Smile: A Broadway Reunion
54 Below, NYC, September 22, 2014
Reviewed by Joel Benjamin for Cabaret Scenes
Marvin Hamlisch had had two huge successes on Broadway before he partnered with Howard Ashman (after the death of the original lyricists Carolyn Leigh) to turn the 1975 film Smile, about a California beauty contest, into a musical. They explored, in song and dance (musical staging by Mary Kyte) the inner drama of each contestant and the humorous logistics (the egos, the scheduling) of running that kind of pageant.
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Sadly, it ran fewer than 50 performances. A number of cast members from the 1986 original production, including two of its stars, performed a warm-hearted reconstruction of the show’s score at 54 Below. The Hamlisch/Ashman partnership proved to be witty, moving and smart.
Each of the characters has a yearning that the California Young American Miss pageant satisfies. Jodi Benson’s character Doria’s “Disneyland” is her reverie of escape amongst the fictional characters. Anne Marie Bobby (Robin), unsure of herself, writes a series of letters, in song, to her mother, telling of her insecurities and self-discoveries. Sally Wilfert took on Brenda, who is the den mother of the young contestants and was a second runner-up ten years previously. Her “The Very Best Week of Your Lives” was a mature, yet wistful, remembrance of near fame replaced by domesticity. Wilfert, as usual, sang with depth and sympathy. Brenda’s husband, Big Bob, the pageant sponsor originally played by Jeff McCarthy, was here portrayed by Lewis Cleale who found subtlety under the good-old-guy surface. “Bob’s Song” tells of his history as a Vietnam vet, a father and a businessman and how the beauty pageant was a chance to temporarily let his ego escape.
The most exciting number was the Act One finale, “Until Tomorrow Night,” which Hamlisch was shown discussing in a vintage documentary. All the different strands of desire, need, vexation and triumph came together in this one song.
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By the end of the show, most dilemmas are overcome and the girls have become friends—“In Our Hands” was the result with a wisp of “Disneyland” popping up at the last moment.
Roberto Sinha, the musical director and pianist, led Jim Hershman on guitar, Mike Berkowitz, the drummer from the original production (!) and Danny Weller on bass in fairly sumptuous arrangements.
