A new production of the musical Mack and Mabel is opening in a few days for a quick run at New York City Center. In case you don't know, it's about a love affair between the famous producer of silent comedies, Mack Sennett, and his best leading lady, Mabel Normand.
The original production was produced by the infamous David Merrick in 1974 and starred Robert Preston and Bernadette Peters. It had a book by Mike Stewart, a score by Jerry Herman and direction by Gower Champion, thus reuniting the team that had a few years earlier created Hello, Dolly! The original production of Dolly ran for 2,844 performances. Mack and Mabel was around for a few less: It closed after 66.
Mack and Mabel received eight Tony Award nominations including Best Musical and won a total of zero. Oddly enough, none of the nominations were for Mr. Herman's score. And what's odd about that is that most theater experts will tell you the score was the best thing about the show and the main reason that it keeps being revived way more often than any other non-Sondheim show that was considered a flop.
Many of these revivals tinker with the book, which was regarded as too "dark" when it debuted on Broadway. Many of those revivals lighten it. Some darken it. None of their storylines really have that much to do with what actually happened between the real Mack and the real Mabel…but there are those songs. Here's a little video previewing one of the better tunes as performed by the stars of this revival, Douglas Sills and Alexandra Socha…