Razzle Dazzle

We sat in our balcony seats for ten minutes after the show ended, just talking to the people next to us. For some reason, I remember there being sparkle dust all over the stage. I guess they were cleaning up.

Nobody lets you stay that late at the theater anymore. You're ushered out immediately and you don't get to see the stagehands do their work.

I was seven years old and it was my second musical - Chicago - with the original cast Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera. My mother kept telling me to watch the dancers' feet -- how swiftly and quickly they moved. But, I was enraptured in the satire of the show and, though I appreciated how good the women were, I was glued to Jerry Orbach. I remember what he looked like when he came onstage and I never took my eyes off of him. He was all stage presence and sharp moves. He couldn't really sing in the conventional sense, but the man could move in a commanding and lightning-like fashion and he radiated an understanding of the show itself. The Razzle Dazzle that was a comment on the Razzle Dazzle of the 1920's that often obscured reality and justice. Unlike now, when things are clear and justice is swift and squeaky clean as the window on a washed car.

I had some trouble, as I still do, getting the story itself. But, I got the characters and the games they were playing.

Here's a troubling fact: I've been showing the film version to my students these past days and they don't get it, at all. I mean, they follow the story and they remember the songs. But, they don't understand the comments the show makes and they can't keep up with the pace of Fosse's dancing. It's a blur of nakedness and heels to them. Even the second time we watched "Cell Block Tango" it took a while for the meaning of the choreography to become clear. I made the simple point that the women dominate the men and one of my students asked me what "dominate" means.

For the first time in my life, and I can honestly say it is the first time, I am on a completely different planet from my students. A different planet. I'm bouncing eagerly to what I think is the simplest and probably the most obvious music in the American Musical Theater -- this has to be sharper hitting than "Some Enchanted Evening" -- and my students don't have a clue what's going on. They know some chick murdered a guy and it looks like she might get off, but they don't know why this could be interesting and they don't instinctively lift off to Bob Fosse's footstrokes. They have no instincts for this. One of my students didn't realize this was a musical -- granted, she came in for the last twenty minutes only and what could she tell?

Two women get away with murder by manipulating the press and public. What could be more contemporary?

Of course, my students also don't know who Rush Limbaugh is or what the difference is between Fox and CNN. Not that they watch the news. They watch BET even though I've tried to explain to them that the network is owned by ClearChannel, a company not particularly interested in the real needs of urban youth. They don't care. They have the right to consume.

And that right has taken away their ability to distinguish between what is worth consuming and what is garbage.

I'm not for a minute saying that anything by Ebb and Kandor is better than South Pacific or, for that matter, anything by Rogers and Hammerstein (except maybe Oklahoma!). I see Ebb and Kandor as the "ABC" of Musical Theater -- ordinary voices do extraordinary dancing (sometimes) about urbane topics. The stuff of Saturday Nigh Live. Pop. Accessible, I thought.

Probably, my students would be better off with the fairy tale narrative of South Pacific or The Sound of Music neither of which they have seen.

Before coming to Tilden, I had no idea there was a world in which people had not seen The Sound of Music. My Brooklyn Comprehensive students had seen it. Maybe they stay up late or are more adventurous in checking out cable. Or, more likely, they rented these films for their kid or kid sister whom they babysit.

Meanwhile, we finish Chicago tomorrow and then move on to...I don't know yet, though I have many choices.

Where do you go when Razzle Dazzle needs translation?