Today is the final show of A Catered Affair, the new musical by John Bucchino (with a book by Harvey Fierstein). I caught a matinee yesterday, getting in right under the wire, thanks to a cheap ticket on TDF. (If you don't know TDF, check it out. It's the only affordable way to see what's happening in New York without breaking your bank account.) It was important for me to see this show because my friend Richie Jackson was one of the producers. What would I say if I ran into him? "Oh, sorry, I missed your Broadway show!?"
But maybe it would've been better if I hadn't seen it. I still won't know what to say to Richie, although, the end-product is hardly the fault of a hard-working producer. I could understand what he saw in it, especially given the strength of the source material: a teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky and a Warner Brothers motion picture written by Gore Vidal. Add to that combination the presence of Harvey Fierstein as both writer and star, and it seems like a sure-thing. So where did this production go awry?
Creating a work of theater is like cooking. Straight plays are easier, like cooking supper for a group of friends. The better the recipe the better the meal. You may miss some ingredients, over or under-cook, substitute rice for potatoes, but in the end it will still taste pretty good if you stick to the main idea. Throw in some nice Chablis and all is forgiven.
Musicals are quite a different animal. They are like serving a ten-course dinner to a group of strangers. Like preparing, well...a catered affair. So many things can go wrong: bad choice of entree, too few hors-d'oeuvre, wrong choice of linen, not enough glass-ware. It takes extraordinary planning and command to pull off an event of that magnitude. And so it is in the theater. There more ingredients are in the mix, the more margin there is for disaster.
Nothing about A Catered Affair was a disaster. Zachary Borovay's projection design won the day, proving that filmic elements can be successfully used in the theater in a way that isn't so obvious. Brilliantly incorporated into David Gallo's set design, the projections embraced the production, giving us time, place, mood, and character. Ann Hould-Ward's costume design was functional, if not phenomenal, and Brian Macdevitt's lighting design worked seamlessly within the intricacies of the projections. If the sound design failed at any level it was owing to the decision to mic everything to the point of excess. The Walter Kerr isn't a large theater, but it is an old, acoustically-challenged one. A great performer like Faith Prince, however, doesn't need a mic in a space this size. It made her sound tinny and removed. At the design level, though, the show was a success.
Where it missed its mark, I think, is in both the score and the direction. The music, like the production was simply flat. There never seemed to be any emotional justification for the characters breaking into song. So many of the songs were exposition, and the style of the writing was non-lyrical. There wasn't a "hummable" tune in the entire show. (Even the spoken/sung quality of Caroline or Change had a least a couple of melodic lines to follow.) If there's never any "event" that raises the stakes up so a character has to sing rather than speak, then either the entire show should be spoken (a play) or sung (an opera). Otherwise, the audience doesn't know what world we're in.
I think the biggest mistake of all, however, was the choice of John Doyle as director. Sure, he's done some great work with musicals in the past, but working with new composers isn't in his repertoire. He likes a lean production, and gives a modern look to all his shows by paring them down to the essential. There's never a single extra prop, chair, set piece, or even a single movement by an actor that would be deemed in any way unnecessary to telling the story. It's a concert-style of acting, and the simplicity and honesty it conveys works beautifully for the shows of Stephen Sondheim. But Paddy Chayefsky is a different animal. His work grew out of the Group Theatre in the 1950's and his writing is all about character. Mr. Doyle certainly understands this, but he didn't give his performers enough of a sense of place and time, enough dramatic conflict. There seemed to be nothing at stake for these characters, their struggles seemed small and unimportant. There wasn't enough love imbued in the playing.
Maybe it was the end of the run and the actors were simply deflated. The closing of a show is a very sad time for a company, and the energy can just seep right out of the playing. But I must confess, I found myself checking my watch, looking at the lights, thinking about the projections, wondering when something, anything would actually happen. It never did.
A Catered Affair played 116 performances since its opening on Broadway in April of this year. It had a remarkable cast, a brilliant design team, and the strength of a very good story. But somehow it just didn't work. It was like sitting at a wedding reception poking your fork into a bland piece of chicken, and wishing you'd eaten before you arrived.
