Helen Sinclair (Marin Mazzie) tells David Shayne (Zach Braff) not to speak in BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (photo by Paul Kolnik)
St. James Theatre
246 West 44th St. between Broadway & Eighth Aves.
Tuesday – Sunday through September 28, $52 – $152
www.bulletsoverbroadway.com
In 2001, director-choreographer Susan Stroman struck gold collaborating with Mel Brooks on the musical adaptation of his 1968 comedy, The Producers, about a pair of schlemiels looking to finance a Broadway flop. The show itself was no flop, running for six years at the St. James Theatre and winning twelve Tonys. Unfortunately, Stroman’s current collaboration with another comedy genius, Woody Allen, also at the St. James and also about trying to get a show produced, ends up shooting mostly blanks. Allen wrote the book and Stroman serves as director and choreographer for Bullets over Broadway, the musical version of Allen’s hit 1994 film, which earned him and cowriter Douglas McGrath an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. (The film earned seven Oscar nominations in all, with Dianne Weist winning for Best Supporting Actress.) The play is set in 1929, as serious playwright David Shayne (Zach Braff in his Broadway debut) is offered a chance to get his latest work produced on the Great White Way — but only if he casts mobster Nick Valenti’s (Vincent “Big Pussy” Pastore) girlfriend, Olive Neal (Heléne Yorke), in a major role. Shayne’s agent, Julian Marx (Lenny Wolpe), convinces him to take the deal, but when they quickly discover how talentless, annoying, and just plain dumb Olive is, they have their work cut out for them, especially after building an otherwise impressive cast that includes the dapper but always hungry Warner Purcell (Brooks Ashmanskas), the dependable Eden Brent (Karen Ziemba), and fading diva Helen Sinclair (Marin Mazzie). Valenti has assigned one of his goons, Cheech (Nick Cordero), to watch after Olive, but soon he is spending most of his time rewriting Shayne’s play — and making it much better, which excites, confuses, and terrifies Shayne as opening night approaches.
Opening night beckons in Woody Allen’s musical version of BULLETS OVER BROADWAY (photo by Paul Kolnik)
Cordero is excellent as Cheech, a role played in the film by Chazz Palminteri, but the rest of the cast never quite reaches the levels necessary to make this story of art and ethics, love and money, and the business of show rise above the mundane. Allen’s jokes, so potent in the film, continually fall flat onstage, and the songs, which primarily consist of old-time classics adapted and with additional lyrics by Glen Kelly, are often repetitive (how many brief reprises can one take?), unnecessary, and unmemorable, with a few exceptions: Cheech’s “Up a Lazy River,” is fun, and Warner and Olive have a ball with “Let’s Misbehave,” which was the theme song of Allen’s ”Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask.” In addition, the Atta-Girls, who sing and dance at Nick’s club and play various background roles, are always welcome, as are William Ivey Long’s glamorous period costumes. Ultimately, Bullets over Broadway is about how far a person will go for their art; in the case of this musical, the answer is not far enough.