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Weimar schnitzel
Berlin to Gloucester with Kurt Weill
BY SALLY CRAGIN

Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill: A Musical Voyage
Text and format by Gene Lerner. Musical arrangements by Newton Wayland. Directed by Celia Couture and Nancy Curran Willis. Musical direction by Tim Evans. Choreography by Theresa A. Melito. Set by Jeremy Barnett. Lighting by Jeff Benish. Costumes by Molly Trainer. With Benjamin DiScipio, Eileen Nugent, Chip Phillips, and Miranda Henry Russell. At Gloucester Stage Company through July 14.


From Brecht/Weill to Lloyd Webber — how could musical theater have fallen so far so fast? Yet to judge from Gloucester Stage Company’s game but flawed rendition of the 30-year-old revue Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill, even the German genius composed some forgettable tunes. Not with Brecht, however, and act one of this show reminds us what a brilliant collaboration that was. Unfortunately, there’s a whiff of bowdlerization and bounce where jaded sophistication might better serve. But the real issue, as Weill might have acknowledged, is the complete theater experience.

At Gloucester, this experience is both too long and too thin. Some 38 songs roll by, unremarkably performed and modestly shticked up with hats, canes, chairs, and props. The scope of this cabaret is expansive: there are five numbers from Threepenny Opera and seven from Happy End, with work from 11 shows altogether. Alas, spoken " text " intervenes, written by one Gene Lerner (who redeemed himself by writing the themesong to Zoom), and it’s simply godawful. Exposition is mostly of the " he did this on this date, he did that on that date " variety. And pity the player who must explain that Weill died before finishing a show about Huck Finn (Raft on the River, with Maxwell Anderson). We’re told that Weill planned to " flood " Raft with music; after being asked to pause and meditate on this daring choice of language, we’re further informed: " The image is so radiant, it illuminates the shores of tomorrow. "

Ker-thunk. As for the performances, each member of the quartet has had experience singing jazz or show tunes, so it’s no surprise that they seem more comfortable with the work from Weill’s American period than with the weird and lolloping rhythms of singspiel. But one major problem here is the accompaniment — just electronic keyboard (played by musical director Tim Evans) and drums (Leo Sharamitaro). The keyboard is far too tinny for the ribald 1920s songs of Weill’s Berlin period. Granted, nuance isn’t what Brecht/Weill was ever about, but there’s a subtlety that’s pretty much MIA. You’d never guess from the heavy downbeat here that Weill was capable of composing a lilting or an unexpected rhythm.

As for the singers, Eileen Nugent has a promising expressiveness, though she’s clearly concerned about hitting the high notes (and occasionally strays en route and on the return). Chip Phillips does a nasalized rendition of the Brecht-Weill material that first seems affected, then seems to fit, and then becomes flat. (One wishes he, of all the performers, had received sharper direction.) Ben DiScipio has a pleasant voice but not enough distinctiveness for this material, whereas Miranda Henry Russell seems to be singing out of her range all too often and mugging to make up for it. For her, projection is also an issue. Directors Celia Couture and Nancy Curran Willis evidently urged the cast to caper and fiddle with props. But this is distracting, as are quirky choices like the anachronistic Nazi armbands during the " Pirate Jenny " interlude. Weill deserves much better.

Weill came to America in 1933, after the Nazis drove him from Berlin. There was some more work with Brecht, but for the most part the German composer forged a shiny new life. He divorced his chanteuse wife, Lotte Lenya (they remarried in 1937), and was boffo on Broadway and in movies. Later lyricist partners make up a veritable Who’s Who of American men of letters: Maxwell Anderson, Ira Gershwin, Ogden Nash, Alan Jay Lerner, and Langston Hughes. Yet " September Song " (from Knickerbocker Holiday) aside, it’s a crying shame to hear him reduced to backing up Nash’s ephemera in " That’s Him " ( " You know the way you feel when Antoine finishes your hair " ). Or supporting Hughes’s Irish-bashing in " Lullabye. " Concerning a bellowing infant and two chars musing over a death in the tenement, this duet shows it was a long walk down the gangplank from " Pirate Jenny. "

Issue Date: July 4-11, 2002
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