Word: previn
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...show is one of those lavish reminders that the assembly line is not the fountain of inspiration, that known quantities gathered together do not necessarily produce the elusively unknown quantities of fine dramatic art or exciting entertainment. Wands are wielded by Katharine Hepburn, Alan Jay Lerner, Andre Previn and Cecil Beaton, but no magic ensues. No wish is fulfilled. No dream comes true...
Admirable though it is, her work does not work, precisely because it is all work and no play. She gets little help. Andre Previn's score always misses, without ever swinging. Beaton's costumes are a slight modification of the timeless Edwardia that he prefers to inhabit, and scarcely reflect the spare Mondrian modern that is the mark of Chanel. Lerner's book manages to suggest a rough draft rather than a finished libretto. He must be somewhat chagrined that the biggest laugh of the evening comes when Hepburn spits out the short word for excrement...
...musical interpretation of the life and times of Paris Couturière Gabrielle ("Coco") Chanel will be Hepburn's first Broadway performance since she played the title role in The Millionairess in 1952. Hepburn is not alone. Alan Jay Lerner did the book and lyrics, André Previn is making his Broadway debut with the music, Cecil Beaton is designing the costumes and sets, and Frederick Brisson (Damn Yankees, The Pajama Game, AIfie) is producing...
André Previn was enlisted, even though he and Lerner never seemed to be able to get together. "It seems to me that we wrote Coco by screaming at each other as we passed in airports," Previn says. When they finally buckled down to it, they worked out an ego-saving shorthand to communicate lack of enthusiasm for each other's work. "If we didn't like something," Previn explains, "we'd say, 'It fits.' That's very polite, and it has the same result as if one of us said, That...
...Sweat. Of the 18 Lerner-Previn songs, eight are Kate's, full of self-doubt, self-confidence, self-satisfaction and self-recollection. Previn has played a schmalzy Loewe to Lerner's Lerner. As for Hepburn's voice, Previn thinks she's got it. "There's been an enormous improvement just since I heard her last summer," he says. As Adler sees it, "She's like Rex Harrison, only she out-Rexes Rex: you never quite know when the singing stops and the talking begins." It's probably just as well; who else...