There was a movie made in '68 called The Night They Raided Minsky's. It's not a great film in some ways. The studio at one point thought it was unreleasable but its producers (Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin) and a film editor named Ralph Rosenblum performed major surgery, somewhat turning it into a different and better movie. I find it enormous fun, especially the star performances by Jason Robards and Norman Wisdom.
Some time in the last decade, it was announced that The Night They Raided Minsky's was being turned into a Broadway-style musical. I thought that was a good idea, especially since they'd be engaging the fine composer, Charles Strouse, who wrote some songs for the movie. Michael Ockrent was announced to direct…but then Ockrent passed away, as did Evan Hunter who was writing the book, and the project floundered. It has recently resurfaced as a new show called simply Minsky's, which is now playing down at the Ahmanson Theater in Los Angeles.
It says it's based on the movie and maybe 4% of it is. It's still about the Minsky's burlesque theater and about the efforts of a local community leader to close the place down…but that's darn near it. Even the roles that Robards and Wisdom played have been eliminated. Now, it's all about Billy Minsky fighting to keep his show open. His opponent is a local city councilman and by a too-contrived coincidence, Minsky happens to be in love with the councilman's daughter and vice-versa.
The art direction of the show is terrific. The staging is great. The dancing and dancers are great. The costumes are wonderful. The cast is mostly excellent, especially Christopher Fitzgerald as Billy Minsky. (Fitzgerald is the gent who was so good playing Igor in the Broadway version of Young Frankenstein. Other folks in the cast you might know include Rachel Dratch, formerly of Saturday Night Live, and George Wendt as the evil city councilman.) The dancing ladies are gorgeous and they don't wear a whole lot of clothing. Here. Take a look…
So it sounds like a great show, right? Well, you'll notice I haven't mentioned the book, music or lyrics.
I wanted to love this show, really I did. I love the era. I love the traditions and the nexus of old Jew comedians and barely-clad chorus girls. I love Christopher Fitzgerald and most of the members of the cast and I especially love the energy with which they perform the hell out of the material. But I couldn't love the material. The songs are largely forgettable…and I don't mean the next day. I mean by the time one song starts, you've forgotten the one before. (One exception is an Act Two duet by Rachel Dratch and an actor named John Cariani that's everything you wish all the other numbers could be.)
The book by Bob Martin, the man behind The Drowsy Chaperone, is just too full of illogical turns. The councilman's daughter is named Mary (played well by Katharine Leonard) and she wants a man who's, above all, honest. Her ideal guy is Abraham Lincoln but for no visible reason, she falls in love with con-artist Billy Minsky in about nine seconds and the feeling is mutual. She doesn't know he's Billy Minsky, the guy whose business her father is out to shut down. Then later, Minsky does something rotten to her father so to get revenge and find a way to close down the burlesque house, she and dad go undercover as new chorus girls in the show. Why does a woman who values honesty above all else disguise herself and lie about who she is? I dunno. Why does her father go along with this? Because someone thought it would be funny to have George Wendt in drag, I guess. Apparently, a good way for an upstanding moralist to show that a burlesque house is a den of sin is to dress up as a woman and go to work there.
The whole show's full of things like that, making the plot seem awfully forced. Maybe some of it will get fixed. Work is still being done on it as evidenced by the fact that the program book lists a musical number — "I Could Get Used to This" — that is no longer in the proceedings. Minsky's is playing here 'til March 1 and then, the producers have announced, they'll "take a fresh look at the show" but Broadway is definitely in their plans. I'll be surprised if it makes it that far but I've been surprised before.
In fairness, I should admit there are many funny moments and I'll repeat that Christopher Fitzgerald is terrific and that a lot of the dance routines are quite well done. Much of the audience last night, including my friend Carolyn, had a good time. There's an air of fun about the show and it sure tries hard. Like I said, I wanted to love it. I'm sorry I couldn't.