Mastervoices presents "Lady in the Dark" at City Center - New York City Article

Mastervoices presents "Lady in the Dark"
by Kurt Weill, Ira Gershwin, & Moss Hart
City Center
131 W 55th St., CityTix (212) 581-1212
April 25 - 27

Don't be another "Poor Jenny" - make up your mind at once to see this remarkable theatrical event.  It may be an exaggeration to say this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see this legendary show - but only slightly. In 1941, Lady in the Dark was a rather daring Broadway effort both in terms of its subject matter - an overtly Freudian show about psychoanalsys and repressed female desires - and its technique, which was a combination of a "straight" dramatic play alternating with full-blown operetta-like musical scenes that were presented as dreams.  Viewed from the perspective of history, the show is equally notable for its music and words team: Lady in the Dark was the first Broadway success by the emigre Kurt Weill and simultaneously the major return to form for Ira Gershwin following the death of his brother, and principal collaborator, George, four years earlier.

Alas, for all of its melody, beauty, and charm, it's unlikely that the show could be fully revived on Broadway - its depictions of feminine psychosis were even somewhat dated in its day - without a total rewrite of the book by a major female playwright.    Yet artistic director Ted Sperling has promised a concert production that will bring all of its glory to the fore, not least because of leading lady Victoria Clark (a standout in Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, a female fantasy of a different sort). 

Although the other elements are hardly mere window dressing, here's a show that's worth staging for its score alone: at the time, "The Saga of Jenny" ("...bright as a penny...") was the big hit at the time, although today everyone knows "My Ship" as a major jazz standard.  But if you don't know "This is New," "Girl of the Moment,"  and "Tchaikovsky," the frantic tongue-twister that made a star out of Danny Kaye in 1941, you're missing out on some of the greatest music of the American musical theater. 

For further information and tickets, please click here.

To hear scholar Laurence Maslon and director Ted Sperling present a fuller history of the show, with recordings from across an 80-year period, click here.