What classifies one as a leather jacket man? I'm certainly short on muscle. I certainly don't want to be mistaken for one of those burly chaps-wearing S&M gays. Well, I'll probably buy it anyway, as it makes me feel cool. Oh, I can't wait till my midlife crisis.
After shopping in Soho, I went to midtown and acquired a ticket to Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me at 7 PM. I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to see it, but the reviews had been lukewarm, and I've seen just about everything else on Broadway (except for Tarzan, which I'll stick to my guns on and skip, and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, which I'm still waiting to see because of the lottery policy). Anyway, despite my trepidation, it turned out to be a great show.
It's a scattershot revue with a pastiche of songs recalling other Broadway shows (Wicked, Dreamgirls, Kander & Ebb style shows). Short, in structuring the show as a tell-all (or is it none) story (“A lot of what I’m telling you tonight will be true,” he says, “a lot I’ll be making up. See if you can tell the difference."), actually ends up placing a good deal of the focus on his group of "Comedy All-Stars," all of whom are delighful and, collectively, far outshone Short in my opinion. When he was onstage going on and on with some shtick I wasn't particularly responding to, I just wanted the All-Stars to come back again.
Each player had a few great moments to shine. Mary Birdsong, apparently making her Broadway debut, channeled Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli wonderfully in spoofs of, respectively, The Wizard of Oz and Studio 54. Judy and Liza impressions, of course, are always a plus for me. Brooks Ashmanskas and understudy Jill Abramovitz were great in assorted roles, as was composer and co-lyricist Marc Shaiman at the piano. The highlight of the show for me, though, was Capathia Jenkins as "Big Black Lady," who gets to stop the show with the eleven o'clock number "Stop the Show," which brought down the house. Dissapointingly, she didn't appear in the show until her showstopping number close to the end in which she proclaims that all such showstopping "big black lady" songs are written by "gay white Jews." Clearly, they were saving the best for last.
Also notable were sequences where Short remembers his fictional past playing Jesus' stepbrother in an off-off-Broadway musical entitled Step Brother de Jesus and the interview segment (for which Short rotates guests, appearing as one of his signature characters, Jiminy Glick). Tonight's guest was Dick Cavett, whom I'm not too familiar with but is apparently famous for hosting "The Dick Cavett Show" throughout the '60s and '70s. No matter, he was a riot.
All in all, the show wasn't quite Broadway gold, but it was a great way to cap off the summer and to stoke the fires of a promising new Broadway season.
Anyway, I also apparently also have a large tattoo on my forehead only visible to theatregoers and others in showbiz that says "TELL ME A STORY" in big, bold black letters. The usher before the show engaged me in a long conversation that extended even after she seated several groups of patrons about her various experiences as a replacement usher, founder of her own theatre company (which she departed due to "artistic differences"), and her strong principles that stop her from being quite so open to collaborating with other theatre artists (which is, obviously, essential). She was quite nice, but I always end up talking for longer than I mean to when a conversation is stricken up at a show. It certainly is a good sign for the state of the world, though, that conversations can be started among theatre patrons though without much anxiety. I've had many a great conversation in the audience of a show where I've gone by myself and ended up talking to a random neighbor. All in all, I like going to theatre alone (with some exceptions, of course), because it forces me to think about the show rather than to strike up other conversation.
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