Mack & Mabel @ City Center Encores!

[edjames]

Alas, another troubled musical at Encores. This review by Laura Collins-Hughes in today's NYTimes revisits this revival. Despite the troubled book, the music is a highlight. I'm seeing it tonight.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/theater/mack-and-mabel-review.html

[Doe Be Doe]

I'm seeing it tonight, too, with a friend who says it's one of her favorites.

[+ WilliamM]

I bought the 1995 London cast album today of Mack and Mable with the Overture and Entre' acte.

 

Just wonderful

[edjames]

The performance last night was good. The score is sublime and proves just how genius Jerry really was. The acting was OK, but by the end of the show, you understand why it doesn't work. They have been tweaking the script for decades. It ends unhappily, and I think that's a major problem. People don't want to go to a musical comedy and end up depressed. Shame. Would have loved to have seen Robert Preston tackle the lead role.

[Doe Be Doe]

I, too, saw it last night. It was amazing. I knew little about it going in but was very pleased with the music and the acting. My friend who went with me who had wanted to see it back in the 70s but it closed too soon said the same thing as @edjames: the second act just doesn't work. That said, I had fun.

[+ sam.fitzpatrick]

I saw the show this afternoon. My guest for the show was not familiar at all with the show and at intermission, he stated that he really enjoyed it. As we were leaving City Center, we both agreed that we enjoyed the show.

[+ beethoven]

I always enjoy Edjames' comments, but I can't see how Mack and Mabel could have a happy ending. She DID use drugs, and her career tanked by 1922. She DID die in 1930. His career was done in by sound, and his refusal to bend with the times. You can't change that. I saw the Encores production, and liked it. I thought Douglas Sills was excellent, but I admit that I was visualizing Robert Preston throughout!

I never saw the original, and I'm sorry that I didn't.

Happy ending? How would you do that?

[edjames]

Perhaps I should have said "happier note?"

Yes, alcohol, drugs and eventually TB did her in.

You don't always have to stick to the hardcore facts. It doesn't have to be strictly factual. Its show biz and liberties are often taken.

In this case the show "could have" ended the show when she returns to work with Mack Sennett and they "go off into the sunset..."

 

Just venting...but in a related Broadway experience...

Right now I am so pissed off at Telecharge that I'm fuming. I've had problems with the site since yesterday afternoon and without fixing my login problem (they keep sending me a temp password email!). It doesn't fix the issue. They offered to let me purchase over the phone but wouldn't waive the service charge. When they finally did offer to waive the service charge, they wouldn't refund it until after I saw the show in mid-April. I told them to forget it and I'll take a run to the box office. The Telecharge manager wouldn't even get on the phone line. Poor customer service!!!!

[body2body]

I saw Mack and Mabel in 1974 at LACLO. The show opened there as an out of town tryout before going to Broadway. I have very fond memories of the show. Preston was superb, and Bernadette Peters was heartbreaking. Time Heals Everything had everyone in tears, and then Lisa Kirk brought down the House with Tap Your Troubles Away. For Jerry Herman it was different because of how dark it was, which I think is why it was not a bigger success.

[+ WilliamM]

I saw Preston and Martin sing a song from "I Do! I Do!" at a pension fund concert in Philadelphia (1982). Wish I had seen the musical.

 

Robert Preston was wonderful. Mary Martin good.

Edited February 23, 2020 by WilliamM

[foxy]

I did see the original Mack & Mabel on Broadway in 1974. I remember at the time liking it a lot. But what made it even more fun was how I saw it. At the time I had a gay boss who was about 20 years older than me. Our department was just the two of us in a large corporation in Manhattan. He loved Broadway musicals. Every now and then if our workload was light, we‘d leave the office at lunchtime, tell the secretary we were out doing research, then we’d run off to see a matinee. He’d always buy the best seats available. I think he charged them to petty cash but I never asked. He was a fun boss.

[jeezifonly]

My first experience with MnM was a John Kenley summer stock prodn the summer after its B’way run. Karen Morrow as Mabel and Tommy Tune in a reworked character that was given Tap your Troubles. Loved! I Remember even at age I9 feeling the book was at odds with the music. Jerry was the eternal optimist and sometimes the inherent shimmer and color in his music simply can’t contribute the right emotional wallop. Still love the OBC album as well as the recorded London revival w OConnor and McGillen each for its own merits. The score is the star - I’d almost prefer a show that keeps the tunes to a totally different story