Kiss Me, Kate... and Get Your Gun (The Broadway Maven's Show Tune Tribune)
David Benkof interprets Broadway weekly
Shalom! On January 4, The Broadway Maven’s FREE weekly Monday class is looking at Kiss Me Kate and Annie Get Your Gun.
This week’s Show Tune Tribune will answer:
• What’s quirky about the Kiss Me Kate film?
• Why are Broadway sequels a lousy bet?
• Which show tune uses the word “catarrh” - and what on Earth does that mean?
The 1953 movie version of Kiss Me Kate is a family favorite, and there are three fun Easter eggs:
1) Yes, that’s Bob Fosse as Hortensio dancing in the “Tom, Dick, or Harry” number.
2) If you don’t pay careful attention, you may not notice how often characters throw things at the screen. It’s strange until you realize the film was shot in 3D, and moviegoers at such films obviously don’t want to watch a flat screen.
3) The reference in “Too Darn Hot” to the contemporary sexual research in the Kinsey Report was removed. The song, which is about both physical temperature and sexual arousal, originally read
According to the Kinsey report
Every average man you know
Much prefers to play his favorite sport
When the temperature is low
But when the thermometer goes way up
And the weather is sizzling hot
Mister Adam for his madam is not
but the word “Kinsey” was changed to “latest.” It makes less sense but the erotic message is the same.
Whenever I hear the show title Annie Get Your Gun I’m reminded of a guy in my yeshiva (Jewish text-study school) who thought it’s the sequel to Annie. It’s funny, of course, but Broadway sequels do exist - and inevitably fail.
In fact, there actually WERE three produced sequels to the Depression-set plucky orphan show, each quirky in its own way:
1989’s Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge was universally panned and never made it to Broadway;
1992’s Annie Warbucks, which picked up at the exact moment the original ended, did well off-Broadway with positive notices, but could not arrange the finances to move to the Great White Way.
And 1995’s Annie: a Royal Adventurewas a sequel to the 1982 movie version that appeared on television and had no songs but a reprise of “Tomorrow” at the end of the picture.
Why can’t Broadwayniks learn that Broadway sequels don’t work? I mean: Bring Back Birdie ran for four performances on Broadway, humiliating its creators. The Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public had just sixteen. I mean, come on, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom follow-up Love Never Dies never made it to Broadway. If a sequel to the longest-running show on Broadway fails, what chance does Dance of the Vampires 2 have?
Due to extraordinary demand, The Broadway Maven’s class on Annie Get Your Gun and Kiss Me Kate will meet four times:
• Monday, January 4 at Noon ET
• Monday, January 4 at 2 pm ET
• Monday, January 4 at 8 pm ET
• Tuesday, January 5 at Noon ET
With five days to go more than 70 percent of the available tickets have been claimed; please sign up now to reserve a spot.
Your optional homework for this week’s class is to watch this video. Then, in the comments at YouTube, answer this question: “Which of the two shows has stood the test of time better?”
Why do lyricists like to insert lines with references that they KNOW virtually nobody will get? Do they think that makes them Shakespeare? When Jonathan Larson has Mark Cohen in Rent say “This is Calcutta. Bohemia is dead” at a crucial moment before the song “La Vie Boheme” closing out Act One, we’re supposed to get the distinction?
And what about “catarrh”? Wikipedia says the word (meaning excessive mucus) is “no longer as widely used in American medical practice” and to most people it sounds like a Middle Eastern country. So why does Stephen Schwartz give us in the otherwise delightful Pippinsong “No Time at All” this lyric:
You will woefully wonder why, my dear
Through your cataracts and catarrh
Can anyone even spell catarrh who isn’t an eighth-grade spelling champ?
Are these lyricists just trying to demonstrate they’re smarter than we are?
Before every performance at St. Louis’s The Muny, the largest outdoor theater in the United States, Broadway’s Ken Page (Old Deuteronomy, Oogie Boogie) the “Voice of The Muny” invites everyone to stand for the national anthem.
It lends a solemnity to the theatrical endeavor that feels, to me, like a shared communal purpose in celebrating our freedom to enjoy whatever art we want.
I’ve never heard of any other theater doing that. Maybe they should.
Leonard Bernstein’s score to West Side Story advances the plot in subtle ways that, once revealed, can change the way you look at the show. In this video from the Sideways Channel, the musical structures are clearly and convincingly explicated. Don’t get caught up on the technical details – just marvel at the ways Bernstein transformed three notes (from the shofar ram’s horn call on Rosh Hashana) to express so many ideas.
Check out:
• One-minute video introduction to the course
• “Broadway Maven” playlist at YouTube
• David Benkof’s YouTube channel
Calendar:
Monday, January 4 Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate (Noon, 2 pm and 8 pm ET)
Tuesday, January 5 Annie Get Your Gun, Kiss Me Kate (Noon ET)
Thursday, January 7 Jewish Women Photographers (Noon ET) and Poets (1 pm ET)
Monday, January 11 Guys and Dolls; My Fair Lady (Noon and 8 pm ET)
Wednesday, January 13 Peter, Paul, & Mary 101 (8 pm ET) and Simon & Garfunkel 101 (9 pm ET)
Thursday, January 14 “If You Could See Cabaret Through My Eyes” (8 pm ET)
Monday, January 18 The Music Man, Gypsy (Noon and 8 pm ET)
Wednesday, January 20 Bob Dylan 101 (8 pm ET) and Billy Joel 101 (9 pm ET)
Monday, January 25 Hair, Grease (Noon and 8 pm ET)
Tuesday, January 26 Contemporary Jewish Broadway (Noon ET, ALL-ACCESS Passholders ONLY)
Wednesday, January 27 Carole King 101 (8 pm ET) and Debbie Friedman 101 (9 pm ET)
-David Benkof, The Broadway Maven
The Broadway Maven’s Show Tune Tribune is $5 a month or $36 a year. Starting next week, participants can subscribe by pressing the blue button at the top of the newsletter. The newsletter is free weekly until March 1, and then once a month thereafter.