No one loves a good dramatic musical more than I do -- but sometimes, rather than cry along with the music, you just wanna laugh. Thanks to two of New York City's best Off-Broadway theater companies, the York and the Atlantic, we have two great new opportunities to do just that.
The sounds currently emanating from those theaters are audience members chortling and guffawing in response to the companies' respective productions of a great old show called Enter Laughing (formerly, "So Long, 174th Street") and a wonderful new one whose very title tips you off to its hilarity quotient: What's That Smell: The Music of Jacob Sterling.
It's not surprising that Enter Laughing is a hoot, given its pedigree. The original source material is a semi-autobiographical novel by Carl Reiner, who went on become a TV comedy big-wig when he created -- and wrote himself a nice featured role in "The Dick Van Dyke Show." Reiner's novel was adapted into a play by Joseph Stein, who worked with Reiner on the writing staff of "Your Show of Shows" and later proved himself adept as both a dramatic and comedic writer with his books for such musicals as Fiddler on the Roof and Zorba. The play eventually became a film and, in 1976, the Broadway musical So Long, 174th Street -- with a book by Stein and music and lyrics by Stan Daniels, who would go on to become a king of TV comedy himself as a writer and/or producer of "Taxi," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Phyllis," "The Bill Cosby Show," etc.
So Long... flopped big-time on Broadway, managing a total of only 16 performances. Judging from the York's production, its failure must have been due not to any flaws in the material but to the miscasting of then-45-year-old Robert Morse in the central role of 17-year-old David Kolowitz. (That epic blunder was reportedly the doing of the show's producer, Frederick Brisson, who had previously perpetrated an even worse crime against musical theater when he bought the film rights to Gypsy in order to steal the role of Rose away from Ethel Merman and hand it to his wife, the vocally challenged Rosalind Russell.)
No such problem exists in the York production. On the contrary, young Josh Grisetti is side-splittingly funny as David, whose dreams of theatrical stardom are nearly derailed by his inexperience and a world-class case of stage-fright. Nothing in Grisetti's bio, except perhaps his stint in the Las Vegas production of Spamalot, would lead anyone to believe he could play this plum role with such brilliance -- and I don't use that word lightly. If it's possible for a performance in a limited-run, Off-Broadway revival of a flop musical to make someone a star, this one will do the trick for Grisetti.
Directed with razor-sharp comic timing by Stuart Ross, the York's Enter Laughing also features standout work by Robb Sapp, Janine LaManna, Ray DeMattis, Betsy DiLellio, and Rick Devine as various people in David Kolowitz's life. Jill Eikenberry is not quite right as David's mother, but her real-life-husband, Michael Tucker, is perfect as her on-stage husband.
If nothing else, this show must be seen for the amazing George S. Irving's recreation, 32 years later, of his original role of Harrison Marlowe. His rendition of "The Butler's Song" -- better known as "He's Screwing Dolores Del Rio" -- remains an all-time-classic musical comedy moment, and it's a joy to see and hear it again.
