Word: berlin
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...divine decadence of Weimar Berlin! Brecht and Weill making acerbic music; Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau creating film metaphors for Germany in chaos; famous artists like Grosz and Ernst--and a failed painter named Hitler. It was all so exciting, also grim. But amid the ferment, a buoyant sound could be heard: the impish artistry of the Comedian Harmonists. From 1928 until it was banned and disbanded by the Nazis in 1934, this male sextet brought smiles to Berliners in the political and economic dumps. One could almost believe the sentiment behind its hit tune Wochenend und Sonnenschein: Happy days...
Sixty-five years later, the good times are back for the Comedian Harmonists. A Broadway show about the group, Band in Berlin, and a Miramax film, The Harmonists (already a hit in Germany), both opened last week. Another show, Veronika, der Lenz ist da (named for one of its hits), has run in Berlin for more than a year. Barry Manilow is fine-tuning his own musical, Harmony, with an eye to a Broadway opening next year. Harmonist acolytes have paid the group tribute in concert and on compact disc in Germany, Britain and the U.S., where...
...pint-size contestant on a TV game show called Juvenile Jury) and grew up to be the pre-eminent musical-theater star of our day, Bernadette Peters had never seen Annie Get Your Gun. So when she was offered the starring role in a revival of Irving Berlin's 1946 classic, she was not interested in nostalgia. "I don't think a show should be a walk down memory lane--that's why I've avoided revivals," she says. "I believe a show should happen in front of you for the first time...
...funny, foot-stamping girlishness. There are some miscalculations. The device of framing the story as a show within a show--introduced by Buffalo Bill--gains nothing, and opening with the big number There's No Business Like Show Business is a needless appetizer. It's not as if Berlin's matchless songs--Doin' What Comes Natur'lly, Lost in His Arms, on and on--don't start pouring forth soon enough. Or that Peters, in wonderful voice, doesn't treat each one like fresh-baked goods and make Annie Get Your Gun a brand-new delight...
...vote getters for Post Office's '80s-themed stamp series include fall of Berlin Wall and The Cosby Show...