Word: greate
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...broadway and musical comedy were all but synonymous. Of late, though, the Great White Way has become a neon-lit recycling bin for tributes (Fosse), revivals (Annie Get Your Gun, Cabaret), retread movies (Footloose) and British imports that were creatively dead on arrival (any Andrew Lloyd Webber show). Yes, Stephen Sondheim still strikes sparks, while a few up-and-comers, especially Adam Guettel (Floyd Collins), show signs of vibrant life. But it's long past time for something really fresh. Contact, the exhilarating dance play by choreographer Susan Stroman and writer John Weidman that opened last week at Manhattan...
What's the draw? For one thing, say fans, the shows--yin to the cops-and-car-chase, reality-fare yang--are an emotional thrill ride. It's great weeping material when real dads kiss real daughters goodbye at the altar or when childless couples are handed a baby by a birth mother. And then there's the encouragement of seeing commitment-friendly men, who well up more often than their female companions. (Says Pie Town Productions' Joan O'Connor, who is single, of her work as one of the producers of Baby: "It has given me some hope...
...that the commercial could be a miniature work of art--and sometimes of daring. Freberg pitched Meadowgold milk in the style of Gilbert and Sullivan, hawked Pittsburgh paints with a takeoff on Moby Dick, and decked out Ann Miller with a Busby Berkeley chorus line to trumpet Heinz's Great American Soups. He produced radio ads for the McGovern-Hatfield amendment to end the Vietnam War and, perhaps even gutsier, persuaded Pacific Airlines to let him do a series of ads poking fun at how people are afraid...
...these commercials collected for the first time is one reason to hail the new boxed set of Freberg's work from Rhino Records. But that's only part of the delight awaiting both fans and nonfans of Freberg, who has as much claim as anyone to the title of Great American Satirist...
...parodies were notable not just for their dead-on mimicry but also for the sophistication of their musical commentary. A jazz lover, Freberg fought a rearguard action against rock 'n' roll, which he considered undisciplined and musically simplistic. Only Freberg would have had the idea to satirize the Platters' Great Pretender by focusing on the hipster studio pianist who's forced to play the boring "clink clink clink" accompaniment. His critique of mush-mouthed rock 'n' roll culminated in 1960 with The Old Payola Roll Blues, in which Freberg takes on the whole ethos of rock and dismisses...