Thoroughly Modern Millie – Then and Now

Loving the original Broadway Thoroughly Modern Millie as much as I did in 2002, I expected to have a great time at its 15.5-year Reunion Concert tonight for the Actors Fund, at the Minskoff Theatre.

Nothing could have prepared me for one of the greatest nights in Broadway history.

Affection and outright love for the show has accumulated over the years, as some of its original participants have gone on to become Broadway legends of our day, as performers, personalities, composers, directors, and choreographers. The show's ubiquity in stock and regional theatre has spread its charms among a whole new generation of young performers and audiences coming up in the biz. The years of accumulated fondness for the show was fully reflected in the historically explosive, shattering response at the Minskoff tonight.

Almost every performer of the original cast appeared in tonight's Reunion Concert, with 14 of the original pit musicians recreating their unparalleled work playing one of the last great orchestrations ever heard on the Great White Way (begun by the late Ralph Burns, and finished in beyond-brilliant fashion by Doug Besterman.) Terrific original conductor Michael Rafter returned to the podium, after overcoming major life challenges (maybe many have – he's just the one I know about.) Jeanine Tesori, Rob Ashford, and Dick Scanlan were present, and how great that they were there to witness the event and the audience reaction.

You'll read elsewhere about the audience's electrified and electrifying response to each of the evening's triumphs, which occurred regularly every 30 seconds. Suffice it to say that Sutton Foster's first entrance, alone on stage, inspired the entire sold-out Minkoff theatre audience to stand up and cheer and scream for over five solid minutes without stopping – as they recalled Sutton's life story, from unknown second replacement in this unlikely Millie Broadway hybrid, to star of Broadway, television and concert halls, and the sheer fun and originality of her original Millie characterization and performance – which she recreated accurately and expertly, along with all her outstanding original cast, that exceptionally rare blend of first-rate talents across the board, then and now.

I thought I'd republish my editorial from my original website, representing my very first impressions of the show shortly after it opened in 2002.  My admiration and love for the show only increased when I subsequently conducted the Gateway Playhouse production in 2006 (cast members of which appeared in tonight's large dance ensemble); and as Broadway has drifted further and irrevocably away from anything I'd be likely to find companionable in 2018, my love for Millie has become a treasured memory of my youth and my Broadway illusions – and seeing this sensational reunion performance was like seeing an old friend I never thought I'd see again. I just wept, and I'm glad I lived long enough.

 -- Fred Barton, February 12, 2018

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CHECK YOUR PERSONALITY:  THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE

Ever introduced your latest paramour to your friends and seen the unmistakable frozen smile that says, "You've got to be kidding?"

So shortly before the Tony Awards, I was dragged to see Thoroughly Modern Millie, with the pans of the Times, the New Yorker, and several unenthusiastic individuals ringing in my ears. What can I say? Less than half way through Act One, I was humiliated to find myself thinking, "I'm liking this." At intermission, I turned red and thought, "I'm loving this." And during the curtain calls I found myself standing up and cheering, with 1500 other people, and I had no choice but to publicly admit I really loved it.

Now my friends are looking at me funny. Have I lost my curmudgeonly edge? Or just my mind? I feel almost as self-conscious as the aged artist in Thomas Mann's Death In Venice, falling for jailbait.

Check your personality. For a Broadway romantic, falling for a show can be just as unpredictable and mysterious as falling for a person -- and in either case, all the intellectual cynics in the world, including yourself, might not be able to change your mind. 

According to Lorenz Hart, after all: "It seems that we have met before, and laughed before, and loved before, but who knows where or when?" -- i.e. these unaccountable fascinations at first sight are actually a sudden connection of dots from your past. I might add, "Who cares where or when?" -- but I have a few ruminations on the subject, and it all depends on your personal Broadway history. Whether you find Millie a finely crafted ice-cream sundae or a vat of Cool Whip is partly a matter of taste, but more a matter of your past ice-cream-sundae experience.

I think those poor Times critics and their ilk have spent too much time dining in esoteric downtown restaurants to appreciate this particular confection, if I may drag this metaphor out for another paragraph. I have long suspected Ben Brantley of not "getting" the Broadway musical as an entertainment form, either historically or sociologically; I wish the Times would let him yap about Topdog/Underdog and give the musicals to Ken Mandelbaum or someone with a Broadway musical clue.

But back to Millie. Or rather, back to No, No, Nanette, the 1971 smash revival that inaugurated a huge anti-Hair nostalgia boom that swept the country the following year in the form of MGM's compilation That's Entertainment. I didn't see Nanette, but I heard it, and learned a priceless lesson: there can be something for everyone in the pantheon of Broadway entertainment. What a relief -- not every show had to break the mold and change the world, as Harold Prince and Stephen Sondheim were capably and thrillingly doing in their corner.

Nanette producer Harry Rigby reportedly said that Oklahoma! set the cause of escapist Broadway entertainment back thirty years. He put his money where his escapist mouth was in 1980 with Sugar Babies -- movie stars, shtick, great old Jimmy McHugh songs exquisitely orchestrated by Dick Hyman et al., baggy-pants-comics, girls, girls, girls, and a beautiful production design. It ran for about a hundred years at the late, great Mark Hellinger Theatre, although I only saw about ten of those performances. This particular ice-cream sundae was definitely not for the hip experimental downtown theatre crowd -- but it played around the corner from Sweeney Todd, proving again that there was room on Broadway for, to quote the Hal Prince movie, "Something For Everyone."  

You get the picture. I had a great time at Lorelei when I was 15: a big Broadway star (two if you count Li'l Abner legend Peter Palmer), a stage full of color and tap dancing and Charlestons, Jule Styne songs played by a raucous orchestra, and twinkling lights a-go-go. Of course it was a ridiculous star vehicle revival. That's why you went. Hellzapoppin' was another one (now you know I grew up in Boston) with all of the above, including the Jule Styne songs (it was basically Sugar Babies in the wrong hands, but Hellzapoppin' had a million more twinkling lights, so I loved it too).

Nanette spawned a million period revivals. Irene was a killer -- I wouldn't have missed it for the world; I saw the tour with Jane Powell as the enterprising ingenue who heads out of her little neighborhood to take on New York (see Millie, below). Whoopee! had one of the greatest tap dances in Broadway history, choreographed by Dan Siretta ("My Baby Just Cares For Me" at the end of Act One -- what a short memory Broadway has). And on and on, right up to 42nd Street, with an enterprising ingenue who heads out of her little neighborhood to take on New York. C'mon, people, it's a Broadway tradition -- for people who remember those days, or for us misfits who grew up in a rock-and-roll world, watching old musicals late at night on black-and-white televisions instead of doing homework. 

So what is it about Millie? Maybe it helped that I'm no fan of that dumb lox of a movie, so I had the pleasant surprise of finding the musical's book actually funny -- with just enough romance to make me 14 again, and just enough self-parody (unlike Urinetown, which I also found very funny, but with way more than enough self-parody). 

You've heard about Sutton Foster; but have you heard about Gavin Creel, her leading man? Playing the rakish juvenile opposite a powerhouse is not the easiest assignment in the world, but Mr. Creel aces the assignment in spades (I was never good at cards). He sings like a dream, acts wittily with perfect pitch for the style, alternately conjures Robert Taylor and Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, and is charming and amusing and handsome and I'm gaga for him. There, I said it. And happily, the Tony nominating committee agreed with me.

I dreaded the prospect of a Beatrice Lillie replacement all evening, and I wasn't reassured by Harriet Harris's first scene, with her diction hard to decipher (even factoring in the required accent). But she becomes amusing almost immediately, and ends up being hilarious, nailing one particular line in her scene with Sheryl Lee Ralph with a brilliant stroke of timing that brings down the house.

I could go on and on. Mark Kudisch is first-rate, Anne Nathan is a real find (where was she when they did How To Succeed a few years ago?), the two Chinese boys are only perfect. Sheryl Lee Ralph may not be a world-class voice, and may not be the world's most expertly-timed comedienne, but she delivers the songs in high style, and totally won me over with her merry sense of sheer Broadway fun.

Broadway fun? Well, that's the speech, to quote Norman Maine. 

The choreography is far more than appropriate, and far more than just lively steps, which any number of people might have provided -- it's unpredictable and inventive and fun to watch, and the wild office sequence alone would give Susan Stroman a run for her money, and evidently did. Now our lofty downtown critics have all expressed contempt for those energetic smiles in the chorus; but what would you have in a breezy period show, Fosse-style deadpan ominous glares? Or the poorly-dressed, oddball crowd doing their relentless sinister shuffle over at Sweet Smell Of Success? Get a clue, critics -- it's that type of show, and this is a massively attractive and talented bunch of dancers. 

The orchestrations range from the appropriate to the out-of-this-world: "Only In New York" is the most ravishing Broadway orchestration to hit the airwaves in some time.

As for the songs, they range from the appropriate to the memorably tuneful, with a little Clever thrown in there. My only quibbles (and they are merely that, only quibbles): I would have shortened "I Turned The Corner" by one chorus; and I would have given Harriet Harris a stronger hook. Her song of villainy is not unlike "Revenge" from It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman, and it has a few great laugh lines, but its hook is "They Don't Know" -- which we hold to be self-evident. I would have given it some kind of twist; "What They Don't Know -- Will Hurt Them." Or something. I also would have given Harris a musical exit at the end of the show, to guarantee applause, in place of the one-liner that doesn't. But on the whole, Jeanine Tesori's tunes are fun to hear and Dick Scanlan's lyrics likewise, as are the welcome retention of two of the movie songs and some witty interpolations from -- well, you'll see.

Finally, the show is a gorgeous thing to behold. The clothes are ravishing, the sets are ravishing, the lighting is way above Broadway standards. Our carping critics have complained that the set is lit in "garish" colors. Bravo! It's an Emerald City fantasia version of New York as seen through the eyes of a small-towner. Since my first visit to see Mack & Mabel in 1974, I've always thought of New York as my personal Emerald City with Art Deco towers lit up all night, where someday I would move, embark on a bohemian struggle to the Big Time, immediately bump into the love of my life, do a soft shoe on an 80th floor ledge somewhere, and have my Broadway Ice Cream Sundae and eat it too.

So I'm a sucker for Thoroughly Modern Millie -- sue me.

-- Fred Barton, June 9, 2002