I miss Reprise!, which was a company here in Los Angeles that revived old musicals for a few weeks at a time. Their shows had minimal sets and even less rehearsal but they often had enough talent to triumph over those handicaps.
In 2000, they offered up Mack and Mabel, which is one of those that never quite goes away even though it's only occasionally been much of a success. The original production with Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters lasted six weeks on Broadway. General consensus: Some great songs by Jerry Herman but the book and staging let them down.
The book has been revised a few times by different parties and it never seems to satisfy anyone. This may be because there really wasn't an interesting story to tell about the relationship between the self-proclaimed King of Comedy, Mack Sennett and his leading lady, Mabel Normand. Anyone who tries that is building on a pretty shaky foundation.
In 2000, Reprise! staged it and I was there. So was someone with a camera. This is Jane Krakowski who played Mabel — quite well, I thought…