Category Archives: musicals

The 525,600 minutes of Dr. T

Posted by on 04/18/2026 Comments Off on The 525,600 minutes of Dr. T
Long shot of expressionistic bare Suessian movie set.

Busby-Berkely meets Emerald City meets Alice in Wonderland meets Kafka’s “The Trial”. Story, lyrics and screenplay by Dr. Seuss. Originally created in 1953, just 8 years after the end of WWII. The sets are expressionistic, weird, Seussian. The acting is banal, that stylized “Leave it to Beaver” cadence: “Listen here Mr. Zabladowski, you may be the very best plumber in town, but when it comes to piano lessons I hardly think you qualify as an expert!” I suppose this is meant to be witty but nobody talks like this.

Peter Lind Hayes plays Mr. Zablodowski, a plumber who gets pulled into the drama and becomes a father figure to the main character, Bart Collins, played by child actor and Lassie star Tommy Rettig. Hayes’ low-energy vibe is decribed in Michael’s Moviepalace as “drab and passive, giving us no confidence in his skills as a hero, a father figure, or even as a plumber.”

In direct contrast to the languid nightmare that is the rest of the movie is this remarkable freak and breath of fresh air, Hans Conried:

Hans Conreid as the maniacal conductor wearing a striped shirt with a pink embroidered bass clef on it.

He brings the zany full force. There are 11 musical numbers, cut down from an original of 20. Conried describes the audience at the Hollywood premiere of the original version ” “At the end there was only one boy left and he was waiting for his mother to pick him up” (Wikipedia). Apparently the original cut has been lost.

There are some fun touches, the chorus of green-painted zombie musicians are amusing.

Fantastical orchestra along stone steps of dungeon playing stylized horns.

The henchmen remind me of those on the old Batman tv show, bumbling oafs:

Henchmen in yellow and blue outfits with yellow and blue skullcaps. Yellow outfit means blue skullcap and vice versa.
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I suppose it would be too terrifying without the comic element, although there is a disturbing scene in a dungeon where a percussionist who played an extra bass drum hit is imprisoned in a bass drum that is being played foreverL

Dungeon scene of shadow of man trapped in a giant bass drum.
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With movies like this I wonder did no one look at it and say “We have five different types of films here that are all somewhat bad and don’t work together?” I like the ambition, the fantasy, the anti-fascist themes, the creativity, but it this one was hard to sit through.

Cabaret Revival? – “Nein danke”

Posted by on 05/31/2014 1 comment

Here’s a short list of actors who have reprised Joel Grey’s role as the emcee in “Cabaret”: Alan Cumming, John Stamos, Michael C. Hall, Doogie Howser, and now Alan Cumming II.  They do a version of this:

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doogie_cabaret
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 A louche, drippy, supposed sensuality.   What the role calls for is more of this:

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Grey’s manic clown-from-hell, who takes you places you-know-not-where.

This is because the parts of “Cabaret” that take place outside of the KitKat Klub are ominous and depressing.  They include the strangulation of Weimar Germany by creeping Naziism and a doomed romance between a Jewish greengrocer and the landlady Fraulein Schneider.

Alan Cumming seemed tired and disengaged at the matinee performance I saw recently.   Part of this is just style, watch the energy level change when Joel Grey takes over in this performance at the Kennedy Center in 1998:

The only way to counter the heavy tediousness of the main story, is to witness the spectacle of this talented freak-pixie and his bawdy backup group.

From what I can tell Alan Cumming’s performance was  was exactly the same down to the gesture as in the 1998 show.  I was also inordinately bothered by his pronunciation in the song “Money”, he says “Money makes DE world go around…” when all German speakers that I know would say “Money makes ZE world go around”.  Seems minor but nobody caught that?

At the Roundabout theater, you are seated in a replica of the Kit Kat Klub, which is fun.  Michele Williams hit the notes but was shrill.  My recommendation is to see the 1972 film “Cabaret”, for which Joel Grey rightfully won an Oscar for  Best Supporting Actor.