Word: ellstein
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Great To Be Alive (music & lyrics by Abraham Ellstein & Walter Bullock; book by Mr. Bullock & Sylvia Regan; produced by Vinton Freedley in association with Anderson Lawler & Russell Markert) boasts a very pleasant cast, has a fine, expensive look, leads a busy, active life. It is ingenious in some places and expert in others. Yet it seems, to an almost depressing degree, like just one more big Broadway musical-and at times like a not very recent...
...ends up slopping over with all the dead seaweed known to musicomedy. The show gets no farther on sex than it does on spooks, and on murder it gets nowhere at all. More crucially, it doesn't get far on its music, either: Composer Ellstein's score is just agreeably banal, and the Bullock lyrics are not much fun even when clever. As for the gifted cast, Valerie Bettis is used monotonously, Vivienne Segal rather shabbily, and Stuart Erwin too seldom. Tamiris' choreography gives the show and the ghosts their happiest break...
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