Word: zippel
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...Rain. The first few bars, and the whole mood, of Little Edie's lament "Daddy's Girl," are a direct lift from Sondheim's Follies song "In Buddy's Eyes." Little Edie's second-act fashion statement, "The Revolutionary Costume for Today," is another Sondheimlich maneuver (that's David Zippel's pun, for praise or blame, not mine); and Big Edie's "The Cake I Had" takes its repetitive phrase from West Side Story's "A Boy Like That...
...WOMAN IN WHITE, book by Charlotte Jones, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by David Zippel...
...critics have mostly sniffed at what they perceive as another laboriously lush Lloyd Webber score and clumsy lyrics from the usually clever Zippel. Agreed, agreed, and doesn't matter. What's impressive about this adaptation of the Wilkie Collins mystery novel is how it moves. I don't refer only to the patented Trevor Nunn turntable that, for about the 18th time since the director used it in Les Mis?rables, forces the actors to scamper around the stage like rats on a treadmill. I mean the moving scenery: all video projections by designer William Dudley. In your theater seat...
...these two are far too few memorable moments. It's just not in Lloyd Webber to deliver low-key satisfactions. Big sweeping melodies are what he does best, and here the strain of his self- imposed leash suffocates the drama. It doesn't help that the lyrics, by David Zippel, from the adaptation of the book by Charlotte Jones, are mostly flat when they should seep with accumulating terror. The script is also far less subtle than the original. Collins' Fosco is a fascinating creation - obese, aging and yet with a mind of such deviousness that Marian is spellbound...
...also stressed the changing face of the production that resulted from Gelbart’s desire to work with Mencken and Zippel...