Well, I'm not generally a fan of musicals, but Hooray for What?, mentioned by Martha a week ago, sounded interesting, and anyway L. loves musicals and hopes to write one about the death of Natalie Wood, so we went to see it Friday.
As Martha mentioned, the play was first produced in 1937, with lyrics by Yip Harburg, who went on to have a big hand in The Wizard of Oz and then to get blacklisted.
It starts off in a small town in Indiana with a few scathing numbers about American xenophobia and provincialism and ends with a few scathing numbers about internationalism and war profiteering. In between there are some nice half-sarcastic love songs and lots of idiots walking around dressed as spies with ridiculous fake accents.
It's not hard to imagine Yip getting blacklisted after seeing this play, which is charming and occasionally hilarious. Good old leftist fun. But as an anti-war play it really would have been more topical had it been released in, say, 1913. An obvious point, I guess, but something I never realized before, that it's not only the generals who always try to fight the last war. The last half of the play takes place at a peace conference in Geneva, across the street from which the armaments manufacturers naturally set up a weapons exposition. And then, of course, there's the fact that one of the central characters is a scientist who invents a "death gas". No one was about to touch that one after a certain point.
Very enjoyable. I haven't felt so all-American, sitting in a theater, since I saw The Cramps Halloween show a few years ago, in which Lux Interior fellated Poison Ivy's five inch spike-heeled boot to the strains of "Strychnine", among other things. Oh, how times have changed. Well, it's hard to explain.
Posted by Alan Hogue at November 29, 2004 02:46 PMMmm. Somehow I've never managed to see a Cramps show live. Such a pity -- I still remember their performance of "Let's Tear This Damn Place Up" on Urgh! A Music War making a bigger impression on me than any of the other acts.
How's the latest album?
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at November 30, 2004 09:15 AMDon't know, I'm only really familiar with their first couple of albums, and I haven't seen them play in about three years. Even at their age they still put on a hell of a show. I think they are both in their early fifties by now.
But considering that the new one has a song called "Dr. Fucker M.D. (Musical Deviant)", I might just be tempted to buy it.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at November 30, 2004 10:20 AMWell, I can recommend Stay Sick, but suggest you skip Flamejob -- the only really good track on that is their cover of "Route 66."
Posted by: Ben Brumfield at November 30, 2004 02:41 PM