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...never easy to compete with the memory of a legend, yet the revivers of Ain't Misbehavin' have set themselves that task twice over. Not only do they seek to match the exuberant spirit of Pianist-Songwriter Thomas Wright ("Fats") Waller, whose 1920s and '30s Harlem jazz inspired the pell-mell 31-tune revue, but they also contend with the joyous memory of the 1978 debut staging, which won the Tony Award for Best Musical, made a star of Nell Carter, and ran almost four years before becoming an Emmy-winning NBC special. Of course, the producers of this daring...
...success of Ain't Misbehavin' (and, more modestly, of Side by Side by Sondheim a season before) prompted a string of songbook shows. None has matched the verve or style of Ain't Misbehavin', and none has come close to the rowdy, raunchy yet infectious humor of its songs. Waller's connection with them varies from authorship to merely having recorded them, but they coherently reflect his view of life as meant for play and pleasure...
...individual spotlights. Page is uproarious as he explains to an unseen partner that he cannot love her because Your Feet's Too Big, and he and De Shields are a hoot expressing scorn and envy for a rival whom they see as Fat and Greasy. De Shields belts 'T Ain't Nobody's Biz-Ness If I Do in an up tempo that may be delightfully surprising to fans of Billie Holiday's torchy rendition, and revels in marijuana in The Viper's Drag. Woodard, too little used, nonetheless glows in Keepin' Out of Mischief Now, while McQueen...
...AIN'T MISBEHAVIN'. The joint is jumpin', again: the jubilant Fats Waller songbook that won three 1978 Tony awards returns to Broadway with the original staging and cast, including Nell Carter...
...able to have it. Last winter David's father, like many other miners, lost his job. Unemployment pays him less than half his union wage. "Yeah, I want to be a coal miner," David says, "if they ain't shut down...