"Forbidden Broadway' at the Walnut's Studio 3

It's not often that I attend a show and find myself thinking, "I could have written this better." This isn't necessarily a reflection on the show at hand. I am, after all, a professional wordsmith with a longer and more varied career than many playwrights and songwriters— including the playwright/actor/director Gerard Alessandrini, creator and author of the musical revue Forbidden Broadway's Greatest Hits.

Over many years, as the muse has inspired me on the sidewalk, in the shower or before a men's room urinal, I've produced an extensive oeuvre of musical song parodies for the amusement of friends and relatives; it includes my medley of updated Ivy League fight songs, my revised national anthems for Iraq, Switzerland and Bangladesh, and my Christmas carols for atheists, not to mention my political campaign songs for John Street, Marty Weinberg and Vince Fumo, and "Forty-Five Minutes From Camden," my theme song for the Chestnut Hill Community Association (to the tune of George M. Cohan's "Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway").

I offer here one sample, which came to me a few years ago as I stepped off a plane from Europe: my entry in the seemingly endless quest for a Philadelphia song (to the tune of "California, Here I Come"):

Philadelphia, here I come,
Right back with my Dad and Mum.
Where acres of Quakers meet in the shade;
Blue collars and scholars do their thing and still get paid.
A Main Line matron on a horse
Kissed me with such regal force;
Now she's got her third divorce—
Philadelphia, here I come!

Whatever your opinion off this ditty, it ranks (in my admittedly biased judgment) several levels above anything offered in the sophomoric and heavy-handed Forbidden Broadway revues.

Fosse and Sondheim as targets

Alessandrini is an astute theatrical observer who readily perceives the flaws in Broadway musicals. But it is one thing to notice, say, the lack of substance in Bob Fosse's Chicago or the impenetrability of a Stephen Sondheim song, and another thing to parody them effectively.

Alessandrini's spoof songs are not parodies as much as sung critiques. It may be true that Mamma Mia is "High art if you're 17," or that the producer Cameron Mackintosh performs no function quite so well as the marketing of souvenirs. But this information in itself isn't very entertaining.

(To be sure, it can be. In the '60s, for example, Mad Magazine lampooned the marketing of the film version of The Sound of Music, to the tune of "Climb Every Mountain": "Book just one theater/In every town;/Charge outrageous prices,/Turn most people down.")

Carol Channing's longevity

To a large extent, Forbidden Broadway's Greatest Hits aims its barbs less at Broadway shows themselves than at show people, like Ethel Merman, Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand and Carol Channing. In general the show's schtick is to latch onto some individual quirk (like Channing's insistence on reprising Dolly Levi into her 80s) and beat it to death.

This sort of thing can be fun if you're at a roast dinner and everyone present (including the roastee) has consumed at least three drinks. But in a theatrical setting, what David Eisenhower once said about journalists applies to actors as well: They're not as interesting as they think they are.

An audacious thought

Anyway, as I sat there watching four energetic young performers race through 90 minutes of costume changes and banal material, a thought occurred to me. Brassy Jennie Eisenhower and petite Ellie Mooney possess dynamite voices and decent stage presence. Sonny Leo and Marcus Stevens may lack star quality (Leo extracted the evening's biggest laugh by baring his hairy chest and armpits in a drag number), but they did display considerable versatility. The real star of the show— the piano accompanist, Gina Giachero— repeatedly pumped life into an otherwise dying vehicle.

So, I thought, what could these kids do with better material, especially in an intimate spot like the Walnut's Independence Studio 3? What could they do, say, with my updated Gilbert and Sullivan medley, my Princeton University Admissions Department fight song, my lament for the displaced Zionist settlers of southwest Gaza (to the tune of "Anatevka," from Fiddler On the Roof) and my Protestant hymns for Generation X, not to mention my country-Western ballads for Catholics who are sick of Bach and Rossini? Folks, I've got a million of 'em.

I know, I know— they sound funnier then they really are, especially if you have to listen to 90 minutes' worth. Which is probably the best you can say about Forbidden Broadway's Greatest Hits.


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