By Harry Haun
11 Jul 2007

"Xanadu," that cinematic mega-miss of 1980 (of all the eighties), was not casually arrived at, and neither was its second coming — as a Broadway musical full of glitz-up and go — which hit the Helen Hayes July 10 with a full complement of mirrored balls and disco sounds.

The fallout from the film is famous. It pretty much stopped screen careers of new (Olivia Newton-John) and old (Gene Kelly, in his last star part) alike. In one case, a star was stillborn: Michael Beck. After a strong debut in "The Warriors," he was tapped to play the hapless hero who had to lug the lead-heavy plot around. "'The Warriors' opened a lot of doors in film for me, which 'Xanadu' then closed," he'd say. He now does books-on-tape.

The movie was nominated for seven Golden Raspberry Awards, including the one for Worst "Musical" of Our First 25 Years, and it actually won a Razzie for Worst Director (Robert Greenwald, who had never done this sort of work before). Also nominated and pretty directionless was the screenplay by Richard Danus and Marc Rubel, who are dutifully acknowledged — albeit, in tiny type — on the Playbill cover page of credits.

Why then, you have to ask, would one fly in the face of such classic criticism and create a Broadway musical? Lead producer Robert Ahrens' hand shot up. He was four years old at the time of the film's release, and he was able to recruit other like-minds. (Four of his co-producers were born in 1980 — clearly, the cult following was slow to take hold.)

"I'll confess: I had the idea," admitted Ahrens, still wide-eyed and smiling at the opening-night party at Providence. "I hope I prove them wrong. The critics are still out, but I hope I prove them wrong. I thought the movie had so many elements that were great for the stage — great music and great energy. Obviously, it didn't have a great script, but I felt that I could solve that problem by getting Douglas Carter Beane to do the book."

Beane, fresh from writing Julie White a Tony-winning role in The Little Dog Laughed, was beaming — from relief, he readily allowed, but happy with what he had wrought. "Initially, I was a little afraid, but I liked the fact that I got to rewrite it. I, very particularly, got to do that myself. The characters all sound like they're my characters."

That kind of control was becalming for him, and he charged full-throttle into the assignment. "Also, I realized if I got it right, I'd really be doing something. It's like if you take a really good movie and turn it into a hit, they say, 'Oh, that's really good work,' and, if you take an awful movie and turn it into a good musical, that would be art."

Marking those words, Beane has set a very high site for himself next, rushing from the ridiculous to the sublime: He's adapting the 1931 Broadway revue/1953 movie musical, "The Band Wagon." The MGM film is generally regarded as the first or second best American screen musical of all time (depending on how deep your affection runs for 'Singin' in the Rain' from the year before). "I'll be incorporating a lot of music from the original revue, and the movie storyline is what I'll use for the book — along with all those great songs. Barry and Fran Weissler are producing, and Gary Griffin is directing."

Newton-John, on the arm of a man identified only as John, lent some authentic glamour to the hot (oppressively so) evening — and proved an all-round good sport about the brickbats flung however gingerly and affectionately in The Main Event. Beane's wickedly, winkingly camp book lapses into self-commenting film criticism, stepping outside the action to assess the absurdity of the situation rather than flatly reprise the film.

"I loved it," she trilled. "It thought it was wonderful, so funny and so clever and witty. I thought the staging was great, and I liked the way they made fun of things — rightly so, too."

Come curtain call, she gamely took the stage and mimed her thanks to the cast. Accompanying her onstage was the silver-haired, movie-star-handsome John Farrar, who, with the A.W.O.L. Jeff Lynne, wrote the show's score. They did it separately, and each did his own words and music. Farrar has written quite a few of Newton-John's greatest hits, including "Xanadu"'s first hit (of at least four), "Magic." He also spruced up the "Grease" film score for her with "You're the One That I Want" and the Oscar-contending "Hopelessly Devoted to You."

"There is no new music in Xanadu," he said, when asked if he provided some new numbers. "What they did was add an old song of mine, 'Have You Never Been Mellow?' and two of Jeff's songs. The only new things in the show are songs from our catalogs."

He was in the process of penning his Broadway debut score when Xanadu came up from behind and made it across the finish line first. "It's startling. I'm surprised and so pleased because it's a shame when you see something you worked on all those years ago just sorta disappear. There were parts of it that I thought were worthy of keeping. Now they have."

The musical currently occupying him is that surf flick from '58, "Gidget," which started up starring Sandra Dee and used different actresses in the title role for the rest of the series.

He has an improbable collaborator: "Francis Ford Coppola and I have written a whole lot of new songs. He can do anything. This will all be new stuff, nothing from the movies."

His elegant Mrs., Pat Carroll, said she and her hubby have known Newton-John for 45 years. In fact, "Olivia and I sang as a double act for many years, called Pat and Olivia."

Xanadu's heroine is one of Zeus' nine daughters who comes down to earth, disguising herself with an Aussie accent and a pseudonym (Kira, or, as it's pronounced Down Under, Keeera). By any other name, she's Terpiscore, Goddess of the Dance, as played by Newton-John in Xanadu and by Rita Hayworth in 1947's "Down to Earth," a hazy precursor of "Xanadu" and itself a reimagining of 1941's "Here Comes Mr. Jordan"), but Beane redubbed the part Clio. "I wanted her to be the leader of the muses, not just the Goddess of the Dance, and Clio in some classical circles is considered the head muse."

Kira (or Kitty, as Rita did it) has come to earth to play muse for a struggling young artiste named Sonny Malone. The movie has him painting album covers, but in the musical he is reduced to the ephemeral — chalk-drawings on the sidewalk. She gives him inspiration, and he gives her love, which is reciprocated — a definite no-no for mythology-morphing plots.

Xanadu is a roller-disco they create with the help of a nightclub owner whom Clio mused for in a previous life. His name is Danny McGuire, just like the nightclub owner Kelly played in 1944's "Cover Girl," opposite Hayworth. It is here in this gaudy ballroom that the forties are supposed to happily merge with the eighties, but, in truth, in the movie this only happens one time, and that is when Kelly and Newton-John come together and dance to "Whenever You're Away From Me." It would be Kelly's last dance on screen.  Continued...

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