Having decided not to travel far or get on an airplane until COVID is much less of a concern, I can only follow Broadway from afar, as we did with the revival of The Music Man. I am intrigued that a new musical — Mr. Saturday Night — is currently there in previews with an announcing opening date of April 27.
It's at the Nederlander Theater and it's based, of course, on the 1992 movie which starred Billy Crystal, David Paymer and other folks. The musical version stars Billy Crystal, David Paymer and other folks. The screenplay for the movie, which was by Billy Crystal, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandell has been adapted for the stage by Billy Crystal, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandell. The music is by Jason Robert Brown and the lyrics are by Amanda Green. John Rando is directing.
I liked but did not love the movie and one thing that didn't work for me in it was the makeup jobs done to make Mr. Crystal look younger and then older and then younger again and then older again and so forth. David Paymer as his brother actually seemed to regress and age as per the film's timeline but Crystal, to me, just kept looking like Billy Crystal with stuff on his face. I wouldn't imagine that would be a problem with a stage version. When you do Peter Pan on stage, it's okay if the audience can see the wire because they'll pretend they don't. An audience for live theater can pretend Billy Crystal is whatever age the scene says he is…and he is thirty years older now.
The other night, a lady friend and I watched the DVD of the film and we both enjoyed it a lot…for me, more than when I saw it in a theater, way back when. I again thought that David Paymer was the best thing in it. He's usually the best thing in whatever he does…even a cartoon show for which he did voices, directed by me. A lovely man. A very fine actor. And don't for a minute think I had to give him any sort of real direction.
What makes me wonder about the storyline as a musical is that the character Crystal plays — semi-successful-but-not-for-long comedian Buddy Young, Jr. — is not a very nice guy most of the time. His two defining traits are that and a certain lack of self-awareness. As Paymer's character (Young's brother-agent) tells him in the film, he takes every bad break and makes it worse. Most characters in musicals have a certain understanding of what they want and at the end of the show, they get it. Buddy Young's story is mainly one of self-induced failure and blindness to his own self-destructive nature. Still, these are skillful folks making this show. I hope they pull it off and that it runs long enough for me to get back there and see how they did it.