Octoberfest

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There are at least two reasons why one might expect the Avenue Q recording to be significantly less enjoyable than the show itself. First of all, much of the unique fun of seeing this musical at the Golden Theatre is watching the human characters interact with the puppets, an experience that an audio CD obviously can’t provide. Then there’s the fact that the show’s score consists largely of comedic numbers, a type of song that doesn’t often stand up well to repeated listening on disc.

Well, neither of these potential problems turns out to be a problem after all. Though we don’t actually get to watch Princeton, Kate Monster, Rod, Nicky, and friends in action on the CD, the voice characterizations of these puppets by the brilliantly talented John Tartaglia, Stephanie D’Abruzzo, and Rick Lyon are so sharp and distinctive that the lack of a visual component to the performance is scarcely a disappointment. For the benefit of those who haven’t seen the show — and even for those who have — the album packaging includes several photos of the puppets and people in the cast, two of them in full color.

As for the possible lack of sustained appeal of the comedy songs, forget it; the music and lyrics of Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx are so terrific that this is another non-issue. Even the most overtly comic numbers on the disc — “If You Were Gay,” “Schadenfreude,” etc. — have such strong melodic and rhythmic hooks that they would be enjoyable even in purely instrumental versions. This is not to say that they should ever be divested of their brilliant lyrics, many of which are meant for consumption by adults only. Among my favorite passages is the following, from “Schadenfreude”:

Watching a vegetarian being told she just ate chicken
Or watching a frat boy realize just what he put his dick in.
Being on an elevator when somebody shouts, “Hold the door!”

“No!!!”
Schadenfreude. “Fuck you, lady, that’s what stairs are for!”

Aside from the contributions of the puppeteer-performers noted above, the album preserves showstoppers by Natalie Venetia Belcon as Gary Coleman (!!), Jordan Gelber as Brian (his drive-by rendition of the 28-second-long ditty “I’m Not Wearing Underwear Today” is priceless), and Ann Harada as Christmas Eve (her hilarious, politically incorrect “The More You Ruv Someone” is another highlight). The most infectious cut on the CD is “The Avenue Q Theme,” performed by the entire company. And in the lovely ballad “There’s a Fine, Fine Line” — winningly performed by D’Abruzzo — Lopez and Marx demonstrate that they can write a wonderfully sincere, heartfelt song when they want to.

The album has been expertly produced in every respect by Bill Rosenfield, beloved of musical theater mavens as the mover and shaper of numerous cast recordings for RCA Victor. Note, however, that Avenue Q is on the new Victor (as opposed to RCA Victor) label. Apparently, the name “Victor” now belongs to something called “Arista International Labels.” In an era when M-G-M movie musicals are released on home video through Warner Bros., such a change is by no means unusual, but it’s still disconcerting to us old-timers.

— Michael Portantiere

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The two Off-Broadway cast albums released this week are from PS Classics. They boast excellent production values in terms of the discs themselves and the accompanying booklets, richly colorful and gorgeously laid out. Both recordings clock in at just over 60 minutes spread out over 19 tracks. But, in every other respect, these two titles could hardly be more different.

Zanna, Don’t! is billed as “a musical fairy tale,” and that description is not far off. The show, for which Tim Acito wrote the music, lyrics, and book (with some assistance from Alexander Dinelaris) is set in the town of Heartsville in a world where homosexuality is the norm and heterosexuals are shunned. Helping the inhabitants of Heartsville (particularly the students of Heartsville High) find each other is the fairy-like creature Zanna. There’s a love plot concerning two “closeted” straight students, and Zanna faces the problem of not being able to make a love match for himself.

Aside from the basic premise, there wasn’t a lot in the stage version of Zanna, Don’t! that was fresh or unfamiliar. The cast recording suffers from the same problem, compounded by the score’s extraction from the book, which managed to be quite funny without needing to be ironic (as is the current fashion in musical comedies). Acito is a fine melodist and his bouncy, pop-inflected tunes display no shortage of vivacity, but his lyrics damage what could have been a much more effective, if lightweight, score. Forget properly stressed lyrics — Acito has done so almost entirely — and focus on some of his attempts at rhyme: love/enough, lover/another, clues/you, this/is, town/around. And that’s just in the first song!

Of course, the recording’s target audience — occasional theatergoers in their teens and early-20s — probably won’t care about such things, and the score certainly isn’t without merit. Acito’s high school musical spoof “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is particularly funny and a number of his other songs are enjoyable on their own terms, problematic lyrics aside. As you may have read elsewhere, many of the songs deal very specifically with “love” and frequently use that word in their titles, but the irreverent fairy-tale quality of the show and Acito’s fine music keep this from being too distracting.

So do the performers, especially Jai Rodriguez (now a TV personality in Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) as the title character and Anika Larsen, whose high belting in “I Ain’t Got Time” brings Zanna, Don’t! as close as it ever gets to excitement. None of the singers, however, can navigate their way around Acito’s poorly rhymed and set lyrics, which many die-hard fans will inevitably find off-putting.

Audiences generally seemed to find My Life With Albertine distancing as well, though for other reasons. Thankfully, the cast recording proves what seemed obvious to some in the theater: this composition is serious in every sense of that word. Most likely, it won’t appeal to those who’ll find the Zanna, Don’t! album functionally without fault, but devoted fans of thoroughly musical musicals won’t want to be without Albertine.

Ricky Ian Gordon’s work was not the most distinguished Off-Broadway musical of the season — that would be Michael John LaChiusa’s Little Fish, which went unrecorded — but it’s probably the second most distinguished. If the music doesn’t always capture the feeling and atmosphere of its weighty source material, Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, it’s overwhelmingly original in style and it accomplishes what book writer/director/co-lyricist Richard Nelson could not accomplish alone. Separated from Nelson’s chilly and often confusing production, the score sounds better than ever. True, one of the major cast members — Chad Kimball as the young romantic lead Marcel, ostensibly Proust himself — is no more than serviceable. But the remainder of the company, led by Brent Carver as the “Narrator” (Kimball’s character a couple of decades later) and Kelli O’Hara as Albertine, is excellent. The album also features triumphant orchestrations by Bruce Coughlin and musical direction by Charles Prince.

O’Hara is the most impressive of all; this performer hasn’t yet found her breakout role, but My Life With Albertine makes better use of her singing and acting talents than did Follies or Sweet Smell of Success, and O’Hara stretches herself here as never before. Her first and final songs (“Is It Too Late?” and “If It Is True”) pack the greatest emotional punch of any in the show, and she acquits herself in them as well as she does in the drinking song “I Need Me a Girl.” Is there anything O’Hara can’t do? Not in My Life With Albertine.

Carver gets plenty of material to sing. His finest turns are his two solos: “The Different Albertines,” which he invests with a palpable pain, and “Song of Solitude,” a surprisingly light song about loss and loneliness that benefits from Carver’s almost-but-not-quite comic delivery. Kimball sings well enough, if with a more “modern” sound than Carver and O’Hara, but is heard mostly in group numbers and therefore has little chance to really establish his character. He is not helped by the removal of the Marcel-Albertine duet “Sometimes,” one of Kimball’s best moments in the show and a significant highlight of the production. Oddly, the number’s reprise is heard on the CD — sung by the female chorus — but its original statement is not.

Donna Lynne Champlin has two major roles in the show but her signature moment is the charming “Lullabye,” which she gives a beautifully haunting rendition. Emily Skinner and Brooke Sunny Moriber round out a first-rate ensemble; each has her moments on the album, and Skinner’s saucy “I Want You” is even better here than in the theater.

Gordon’s finest work is in the group numbers, such as the terminally catchy “Belbec-by-the-Sea,” the pastoral “Ferret Song,” and the cacophonous “The Street.” The most dynamic and affecting track on the CD is the searing, seven-minute mini-opera “The Letters,” which establishes Gordon as a major musical dramatist capable of cutting right to the emotional core of a situation and expressing it powerfully and theatrically. He and O’Hara are a special pairing, and the sooner they work together again, the better.

— Matthew Murray