortably quaint, despite a flashy shindig of a production by Rob Marshall. And the bubbly Bacharach-David songs (including the pop hit “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”) had taken on the synthetic whiff of elevator music.
So the announcement last year that “Promises, Promises” was to be remounted on Broadway would have provoked a blanket “what are they thinking?” response, except for one thing: a seductive, styled-to-the-teeth little television show called “Mad Men.” Set in a Manhattan advertising agency around the time of the Kennedy presidency, this AMC series made it safe for early 1960s sexism to come out of the closet, provided it was treated with anthropological distance and mouth-watering period glamour.
I’m presuming that “Mad Men” is the reason this “Promises, Promises” is set not in the late ’60s, as the original was, but in 1962. Anyway, instead of wearing bright minidresses and bangs, the women are trussed up in midcalf suits (designed by Bruce Pask) and stiff, lacquered hair, as rectangular (or square) in appearance as the modernist architectural motifs of Scott Pask’s set. (Bruce Pask is also the director of men’s fashion for T: The Times Style Magazine.)
These office girls are, to be honest, rather frumpy things, and the men with whom they make assignations aren’t exactly hot stuff. Mr. Ashford, the show’s choreographer as well as director, seems to regard the members of both sexes with faint distaste. Even when they cut loose, as in the big (and smartly reinvented) office Christmas party number, they don’t seem to be having any fun.
This joyless world is the backdrop for the moral coming of age of Chuck Baxter (Mr. Hayes), an unremarkable young man on the make who discovers an unexpected route up the ladder. That’s by lending his apartment to married men in need of trysting places, who include the head of the company, the handsome, coldblooded J. D. Sheldrake (Tony Goldwyn in a thankless part). He, it turns out, is having an affair with the object of Chuck’s romantic fantasies, the adorable Fran Kubelik (Ms. Chenoweth).
Chuck pines, sucks up, drinks up, suffers pangs of conscience and, in the second act, develops a spine, all the while confiding to the audience in ingratiating asides. Mr. Hayes, best known for the sitcom “Will & Grace,” locates a winning physical clownishness within this sad-sack character (originated, believe it or not, by Jerry Orbach). He also has an agreeable, suitably conversational singing voice.
Yet except when he’s with Ms. Finneran (more on whom later), who plays a crazy barfly, his emotions often seem pale to the point of colorlessness. It’s easy enough to like Chuck but hard to feel for him. And his relationship with Ms. Chenoweth’s Fran feels more like that of a younger brother than a would-be lover and protector.
As for Ms. Chenoweth, dearly though I love her, this hyper-talented star was not meant to play Fran, and you sense that she knows it. Fran is a vulnerable waif; Ms. Chenoweth is a diva who can’t help taking charge of any stage. She is also unwisely made up and coiffed to resemble Angie Dickinson (the former Mrs. Burt Bacharach, as it happens) at her 1960s peak of hard-sheen attractiveness. This gal is nobody’s doormat.
Two recognizable songs by Mr. Bacharach and Mr. David not in the original score have been interpolated for Ms. Chenoweth to sing: “I Say a Little Prayer” and “A House Is Not a Home.” But though she works hard on putting them over, with inflections borrowed variously from Motown and Dolly Parton, Bacharach requires a cool, low-simmering style that is not Ms. Chenoweth’s.
Nor is it a style that most of the cast (which also includes the salty veteran Dick Latessa) seems equipped to sell, and the songs tend to blend into a trickly stream. The nudging jokes, on the other hand, stick out sorely, not because they’re politically incorrect but because they’re usually so darn dated. (Chuck, stumbling onto a couple necking at an office party, observes that they must be especially drunk, since they’re married to each other.)
Nothing in the languorous first act prepares you for the jolt of energy that begins the second. That’s when Ms. Finneran shows up as a singles-bar stalker named Marge, a molting flamingo of a woman whose pickup line is that she is not a pickup. When Marge homes in on Chuck, the evening’s first sparks are struck, and we are reminded that sexual desperation can be very, very funny.
Doing the freshest variations I’ve seen in years on over-the-top, deluded drunkenness, Ms. Finneran and Mr. Hayes turn their single shared number, “A Fact Can Be a Beautiful Thing,” into a showstopper you wish would never end. Ms. Finneran is on view for only, say, a quarter of an hour. I can’t be sure exactly, because it’s true that time not only flies but also stretches deliciously when you’re having fun. That means that once Ms. Finneran exits, it’s all too easy to count the remaining minutes.
PROMISES, PROMISES
Book by Neil Simon; music by Burt Bacharach; lyrics by Hal David; based on the screenplay “The Apartment” by Billy Wilder and I. A. L. Diamond, by arrangement with MGM On Stage; directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford; orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick; music director, Phil Reno; sets by Scott Pask; costumes by Bruce Pask; lighting by Donald Holder; sound by Brian Ronan; hair and wig design by Tom Watson; music coordinator, Howard Jones; dance music arrangements by David Chase; associate director/choreographer, Christopher Bailey; associate producers, Michael McCabe/Joseph Smith, Stage Ventures 2009 and No. 2 Limited Partnership; executive producer, Beth Williams. Presented by Broadway Across America, Craig Zadan, Neil Meron, the Weinstein Company/Terry Allen Kramer, Candy Spelling, Pat Addiss, Bernie Abrams/Michael Speyer, Takonkiet Viravan/Scenario Thailand and Norton Herrick/Barry and Fran Weissler/TBS Service/Laurel Oztemel. At the Broadway Theater, 1681 Broadway; (212) 239-6200. Running time: 2 hours 40 minutes.
WITH: Sean Hayes (Chuck Baxter), Kristin Chenoweth (Fran Kubelik), Tony Goldwyn (J. D. Sheldrake), Katie Finneran (Marge MacDougall), Dick Latessa (Dr. Dreyfuss), Brooks Ashmanskas (Mr. Dobitch), Peter Benson (Mike Kirkeby), Sean Martin Hingston (Mr. Eichelberger) and Ken Land (Jesse Vanderhof).
Reviews of Promises Promises Revival
Moderator: mark
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GehVorbei
Re: Reviews of Promises Promises Revival
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
NEW YORK APRIL 24, 2010
Broadway's Unfulfilled 'Promises'
By TERRY TEACHOUT
When a hit musical drops out of sight for nearly four decades, there's usually a reason. In the case of "Promises, Promises," which opened last night in its first Broadway revival since the original production closed there after a 1,281-performance run, the reason is obvious: It's no good. Nor is Rob Ashford's big-budget mounting likely to win many new friends for the 1968 Burt Bacharach-Hal David-Neil Simon adaptation of Billy Wilder's "The Apartment." Not only is it dully staged, but it's so miscast that even Kristin Chenoweth, normally one of Broadway's hottest commodities, looks like she showed up at the wrong theater.
To be sure, it's easy to see why Messrs. Bacharach, David and Simon thought it a good idea to turn "The Apartment" into a musical. Mr. Wilder's 1960 movie is one of the sharpest-witted romantic comedies ever filmed, a sweet-and-sour tale of workplace fornication in which every laugh has a sting in the tail. It was also perfectly cast, with Jack Lemmon playing the role of C.C. Baxter, a corporate hireling who makes his apartment available to Fred MacMurray, his married boss, for after-hours trysts with Shirley MacLaine, the delectable elevator operator whom both men crave.
That's where the trouble starts with "Promises, Promises."
Problem No. 1: Ms. Chenoweth plays Fran Kubelik, the shopworn waif who is so devastated by her lover's faithlessness that she takes an overdose of sleeping pills. I'm one of Ms. Chenoweth's staunchest admirers, but her gifts do not include the ability to suggest vulnerability, and it is impossible to imagine that so self-assured a woman would even contemplate suicide, much less attempt it. As a result, her performance is dramatically unbelievable, and though she does her best to seem fragile, you can tell that the audience doesn't buy it.
Problem No. 2 is Sean Hayes, lately of "Will and Grace," who plays C.C. Baxter. He's an amiable sitcom-type lightweight, and Ms. Chenoweth hoses him off the stage and into the alley. As for Tony Goldwyn, who plays the Fred MacMurray role, his performance is so colorless that it doesn't even attain the standing of a full-fledged problem.
This brings us to the deficiencies of the show proper. In the film, Baxter supplies an introductory narration that sets up the plot, then lets the viewer figure the rest out for himself. In the musical, he narrates from start to finish, a bad idea that kills the momentum stone dead and is made worse by Mr. Simon's habit of stuffing his speeches full of jokes that might been funny in 1968 but are now about as stylish as a Buick with fins.
As for the score, it consists of a string of chirpy soft-rock ballads like the title tune and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" that were heard around the clock on AM radio back in the days of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (which doubtless explains why the original production of "Promises, Promises" was so huge a hit). One of them, "A House Is Not a Home," is a beautifully turned piece of work. The others are so similar-sounding as to approach indistinguishability. It goes without saying that the results are untheatrical—the giveaway is that none of the comic numbers are funny—and each time the characters pause to sing yet another song, you find yourself wishing, to lift a line from the movie, that they'd shut up and deal.
I haven't said anything about Rob Ashford's staging because there's not much to say other than that it's bland and unamusing. Rarely have so many jokes been stepped on so firmly. The only scene that takes off is the one in which Mr. Hayes picks up a drunken bimbo in a bar. The bimbo in question, fortunately, is Katie Finneran, who steals the show right out from under her famous colleagues. Ms. Finnernan received most of the applause during the curtain call at the preview I saw, and earned it. Also worthy of note is Scott Pask, whose elaborate set is a knowing sendup of corporate midcentury modernism (even the paintings on the walls of the offices of Consolidated Life are clever parodies of Arshile Gorky and Morris Louis).
Mr. Pask and Ms. Finneran both deserve to be remembered when this year's Tonys are handed out. Saving their redeeming presences, "Promises, Promises" is slick, pointless and forgettable.
—Mr. Teachout, the Journal's drama critic, is the author of "Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong." Write to him at tteachout@wsj.com.
PROMISES, PROMISES
Broadway Theatre
1681 Broadway ($56.50-$136.50), 212-239-6200
NEW YORK APRIL 24, 2010
Broadway's Unfulfilled 'Promises'
By TERRY TEACHOUT
When a hit musical drops out of sight for nearly four decades, there's usually a reason. In the case of "Promises, Promises," which opened last night in its first Broadway revival since the original production closed there after a 1,281-performance run, the reason is obvious: It's no good. Nor is Rob Ashford's big-budget mounting likely to win many new friends for the 1968 Burt Bacharach-Hal David-Neil Simon adaptation of Billy Wilder's "The Apartment." Not only is it dully staged, but it's so miscast that even Kristin Chenoweth, normally one of Broadway's hottest commodities, looks like she showed up at the wrong theater.
To be sure, it's easy to see why Messrs. Bacharach, David and Simon thought it a good idea to turn "The Apartment" into a musical. Mr. Wilder's 1960 movie is one of the sharpest-witted romantic comedies ever filmed, a sweet-and-sour tale of workplace fornication in which every laugh has a sting in the tail. It was also perfectly cast, with Jack Lemmon playing the role of C.C. Baxter, a corporate hireling who makes his apartment available to Fred MacMurray, his married boss, for after-hours trysts with Shirley MacLaine, the delectable elevator operator whom both men crave.
That's where the trouble starts with "Promises, Promises."
Problem No. 1: Ms. Chenoweth plays Fran Kubelik, the shopworn waif who is so devastated by her lover's faithlessness that she takes an overdose of sleeping pills. I'm one of Ms. Chenoweth's staunchest admirers, but her gifts do not include the ability to suggest vulnerability, and it is impossible to imagine that so self-assured a woman would even contemplate suicide, much less attempt it. As a result, her performance is dramatically unbelievable, and though she does her best to seem fragile, you can tell that the audience doesn't buy it.
Problem No. 2 is Sean Hayes, lately of "Will and Grace," who plays C.C. Baxter. He's an amiable sitcom-type lightweight, and Ms. Chenoweth hoses him off the stage and into the alley. As for Tony Goldwyn, who plays the Fred MacMurray role, his performance is so colorless that it doesn't even attain the standing of a full-fledged problem.
This brings us to the deficiencies of the show proper. In the film, Baxter supplies an introductory narration that sets up the plot, then lets the viewer figure the rest out for himself. In the musical, he narrates from start to finish, a bad idea that kills the momentum stone dead and is made worse by Mr. Simon's habit of stuffing his speeches full of jokes that might been funny in 1968 but are now about as stylish as a Buick with fins.
As for the score, it consists of a string of chirpy soft-rock ballads like the title tune and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" that were heard around the clock on AM radio back in the days of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass (which doubtless explains why the original production of "Promises, Promises" was so huge a hit). One of them, "A House Is Not a Home," is a beautifully turned piece of work. The others are so similar-sounding as to approach indistinguishability. It goes without saying that the results are untheatrical—the giveaway is that none of the comic numbers are funny—and each time the characters pause to sing yet another song, you find yourself wishing, to lift a line from the movie, that they'd shut up and deal.
I haven't said anything about Rob Ashford's staging because there's not much to say other than that it's bland and unamusing. Rarely have so many jokes been stepped on so firmly. The only scene that takes off is the one in which Mr. Hayes picks up a drunken bimbo in a bar. The bimbo in question, fortunately, is Katie Finneran, who steals the show right out from under her famous colleagues. Ms. Finnernan received most of the applause during the curtain call at the preview I saw, and earned it. Also worthy of note is Scott Pask, whose elaborate set is a knowing sendup of corporate midcentury modernism (even the paintings on the walls of the offices of Consolidated Life are clever parodies of Arshile Gorky and Morris Louis).
Mr. Pask and Ms. Finneran both deserve to be remembered when this year's Tonys are handed out. Saving their redeeming presences, "Promises, Promises" is slick, pointless and forgettable.
—Mr. Teachout, the Journal's drama critic, is the author of "Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong." Write to him at tteachout@wsj.com.
PROMISES, PROMISES
Broadway Theatre
1681 Broadway ($56.50-$136.50), 212-239-6200
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GehVorbei
Re: Reviews of Promises Promises Revival
USA TODAY
'Promises, Promises' breaks vow to the past
By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — For anyone who thought turning popular movies into dopey musicals was strictly a 21st-century phenomenon, a little history lesson has begun.
Back in the 1960s, long before Legally Blonde or High Fidelitywas a twinkle in any stage producer's eye, it occurred to some folks that The Apartment— the Billy Wilder classic about a young office worker who tries to succeed in business by letting executives use his bachelor pad for extramarital trysts — might do well by the song-and-dance treatment.
Hence Promises, Promises, the splashy misadventure now in revival (**½ out of four) at the Broadway Theatre.
Promises was hardly a dud in its first and only previous Broadway incarnation, running for more than three years and earning leading man Jerry Orbach a Tony Award. And its tuneful score includes such Burt Bacharach/Hal David favorites as the title number and I'll Never Fall in Love Again.
But the songs strain to fit Neil Simon's messy book, which lurches from hokey comedy to movie-of-the-week melodrama. And this new production seems to have two main goals: to exploit contemporary audiences' taste for retro kitsch and, more nobly, to provide a vehicle for a few talented stars.
Those who come for the kitsch won't be disappointed. Like last year's revival of Bye Bye Birdie, this Promises revels in pre-cultural revolution fashion follies. Bruce Pask's brightly colored dress suits and Tom Watson's gravity-defying hair and wig design winkingly evoke working women of a more, um, innocent era.
The stars aren't quite as well-served. Playing the beleaguered corporate climber Chuck "C.C." Baxter, the role introduced on stage by Orbach (and on screen by Jack Lemmon), Sean Hayes has some endearing moments. But Simon's quaint zingers stretch the limits of his charm and comic panache.
Kristin Chenoweth is cast as the object of Chuck's unrequited affection, Fran Kubelik, a drippy damsel in distress who in no way accommodates the actress' natural effervescence. Chenoweth does at least manage to bring some torch and twang to her songs — among them the Bacharach/David classics I Say a Little Prayer and A House Is Not a Home, both of which were added for this production.
Other performers, alas, fail to deliver the breezy rhythmic and emotional intuition that Bacharach's melodies demand. Hayes' bleating bari-tenor is far too stiff, as is the warmer singing of Tony Goldwyn, otherwise adroit as Chuck's superficially dashing but weasely boss.
Katie Finneran has a crowd-pleasing turn as a boozy floozy who tries to lift Chuck's spirits, and the marvelous Dick Latessa lends winning support as an elderly neighbor who helps bring Chuck closer to Fran in the second act.
All ends well for the young lead characters, predictably. Still, after an uneven and at times tiresome two and a half hours, you'll leave Promises unfulfilled.
'Promises, Promises' breaks vow to the past
By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY
NEW YORK — For anyone who thought turning popular movies into dopey musicals was strictly a 21st-century phenomenon, a little history lesson has begun.
Back in the 1960s, long before Legally Blonde or High Fidelitywas a twinkle in any stage producer's eye, it occurred to some folks that The Apartment— the Billy Wilder classic about a young office worker who tries to succeed in business by letting executives use his bachelor pad for extramarital trysts — might do well by the song-and-dance treatment.
Hence Promises, Promises, the splashy misadventure now in revival (**½ out of four) at the Broadway Theatre.
Promises was hardly a dud in its first and only previous Broadway incarnation, running for more than three years and earning leading man Jerry Orbach a Tony Award. And its tuneful score includes such Burt Bacharach/Hal David favorites as the title number and I'll Never Fall in Love Again.
But the songs strain to fit Neil Simon's messy book, which lurches from hokey comedy to movie-of-the-week melodrama. And this new production seems to have two main goals: to exploit contemporary audiences' taste for retro kitsch and, more nobly, to provide a vehicle for a few talented stars.
Those who come for the kitsch won't be disappointed. Like last year's revival of Bye Bye Birdie, this Promises revels in pre-cultural revolution fashion follies. Bruce Pask's brightly colored dress suits and Tom Watson's gravity-defying hair and wig design winkingly evoke working women of a more, um, innocent era.
The stars aren't quite as well-served. Playing the beleaguered corporate climber Chuck "C.C." Baxter, the role introduced on stage by Orbach (and on screen by Jack Lemmon), Sean Hayes has some endearing moments. But Simon's quaint zingers stretch the limits of his charm and comic panache.
Kristin Chenoweth is cast as the object of Chuck's unrequited affection, Fran Kubelik, a drippy damsel in distress who in no way accommodates the actress' natural effervescence. Chenoweth does at least manage to bring some torch and twang to her songs — among them the Bacharach/David classics I Say a Little Prayer and A House Is Not a Home, both of which were added for this production.
Other performers, alas, fail to deliver the breezy rhythmic and emotional intuition that Bacharach's melodies demand. Hayes' bleating bari-tenor is far too stiff, as is the warmer singing of Tony Goldwyn, otherwise adroit as Chuck's superficially dashing but weasely boss.
Katie Finneran has a crowd-pleasing turn as a boozy floozy who tries to lift Chuck's spirits, and the marvelous Dick Latessa lends winning support as an elderly neighbor who helps bring Chuck closer to Fran in the second act.
All ends well for the young lead characters, predictably. Still, after an uneven and at times tiresome two and a half hours, you'll leave Promises unfulfilled.
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BachtoBacharach
- Posts: 530
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Re: Reviews of Promises Promises Revival
Another Review
Promises, Promises Review: Before Mad Men, With Groovy Music
April 25, 2010
Jonathan Mandell
In “Promises, Promises,” a business executive promises his mistress that he’ll divorce his wife; he and four colleagues promise their underling that he’ll be promoted if he lends them his apartment regularly for their extramarital trysts; Neil Simon promises to make this funny, Bert Bacharach to make it melodious; and Sean Hayes (best-known from “Will and Grace”) and Kristin Chenoweth (“Wicked”) and the other 25 cast members promise to bring to life this first Broadway revival of a 40-year-old musical.
By the end, the characters, the show’s creators, and the performers all have delivered on their promises, more or less – demonstrating that even when you get what you’re promised, you don’t always get everything you want.
Taken as a whole, “Promises, Promises” feels like a puppy-dog imitation of “Mad Men,” the sharply observed television series, soon to start its fourth season, about the dog-eat-dog, sexist and lascivious corporate world of the early 1960’s. “Promises, Promises” was there first, of course, opening on Broadway in 1968 and running for three years, telling the tawdry tale of a low-level corporate employee in the accounting department who lends out his apartment to executives for their extramarital affairs, until he discovers that one of those affairs is with the woman he loves. The musical is based on the 1960 Billy Wilder movie “The Apartment” starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
At the time, these shows, along with “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (1961) and “How Now, Dow Jones” (1967), were seen as satires on corrupt/immoral corporate life. It is worth noting that all three shows are being brought back – “How Now, Dow Jones” appeared at the New York Fringe Festival last summer, and plans were recently announced to revive “How To Succeed” on Broadway next year starring Daniel Radcliffe. More than one producer is banking on a renewed interest in business. But the eras are different – the 1960’s were plush times and the cynical attitude towards business then was based on fear of corporate dominance not anger over economic collapse. There is, in short, not enough bite in “Promises, Promises”.
If changing times and the appearance of such shows as “Men Mad” have made “Promises, Promises” less than the priceless musical it was considered during its initial run, there is nevertheless plenty of entertainment value in the revival.
At the top of its list of assets — above the swinging dancers in Sixties-style business suits, and the groovy sets — is Sean Hayes. Watch him when he tries to figure out how to sit in a modern designer chair, or when the executives use his head for a hat-rack, or when he dances drunkenly with a floozy (the amazing Katie Finneran) at a First Avenue dive; look at his facial expressions when he comments on the proceedings directly to the audience. It is hard to believe that this show marks his Broadway debut; he seems to have been born on a trunk at the Princess Theater in Pocatello, Idaho (or at least Chicago, where he’s from).
“Promises, Promises” was also the Broadway debut of the hit songwriting team of composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David (and also their Broadway farewell; neither created anything else for the theater.) Not too surprisingly, several songs from their musical became pop hits – the Dionne Warwick recordings of “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and “Promises, Promises,” and these are still catchy tunes. The revival smartly adds two other Bacharach/David hits recorded by Warwick– “I Say A Little Prayer” and “A House Is Not A Home” — and gives them to Kristen Chenoweth to sing, which she does wonderfully.
Promises, Promises Review: Before Mad Men, With Groovy Music
April 25, 2010
Jonathan Mandell
In “Promises, Promises,” a business executive promises his mistress that he’ll divorce his wife; he and four colleagues promise their underling that he’ll be promoted if he lends them his apartment regularly for their extramarital trysts; Neil Simon promises to make this funny, Bert Bacharach to make it melodious; and Sean Hayes (best-known from “Will and Grace”) and Kristin Chenoweth (“Wicked”) and the other 25 cast members promise to bring to life this first Broadway revival of a 40-year-old musical.
By the end, the characters, the show’s creators, and the performers all have delivered on their promises, more or less – demonstrating that even when you get what you’re promised, you don’t always get everything you want.
Taken as a whole, “Promises, Promises” feels like a puppy-dog imitation of “Mad Men,” the sharply observed television series, soon to start its fourth season, about the dog-eat-dog, sexist and lascivious corporate world of the early 1960’s. “Promises, Promises” was there first, of course, opening on Broadway in 1968 and running for three years, telling the tawdry tale of a low-level corporate employee in the accounting department who lends out his apartment to executives for their extramarital affairs, until he discovers that one of those affairs is with the woman he loves. The musical is based on the 1960 Billy Wilder movie “The Apartment” starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
At the time, these shows, along with “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (1961) and “How Now, Dow Jones” (1967), were seen as satires on corrupt/immoral corporate life. It is worth noting that all three shows are being brought back – “How Now, Dow Jones” appeared at the New York Fringe Festival last summer, and plans were recently announced to revive “How To Succeed” on Broadway next year starring Daniel Radcliffe. More than one producer is banking on a renewed interest in business. But the eras are different – the 1960’s were plush times and the cynical attitude towards business then was based on fear of corporate dominance not anger over economic collapse. There is, in short, not enough bite in “Promises, Promises”.
If changing times and the appearance of such shows as “Men Mad” have made “Promises, Promises” less than the priceless musical it was considered during its initial run, there is nevertheless plenty of entertainment value in the revival.
At the top of its list of assets — above the swinging dancers in Sixties-style business suits, and the groovy sets — is Sean Hayes. Watch him when he tries to figure out how to sit in a modern designer chair, or when the executives use his head for a hat-rack, or when he dances drunkenly with a floozy (the amazing Katie Finneran) at a First Avenue dive; look at his facial expressions when he comments on the proceedings directly to the audience. It is hard to believe that this show marks his Broadway debut; he seems to have been born on a trunk at the Princess Theater in Pocatello, Idaho (or at least Chicago, where he’s from).
“Promises, Promises” was also the Broadway debut of the hit songwriting team of composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David (and also their Broadway farewell; neither created anything else for the theater.) Not too surprisingly, several songs from their musical became pop hits – the Dionne Warwick recordings of “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again” and “Promises, Promises,” and these are still catchy tunes. The revival smartly adds two other Bacharach/David hits recorded by Warwick– “I Say A Little Prayer” and “A House Is Not A Home” — and gives them to Kristen Chenoweth to sing, which she does wonderfully.
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steveo_1965
- Posts: 1023
- Joined: Wed Aug 23, 2006 2:17 pm
- Location: Los Angeles
Re: Reviews of Promises Promises Revival
Well, as Peter Potter used to say on the old tv show Juke Box Jury..."is it a hit, or a miss?"
I'm seeing some mixed reviews....maybe the show is inbetween? It is not a hit, or a miss?
I guess we'll have to wait and see....
I would like to see it, there was a high school production og it a few years ago in Whittier, Ca.that I wanted to check out, but missed...
The part of the dancers wearing 60's business suits and dancing seems interesting...
I'm seeing some mixed reviews....maybe the show is inbetween? It is not a hit, or a miss?
I guess we'll have to wait and see....
I would like to see it, there was a high school production og it a few years ago in Whittier, Ca.that I wanted to check out, but missed...
The part of the dancers wearing 60's business suits and dancing seems interesting...
Re: Reviews of Promises Promises Revival
There are these guys, and then there are some other people who actually know a thing or two about *music*, such as John Zorn (you've all seen this, but never mind):
"BURT BACHARACH is one of the great geniuses of American popular music... A trailblazer. A questioner. An unbridled genius.... BACHARACH's songs explode the expectations of what a popular song is supposed to be. Advanced harmonies and chord changes with unexpected turnarounds and modulations, unusual changing time signatures and rhythmic twists, often in uneven numbers of bars. But he makes it all sound so natural you can't get it out of your head or stop whistling it. Maddeningly complex, sometimes deceptively simple, these are more than just great pop songs: these are deep explorations of the materials of music and should be studied and treasured with as much care and diligence as we accord any great works of art."
-- John ZORN (in the liner notes for "Great Jewish Music: Burt Bacharach")
"BURT BACHARACH is one of the great geniuses of American popular music... A trailblazer. A questioner. An unbridled genius.... BACHARACH's songs explode the expectations of what a popular song is supposed to be. Advanced harmonies and chord changes with unexpected turnarounds and modulations, unusual changing time signatures and rhythmic twists, often in uneven numbers of bars. But he makes it all sound so natural you can't get it out of your head or stop whistling it. Maddeningly complex, sometimes deceptively simple, these are more than just great pop songs: these are deep explorations of the materials of music and should be studied and treasured with as much care and diligence as we accord any great works of art."
-- John ZORN (in the liner notes for "Great Jewish Music: Burt Bacharach")
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vincent.cole
- Posts: 788
- Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2004 12:45 pm
- Location: Staten Island N.Y.
Re: Reviews of Promises Promises Revival
Promises Promises Opening Night!
"It's exciting seeing the three guys together again," Mrs. David whispered to Mrs. Simon from the sidelines, watching their husbands and Bacharach clustered together for the cameras like a suddenly aroused pride of old lions. Octogenarians all, the songwriters have birthdays next month - David turns 89 on the 21st, Bacharach hits 83 on the 29th - and Simon reaches 83 on the fourth of July.
"Oh, I loved the show," David admitted merrily. "I though it was so warm and funny, and the songs came off so well, sung by Kristin and Sean. I couldn't be happier."
Bacharach was of the same mind. "There were a couple of tunes I forgot I even wrote," he confessed. "I only did one show. I never did another Broadway show, but we're working on one now. It's a show with Steven Sater, who did Spring Awakening. It'll be based on the O. Henry fable, 'The Gift of the Magi.'"
Apart from the shoring up he did on Chenoweth's role, Simon said he confined his rewriting to nips and tucks. "I did some work on it, but there's not much to do. I think it's pretty much the same." He was particularly pleased with how the leading man ran with his script. "Sean's brilliant. He got better and better every night."
Hayes, in his Broadway bow, behaves like a seasoned veteran, luring the audience into his corner with his asides and winning needed sympathy in the process. His moral missteps recede as the character turns into a victim of corrupt circumstance.
"I love the innocence of the character," Hayes relayed. "I enjoy playing that, someone who's that optimistic because it's not so prevalent today. It's not usually done where you break the fourth wall in theatre, but that's the way it's written. If you fear that, it'll probably show. The audience is my scene partner - in a Ferris Bueller way."
"It's exciting seeing the three guys together again," Mrs. David whispered to Mrs. Simon from the sidelines, watching their husbands and Bacharach clustered together for the cameras like a suddenly aroused pride of old lions. Octogenarians all, the songwriters have birthdays next month - David turns 89 on the 21st, Bacharach hits 83 on the 29th - and Simon reaches 83 on the fourth of July.
"Oh, I loved the show," David admitted merrily. "I though it was so warm and funny, and the songs came off so well, sung by Kristin and Sean. I couldn't be happier."
Bacharach was of the same mind. "There were a couple of tunes I forgot I even wrote," he confessed. "I only did one show. I never did another Broadway show, but we're working on one now. It's a show with Steven Sater, who did Spring Awakening. It'll be based on the O. Henry fable, 'The Gift of the Magi.'"
Apart from the shoring up he did on Chenoweth's role, Simon said he confined his rewriting to nips and tucks. "I did some work on it, but there's not much to do. I think it's pretty much the same." He was particularly pleased with how the leading man ran with his script. "Sean's brilliant. He got better and better every night."
Hayes, in his Broadway bow, behaves like a seasoned veteran, luring the audience into his corner with his asides and winning needed sympathy in the process. His moral missteps recede as the character turns into a victim of corrupt circumstance.
"I love the innocence of the character," Hayes relayed. "I enjoy playing that, someone who's that optimistic because it's not so prevalent today. It's not usually done where you break the fourth wall in theatre, but that's the way it's written. If you fear that, it'll probably show. The audience is my scene partner - in a Ferris Bueller way."
Take care;
Vincent
Vincent
Re: Reviews of Promises Promises Revival
Thanks for that, Vincent. It will be great to see some pictures of them all from the opening night. I'm sure BB will be surprised to learn that his birthday has moved from the 12th to the 29th and that he's somehow gained another year!
Paul
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blueonblue
- Posts: 1550
- Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2006 3:22 am
Re: Reviews of Promises Promises Revival
Hi Vincent,
It's great to hear that Burt's up and about again !
Take care mon ami,
"blue"
It's great to hear that Burt's up and about again !
Take care mon ami,
"blue"
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BachtoBacharach
- Posts: 530
- Joined: Wed Jul 11, 2007 3:32 pm
Re: Reviews of Promises Promises Revival
The bi-polar reviews continue:
From Michael Musto:
Promises, Promises practically becomes a Bacharach and David revue with the bizarre interpolation of two hit songs that turn Kristin Chenoweth's character into a serial self-pitier on pop dirge alert. Fine whining quickly turns to flat champagne. What's worse, playing the original Rachel Uchitel minus the settlement, the misplaced Chenoweth mopes around with such perfect hair and fortitude that when she attempts suicide, you hope her nails don't get chipped.
The show's strangest aspect is that her character—the cafeteria worker sleeping with the married boss—is held up as the height of decency. Even if she is, she comes off so drippy here that the bar floozy Sean Hayes's character meets for some drunken fun is easily the one you root for him to be with!
Thank God Hayes has charm and a swell way with shtick (like sitting in a chair with a hole in it or mistakenly putting eye drops in his nose) and as the floozy, Katie Finneran goes for broke with a performance that connects, commits, and entertains. Thanks to them, the show isn't a total turkey lurkey, but as long as the creators were arbitrarily sticking songs into it, why not have Aretha Franklin or Dionne Warwick come out and do them?
From Michael Musto:
Promises, Promises practically becomes a Bacharach and David revue with the bizarre interpolation of two hit songs that turn Kristin Chenoweth's character into a serial self-pitier on pop dirge alert. Fine whining quickly turns to flat champagne. What's worse, playing the original Rachel Uchitel minus the settlement, the misplaced Chenoweth mopes around with such perfect hair and fortitude that when she attempts suicide, you hope her nails don't get chipped.
The show's strangest aspect is that her character—the cafeteria worker sleeping with the married boss—is held up as the height of decency. Even if she is, she comes off so drippy here that the bar floozy Sean Hayes's character meets for some drunken fun is easily the one you root for him to be with!
Thank God Hayes has charm and a swell way with shtick (like sitting in a chair with a hole in it or mistakenly putting eye drops in his nose) and as the floozy, Katie Finneran goes for broke with a performance that connects, commits, and entertains. Thanks to them, the show isn't a total turkey lurkey, but as long as the creators were arbitrarily sticking songs into it, why not have Aretha Franklin or Dionne Warwick come out and do them?
Re: Reviews of Promises Promises Revival
Barely related, but I want this guy to review PP:
http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/ ... ther-.html
Does anyone here know the septet? I guess I'll try to learn more:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... rs%22&aq=f
http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/ ... ther-.html
Does anyone here know the septet? I guess I'll try to learn more:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... rs%22&aq=f