A Chat With the Composer And Cast of "An Evening With Jerry Herman"By Simi Horwitz
Despite the rousing entertainment that marks "An Evening With Jerry Herman"--it's a musical romp through his legendary four-decade career--there's something sad here. Perhaps it's Herman himself who hints at sadness. Or perhaps it's his life story. There have been setbacks aplenty.
Sitting at the piano on the Booth Theatre stage--the three-character revue opened July 28--the composer-lyricist uses his professional biography to structure the show. Affable and matter-of-fact, he talks about his terrifically successful early career that included "Milk and Honey," "Mame," and "Hello, Dolly!," followed by almost two decades of failure--"Mack and Mabel," "Grand Tour," and "Dear World."
But like his own onstage tales--"I enjoy stories that are inspirational," he says--Herman returns to Broadway in the late '80s with his triumphant Tony Award-winning "La Cage aux Folles."
Playing the piano throughout, introducing the numbers, and singing some of his songs, Herman is joined by Florence Lacey and Lee Roy Reams, both veteran Jerry Herman performers on Broadway and the cabaret circuit. Indeed, the show evokes an upscale club act.
Herman, with whom we talk on the phone, admits the rugged times--his stalled career, his 13-year bout with HIV, and his open-heart surgery last fall--"are very much part of the reason I wanted to do this show."
Yet he insists it's no swan song. Admittedly, nostalgia plays a role here. But he has plans for the future and hopes this show serves as a reminder to those who may have forgotten him or think he's no longer a player. The song "I'll Be Here Tomorrow"--his rendition is one of the strongest numbers in the show--is his "personal anthem," he notes. "I'd love to do another book musical," he admits. "Performing in New York has given me the chance to meet with a number of people I'd like to work with, such as Terrence McNally and David Thompson. I get scripts," he emphasizes, "at least one a day and some of them could be turned into musicals. But I just don't feel the passion. I've been spoiled by the material I've worked with in the past."
Mr. Show Tune, as he's been dubbed, whose songs are hummable and accessible, is convinced his old-fashioned musical esthetic and optimistic vision--"narratives that are upbeat and characters that you love"--is definitely not passƒe.
To judge by the enthusiastic audience response, Herman's sensibility, not to mention the performers on stage, is hitting chords in some uncanny ways. It's his impressive body of work, the memories the songs may elicit--and the opportunity to see Herman himself.
"For years, I wouldn't open my mouth," he recalls. "I'd hire the best singers to do my material. But when the lead singer was sick at the 'Mack and Mabel' backers' audition, I had to step in. And to my amazement we raised all the money. That made me realize they loved hearing me sing my songs. That took away my fear of performing in public. But being on stage the whole time is grueling. I don't even have a chance to take a sip of water."
Structuring the show was Herman's most daunting task, he says. "Not which songs to include, but which ones to omit. I tried to make each song representative of the shows I selected. The most interesting thing to me is the audience and public responses to my failures. You hear the recognition applause, but beyond that, I believe some of those shows, musically speaking, are my best work. Audiences now don't understand why 'Mack and Mabel,' for example, wasn't a success."
He pauses, "I'm not doing this show to educate an audience, but to entertain them. This is me and my friends having a party in my living room."
Two Voices Behind the Lyrics
Both Florence Lacey and Lee Roy Reams, who also chat with us on the phone, testify to the party-like atmosphere. And that goal was easily achieved, they stress. Still, there are challenges presented by the revue format, the most significant of which is that there are no sustaining characters or storylines. Each number is discrete.
"But Jerry's songs have their own arcs built in," asserts Lacey. "The words are funny, witty, and strong. And because the lyrics are so specific, as an actress I can create my own story that combines elements of the character in the play and my own personal tale. In this show, I'm more me than in anything else I've done.
"Musically," she continues, "there's a great range here--from ballads to show tunes to French cabaret-like numbers. In some ways, this is like appearing in an opera, with one terrific number following another." The fun elements notwithstanding, the two singers are called upon to switch musical gears, virtually from song to song.
"The most difficult piece I do is 'I Don't Want to Know,' from 'Dear World' [Herman's musical version of 'Mad Woman of Chaillot']. It's hard because of the views expressed--it's a celebration of illusion. That's not a fashionable idea today. And there are the vocal demands. It's all sung on one vocal level and that's stressful. And stylistically--it's a kind of French cabaret piece--that's a little alien."
Reams, who directed the evening, concurs that the amount of singing he and Lacey do in this revue--or "concert" as he prefers to call it--in addition to the range they must demonstrate, makes performing this show unnerving.
"You have to be able to do that big, open Broadway sound and sing intimately. I especially like the fact that Jerry's songs emerge from what is happening in the scene: when the spoken word no longer says it, and only then, the character bursts into song. Jerry's songs are never mundane or prosey or rambling."
Like Lacey, Reams brings together the plays' characters as well as his own persona and stories. The format allows for--in a way demands--that kind of freedom, he points out."Still, you're always aware of Jerry's presence in each song," Reams emphasizes. "Jerry is saying something about Jerry in the numbers, regardless of who the character is or what play he's from."
Reams has an impressive theatre track record, including featured roles in "Beauty and the Beast," "La Cage," and "42nd Street"; but interestingly, it's his experiences on the cabaret circuit, he says, that most prepared him for this gig.
"Cabaret forces you to concentrate, if for no other reason than that the audience is sitting so close to you. You are forced to look into their faces to tell them a story--people you have never met before. The breaking of the fourth wall has made me more comfortable on stage as both an actor in character and a performer not playing a character."
As director, Reams' goal was to make the audience listen to Herman's lyrics, he says. "I wanted to maintain a simplicity on stage--no extras to distract from the songs. We have a stage, a concert grand piano, and two stools. And that's it.
"The major issue was to use the space interestingly and never appear in the same space twice. Movement on stage--from the logistics of traffic control to choreography--has to seem effortless and logical, an extension of what's happening."
An Intimate Connection
Beyond the obvious nostalgia and musical appeal, Reams sees "An Evening With Jerry Herman" as filling a gap and as perhaps part of a larger trend. "I believe audiences want a more intimate connection with the performer on stage as opposed to inanimate objects competing with spectacular sets and special effects."
Although, he stresses, there is room for all kinds of theatre, he is convinced, "The human quality is missing in our lives and in our theatre. This show, like "Art" and "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," is responding to that need."
What's most striking to the three artists we talked with is the unexpectedly eclectic audience the show is attracting. The elegiac elderly ladies one would anticipate. Wildly cheering kids, on the other hand, are a surprise. "We don't know where they're coming from or who they are, but they're there," says Reams. "Some are theatre song fans; others have never heard the songs before."
At the preview we saw, two teens in the front row were giving the performers standing ovations at the end of almost every song that evening. Reams recalls that after the show, the two teens waited at the stage door for autographs.
"I'd like to see this as the first of a series of shows with musical theatre composer-lyricists performing on stage," says Reams. "It's the one time audiences get the chance to really hear the way the creator envisioned the songs."
For Herman, this unlikely production has given him the chance to meet his fans and see the personal role he's played in their lives. "I've had women meet me at the stage door to tell me which of my songs they played at their daughters' weddings and their sons' bar mitzvahs. They've told me I've had a part in the best times in their lives."
The feeling is mutual. Describing one of those grey-haired matinee audiences: "In the beginning they were subdued," says Herman. "By the close, they were screaming!" q
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