Theatrical icon Harold "Hal" Prince sits with Imogen Lloyd Webber and reflects on his legendary career including working with Stephen Sondheim and bringing CABARET, EVITA, PHANTOM and PRINCE OF BROADWAY to the stage.
For my money, Prince remains the best producer/director in the 20th/21st century theatre - his production of FIORELLO (MY first show on Broadway) warped my life - but he was/is nearly ALWAYS a better director when he was the producer (and demanded the most creativity and economy from his director). If only he would tell some of these stories HIMSELF (in voice-over on tape would be fine with the cast COMMENTING on his stories) rather than the current impossible concept of the entire cast (male and female, black and white) pretending to be him and reading aggressively non-illuminating bits to link the wonderful musical numbers in PRINCE OF BROADWAY in previews at MTC's Friedman Theatre. Those who KNOW his work can see his keep producer/director's eye in the creation of the material, but for anyone NEW to the work, the show's book needs to justify why they are saluting the person who didn't write the brilliant numbers and at present it doesn't. This show should be great - at present it's only half way there and the fault is almost entirely that it doesn't demonstrate why it's there. OK, some of the numbers aren't balanced (none of the EVITA material is as exciting as the first number) - but that will be polished. The look Prince describes here is fine - please fix the book! For the record, I *much* prefer the "Meeskite" end to "If You Could See Her Through My Eyes": it forces the audience to *participate* in the slur and they only realize it a moment later! Devastating for anyone sharp enough to notice.
Except for the opening phrase I disagree entirely. The point of the individuals in the cast coming out one by one representing themselves to be Prince, first a young white male, then a female, then a black person, etc. is to say every person, every lighting choice, every placement, everything you are about to see IS Harold Prince. He made the decisions, the magic is his in every moment you are about to see. I adored the script, the arrangement of the songs and numbers, starting from the pointed and miraculous - And doesn't it say everything about Prince? - "Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes..." through every selection. I was in heaven from the moment it opened to the end. Every cast member got chances to shine. The most amazing thing in the show was Tony Yazbeck tap dancing his nervous breakdown about his split self of The Right Girl. How he did not win a Tony for that alone? That was an epic number. I could sit here and list every great number in a show filled with them. I brought a friend to see the show the day it had five understudies. My friend did not know who the originals were. She said it was one of the greatest shows she ever saw in her life, it could have gone on for hours and she would have been fine with that and she wanted to see it again that minute. And Yazbeck's roles were filled with one of the understudies! I have always considered myself lucky that the years of my theater going life coincided with Harold Prince's creative life in the theater.
