Following the example it set with Lady Gaga, Amazon allows you to download the “Book of Mormon” original cast recording for $1.99 between today and Monday. In addition to the tracks, you also get the booklet, which features an essay by Frank Rich. The columnist formerly known as the Butcher of Broadway must have been spending his time between jobs writing copy for cast albums, because he also did the liner notes to the CD of “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.” (Too bad “Lucky Guy” slipped though his fingers.)
Coincidentally, both shows are nominated for a Tony in the Best Original Score category, along with “The Scottsboro Boys” and “Sister Act.” Following is a look at the four cast albums.
At the top of the heap is “Mormon,” a shoe-in to win Best Musical. What’s striking is how old-fashioned Trey Parker, Robert Lopez and Matt Stone’s score is, especially in Stephen Oremus’ sterling orchestrations. Never mind the profanity — though it is preserved in all its blue glory — the CD is one sing-along show tune after another. None of that edgy rock & roll here, no attempt at updating the sonic Broadway template: “Turn It Off” even features tap. “The Book of Mormon” was clearly cooked up by guys who genuinely love that stuff.
So, for that matter, was “The Scottsboro Boys.” But it’s that musical that’s the more genuinely provocative one, not the witty but ultimately cuddly “Mormon” — and it was written by John Kander and Fred Ebb, men in their eighties, which goes to show that age has nothing to do with artistic sharpness. Though I do love “Mormon,” “Scottsboro” is my personal favorite for both Best Musical and Best Score. I was so impressed with Susan Stroman’s staging that I wasn’t sure how the score would work on its own — but it does hold up incredibly well.
It should be noted that the recording is of the off-Broadway cast, so we hear Brandon Victor Dixon instead of the Tony-nominated Joshua Henry in the key role of Haywood Patterson. Both are terrific, though, so we don’t miss out.
Musically this is vintage Kander and Ebb, ranking right next to “Cabaret” and “Chicago”: We get the rags and vamps, the shuffles, the uncanny sense of melody, the acid-tongued irony that subverts nostalgic-sounding reveries (“Southern Days”). Absolutely beautiful stuff, hard-edged and unsentimental. As a coda, Kander himself reprises “Go Back Home.”
But the show that really gains from being heard rather than watched is “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” — David Yazbek’s score is clever both musically and lyrically, and emerges from the wreckage intact. Oddly both movie and show are very ’80s in aesthetics but Yazbek draws from the lite Latin sounds from the ’60s and ’70s. It’s like half the score was influenced by “The Boy From…,” a ditty Stephen Sondheim wrote for Linda Lavin in “The MAD Show.”
The recording confirms that there were many bright moments — the production was just too much of a mess to properly showcase them. “Madrid Is My Mama” is a fun song but maybe not the best atmosphere-setting opening number you can think of, and it was staged so busily, it was hard to tell what the point was. Here we can finally enjoy it without being overwhelmed by pointlessly hyperactive blocking. (But is it me or did Yazbek borrow the intro from “You’re the One that I Want”?)
The CD also allows us to pay full attention to Simon Hale’s superb orchestrations and to the individual performances that got swallowed up in the general mayhem. Sherie Rene Scott left me slightly cold onstage but I must have listened to her “Lovesick” 20 times, with “Mother’s Day” a close second — and that song had barely made an impression at the theater. I also love hearing Patti LuPone stepping away from her usual vibe in “Invisible.” On the other hand, you do lose a little something from not seeing the brilliant Laura Benanti perform the antic “Model Behavior.”
Last is “Sister Act,” though the situation is a bit odd here because so far we have to make do with the London cast recording, and there have been tweaks in the Atlantic crossing to Broadway — including most of the cast, save for lead Patina Miller. This means, among other things, no Victoria Clark doing the new song “Haven’t Got a Prayer.”
Still, Alan Menken and Glenn Slater’s big numbers have made it through, and personally I can’t get enough of them. I don’t care what snobs say: For my money no closing number on Broadway right now is more rousing than “Spread the Love Around.” Why Miller hasn’t performed “Take Me to Heaven” and “Fabulous, Baby!” at Splash’s Musical Mondays yet is befuddling.
Talk about odd bedfellows: “Sister Act” and “The Scottsboro Boys” are the new cast albums that have been getting the most play on my iPod this spring. But whichever score wins on Sunday, I’ll be happy. What a year it’s been!
