By Harry Haun
23 Mar 2007

Broadway came out in force and celebrated itself March 22 when Curtains went up at the Al Hirschfield Theatre. It's your garden-variety Backstage Murder Mystery Musical, set in the olden times of 1959 when the Broadway musical shimmered like 24-karat gold.

When Curtains came down two-and-a-half entertaining hours later, the cast was joined in their bows by the show's creative team, which included a happy, surviving and rather dapper composer, John Kander. The newly minted octogenarian was urged to step forth and say a few words, and he gave it a shot, but the emotion of the moment was too much for him. He wiped his eyes with the palms of his hands and stepped back in line.

His wordsmith was gone. Fred Ebb, his lyricist for 42 years, died in 2004, and this is the first new Kander & Ebb show to open on Broadway since then. You can see a shadow of that loss in the show's most moving ballad, "I Miss the Music," which Jason Danieley sings gorgeously about the loss of his songwriting partner. Kander did the words himself.

Also conspicuously missing in action was Peter Stone, who began the book and died in 2003. Rupert Holmes came in with a new book and, where needed, some extra lyrics.

Kander told me later at the Tavern on the Green afterparty, "I was very aware of the people who are missing. For Fred to be gone during this, and Peter, is really hard, but their spirits are certainly all over this."

And so, too, are their names — not only in the official credits but also, literally, on the stage. "I don't know if you can see it, but their names are up on stage left on the back wall. There are a lot of things that are scrawled up there, and their names are in that. A lot of the cast go by and just touch the names before they go on. About a week ago, we put Daniel MacDonald's name up on the back wall, too."

MacDonald, who died Feb. 15 of brain cancer at the age of 46, made his Broadway debut in the last new Kander & Ebb, Steel Pier, a much-underrated musical which folded in 76 performances a decade ago. Symbolically, perhaps, or maybe just sentimentally, some strong Steel Pier bearings have been used to fortify Curtains — director Scott Ellis, producer Roger Berlind, conductor David Loud, costumer William Ivey Long, production stage manager Beverly Randolph and, of the 31-member cast, Debra Monk, Karen Ziemba and Jim Newman.

Kander owned up to the stomach-butterflies that generally accompany a Broadway first-night. "Those opening-night audiences can be awful, and I was scared about that. They're usually made up of backers who've seen the show already so many times with their friends that they have become impassive, but I must say tonight's crowd was really receptive."

Not that he should be nervous. Who else, in the same week they turn 80, has a Broadway opening and starts planning the preview of their next new Broadway show? On March 28, director Gabriel Barre will be sneaking the press a peek at All About Us, the Kander & Ebb musicalization of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth. Tony winners Shuler Hensley and Cady Huffman, along with another newly minted octogenarian (Eartha Kitt), will premiere it in April at the Westport Country Playhouse.

Holmes (Rupert, not Sherlock) solved Curtains' initial problem by essentially starting from scratch. "I retained Peter's basic premise — i.e., a detective for whom the only thing that is more rewarding than seeing justice is seeing a musical put on — and the first thing I did with that, was relocate the story to 1959, into the golden heart of American musicals."

Planted squarishly in that vintage, he gave special attention to the splashier shows like L'il Abner and Destry Rides Again. Indeed, there's a not-awfully-distant echo of the latter in the show's show-within-the-show: a westernized musical version of Robin Hood, called Robbin' Hood. The point being: They don't make 'em like that anymore — but, postscripted Holmes, "we're trying to. That was the whole idea behind Curtains."

"It's the Best Musical of 1959!" exclaimed record producer Bill Rosenfield excitedly at intermission, meaning that's a good thing. "It's not a deconstruction of a 1959 musical. It's not a tribute to a 1959 musical. It's not a sendup of a 1959 musical. It is a 1959 musical. It's what we all fell in love with." He will record the cast album on Monday.

As befitted a frankly, and happily, old-fashioned musical, the evening buzzed with old guard excitement. The weather cooperated by hiking the temperature up to a degree appropriate for the second day of spring, and there was even a little March shower for intermission. Continued...

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