Curtains is a joke-filled backstage comedy whodunit. Set in Boston’s Colonial Theater in 1959 at the out-of-town tryouts of a troubled musical “of the Old West,” Robbin’ Hood Curtains had its own troubled gestation – originally begun in the 1980s with a score by musical theater superstars John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago, Kiss of the Spider Woman) and book writer Peter Stone, Curtains was plagued by the untimely deaths of Stone in 2003 and Ebb in 2004. Rupert Holmes (who wrote the score and the book for the 1986 Tony winner The Mystery of Edwin Drood) then wrote a completely new book as well as additional lyrics with Kander. The musical within the musical not only faces a hostile reaction from the critics, but also the death of the untalented and much hated leading lady (Patty Goble) during opening night curtain calls.
Enter homicide detective Lt. Frank Cioffi (David Hyde Pierce), who just happens to be a stage-struck amateur thespian (who boasts “in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, my bottom was very well-received”). Cioffi quarantines the entire cast and crew for his investigation and not only solves the mysteries (as others are murdered), but as play doctor lands up saving the show as well. His suspects include the vulgar, salty-tongued producer Carmen Bernstein (a delightfully raunchy Debra Monk, who reveals the dirty truth about the theater, “It’s a business”); her philandering diminutive husband Sidney (Ernie Sabella); the divorced songwriting team Georgia Hendricks and Aaron Fox (the dynamic Karen Ziemba and silver throated Jason Daniely); the effete, acerbic director (Edward Hibbert doing his usual snippy shtick); the show’s leading man Bobby Pepper (Noah Racey) and almost too sweet and helpful ingénue Niki Harris (the lovely Jill Paice); the ambitious wanna-be-star Bambi Bernet (Megan Sikora); and even the arrogant critic Daryl Grady (John Bolton), who trashes the show.
While the score doesn’t have the unforgettable insinuating zip of past Kander and Ebb musicals, and the cast consists of veteran troupers of enormous talent rather than stars, the musical boasts a genuine star performance from Hyde Pierce, who not only delivers the jokes with expert comic timing, but sings and dances with immense charisma and charm, especially during his poignant description of his lonely life “Coffee Shop Nights” and his magical transformation into a suave Gower Champion dancer (with Paice as his Marge) in the delicious and dreamy “A Tough Act to Follow.” Curtains may not be top drawer Kander and Ebb, but it is nonetheless an entertaining, decidedly old-fashioned musical which celebrates the theater and “show people.”
“Supercalifragilisticexpialoidocious” as well as new songs by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe. While Brown lacks Julie Andrews' warmth and charisma, she sings beautifully and her stern and starchy Mary Poppins hews closer to the nanny in P.L Travers’ books.
Despite the talent of the hard-working cast, Mary Poppins generates very
little theatrical magic, perhaps you have to be a child to be wowed by this
stage spectacle.
– Jane Klain
