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hesMay 1, 2009
THEATER REVIEW | '9 TO 5'
Sisterhood vs. Boss, on a New Battlefield
By BEN BRANTLEY
Give some credit to “9 to 5” — the overinflated whoopee cushion lodged at the Marquis Theater — for bucking this spring’s fashion trends. Can this gaudy, empty musical really be part of the same Broadway season that gave us the minimally decorated, maximally effective “Exit the King,” “God of Carnage,” “Next to Normal,” “Hair,” “Mary Stuart” and “Norman Conquests”?
Those shows strip down to modest sets (three of them use brick walls as backdrops) and, in many cases, small casts, the better to show off their considerable natural assets. But if ingenious austerity has replaced mindless opulence on main-stem stages, no one bothered to alert “9 to 5.”
Dolly Parton and Patricia Resnick’s musical adaptation of the 1980 movie about three women’s revenge on their sexist boss piles on the flashy accessories like a prerecession hedge funder run amok at Barney’s. Staged by Joe Mantello (who directed the fat fairy-tale cash cow “Wicked”), this show feels assembled by an emulous shopaholic who looked around at the tourist-drawing hits of the last decade and said: “I want some of that. And that. Ooh, and can I have that, too?”
The most essential recycled formula being used is one that has met with varying success on Broadway: Take a movie (or alternately, pop song book) with brand-name recognition, then exaggerate with wild, giant strokes whatever made it distinctive originally. In the case of “9 to 5,” this means turning up the volume on something that wasn’t exactly quiet to begin with.
Though released in 1980, the movie, directed by Colin Higgins from a script by Ms. Resnick, feels very much a 1970s artifact. It reflects a time when the feminist movement (or the idea of it) was starting to settle comfortably into suburbia. In portraying three dissimilar women who found sisterhood in bringing down their nasty male employer, the film brought a topical sexual awareness to the classic little-guy-beats-the-boss fantasy. But its jokes and routines were clunky even then, and only the eccentric charisma of Lily Tomlin and Ms. Parton makes it watchable now. (Jane Fonda, playing the most inhibited of the three, gave an unconvincingly inhibited performance.)
The musical “9 to 5,” which overmilks and overmikes tuneful songs by Ms. Parton (who wrote the movie’s popular title number, which is the opener here), is at least blessed with the presence of Allison Janney. This deliciously droll actress is known for playing exceedingly competent people (“The West Wing” on television, “Present Laughter” on Broadway) with much more than mere competence, and her game but dignified professionalism is the show’s biggest asset.
Ms. Janney, as might be predicted, plays the Tomlin role: Violet Newstead, a wry, undervalued office manager. Joining her in the show’s central triumvirate are Megan Hilty as the curvaceous hillbilly secretary Doralee Rhodes (the Parton part) and Stephanie J. Block as the confidence-challenged, newly divorced Judy Bernly (the Fonda character).
Ms. Hilty, who here resembles Loni Anderson more than Ms. Parton, still does Dolly credibly in her line readings and her singing, while Ms. Block is rather wooden in a thankless part. Marc Kudisch takes on the uncomfortable duties of cartoon dartboard as Franklin Hart Jr., the lascivious boss they all loathe.
But this show isn’t about its stars. It’s about turning its feminist revenge story into an occasion for lewd slapstick (which feels about as up-to-date as the 1940s burlesque revue “Hellzapoppin ”) and a mail-order catalog of big production numbers, filtered through that joyless aesthetic that pervaded the 1970s. The show lumbers through its two and a half hours in a blur of heavy moving scenery (by Scott Pask), animated projections (by Peter Nigrini and Peggy Eisenhauer), sour-candy-color lighting (by Jules Fisher and Kenneth Posner) and costumes (by William Ivey Long) that reminds us that the Carter years were the nadir of 20th-century fashion
The comic sensibility certainly feels vintage, rather in the smirky mode of sitcoms like “Three’s Company.” The governing philosophy seems to be that it’s O.K. to leer if you wink at your own prurience. The opening sequence, which depicts people waking up to the title song, has a man in boxers strutting across the stage with a visible erection.
And while we’re meant to tut-tut when Hart salivates over the buxom Doralee, we are also meant to enjoy his enjoyment. Worse, we are encouraged to laugh when Hart finds himself staring into the less-than-perky bosoms of his sycophantic assistant, Roz Keith (the talented Kathy Fitzgerald).
The dumpy Roz has a sequence in which she communes with her inner red hot mama while visions of a topless (female) dancer and a topless, pec-flexing Hart undulate behind her. This takes place in the women’s bathroom. Ms. Janney has a fantasy number in which she strides past a line of male employees at urinals. (And, yes, there’s the joke of her not shaking the hand of someone who has just zipped up.)
That’s part of a production centerpiece in which Violet imagines herself as a corporate star, with a backdrop of fawning male dancers and projected headlines, a nod to the “Roxie” showstopper from “Chicago.” But despite Ms. Janney’s authority (never mind that she can’t really sing), the sequence feels ersatz, an extended quotation with no voice of its own.
That’s true of much of the show. Its broad flirtation with tastelessness reminds you of how stylishly Mel Brooks played with brazen vulgarity in “The Producers.” And — oh, dear — there’s even a flying actor sequence à la “Billy Elliot” for the Act I curtain. The Walt Disney “Snow White”-style reverie by a stoned Violet, embroidered on from the movie, is mildly charming, but even it never finds an original groove.
Nor does Ms. Parton’s score, which includes some rockabilly raunch, rhythm-and-blues riffs, a likable song of self-explanation for Doralee (“Backwoods Barbie”) and a standard-issue anthem of empowerment called “Get Out and Stay Out,” which allows Ms. Block to do some “American Idol”-style belting.
The orchestrations infuse everything with instrumental layers that produce a 1970s dance-floor vibe and overwhelm the simpler charms of Ms. Parton’s melodies. Andy Blankenbuehler’s choreography embodies the same sensibility, with jutting, strutting disco moves applied to everything, sometimes wittily and sometimes to sinister, robotic effect, suggesting a hybrid of “Saturday Night Fever” and the grim office melodrama “Machinal.”
Come to think of it, it’s been quite a year for the 1970s on Broadway, what with the R. D. Laingian “Equus” (in the revival starring Daniel Radcliffe) and the imported Old Vic production of Alan Ayckbourn’s “Norman Conquests” trilogy. By the way, if you’re really interested in how the self-conscious sexual openness of that time transformed everyday lives, then “Conquests” is the ticket to buy.
Seen in conjunction with “9 to 5,” Mr. Ayckbourn’s comedies also offer an interesting lesson in the relativity of time in the theater. Though it takes seven hours to perform the three “Conquests” plays, it all seems to pass in a twinkling. At the intermission of “9 to 5,” I looked at my watch (at 9:30) and was surprised we hadn’t hit midnight.
9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL
Music and lyrics by Dolly Parton; book by Patricia Resnick, based on the 20th Century Fox film; directed by Joe Mantello; choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler; music direction and vocal arrangements by Stephen Oremus; sets by Scott Pask; costumes by William Ivey Long; lighting by Jules Fisher and Kenneth Posner; sound by John H. Shivers; imaging by Peter Nigrini and Peggy Eisenhauer; hair design by Paul Huntley and Edward J. Wilson; makeup by Angelina Avallone; technical supervisor, Neil A. Mazzella; production supervisor, William Joseph Barnes; associate director, Dave Solomon; associate choreographer, Rachel Bress; general management by Nina Lannan Associates; music coordinator, Michael Keller; orchestrator, Bruce Coughlin; additional orchestrations/incidental music arrangements by Mr. Oremus and Alex Lacamoire; dance music arrangements by Mr. Lacamoire; additional music arrangements by Kevin Stites and Charles duChateau; produced by Robert Greenblatt. Presented by Green State Productions, Richard Levi, John McColgan/Moya Doherty/Edgar Dobie, James L. Nederlander/Terry Allen Kramer, Independent Presenters Network, Jam Theatricals, Bud Martin, Michael Watt, the Weinstein Company/Sonia Friedman/Dede Harris, Norton Herrick/Matthew C. Blank/Joan Stein, Center Theater Group, Toni Dowgiallo and GFour Productions. At the Marquis Theater, 1535 Broadway, at 45th Street, (212) 307-4100. Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes.
WITH: Allison Janney (Violet Newstead), Stephanie J. Block (Judy Bernly), Megan Hilty (Doralee Rhodes), Kathy Fitzgerald (Roz Keith), Andy Karl (Joe) and Marc Kudisch (Franklin Hart Jr.).
THEATER REVIEW | '9 TO 5'
Sisterhood vs. Boss, on a New Battlefield
By BEN BRANTLEY
Give some credit to “9 to 5” — the overinflated whoopee cushion lodged at the Marquis Theater — for bucking this spring’s fashion trends. Can this gaudy, empty musical really be part of the same Broadway season that gave us the minimally decorated, maximally effective “Exit the King,” “God of Carnage,” “Next to Normal,” “Hair,” “Mary Stuart” and “Norman Conquests”?
Those shows strip down to modest sets (three of them use brick walls as backdrops) and, in many cases, small casts, the better to show off their considerable natural assets. But if ingenious austerity has replaced mindless opulence on main-stem stages, no one bothered to alert “9 to 5.”
Dolly Parton and Patricia Resnick’s musical adaptation of the 1980 movie about three women’s revenge on their sexist boss piles on the flashy accessories like a prerecession hedge funder run amok at Barney’s. Staged by Joe Mantello (who directed the fat fairy-tale cash cow “Wicked”), this show feels assembled by an emulous shopaholic who looked around at the tourist-drawing hits of the last decade and said: “I want some of that. And that. Ooh, and can I have that, too?”
The most essential recycled formula being used is one that has met with varying success on Broadway: Take a movie (or alternately, pop song book) with brand-name recognition, then exaggerate with wild, giant strokes whatever made it distinctive originally. In the case of “9 to 5,” this means turning up the volume on something that wasn’t exactly quiet to begin with.
Though released in 1980, the movie, directed by Colin Higgins from a script by Ms. Resnick, feels very much a 1970s artifact. It reflects a time when the feminist movement (or the idea of it) was starting to settle comfortably into suburbia. In portraying three dissimilar women who found sisterhood in bringing down their nasty male employer, the film brought a topical sexual awareness to the classic little-guy-beats-the-boss fantasy. But its jokes and routines were clunky even then, and only the eccentric charisma of Lily Tomlin and Ms. Parton makes it watchable now. (Jane Fonda, playing the most inhibited of the three, gave an unconvincingly inhibited performance.)
The musical “9 to 5,” which overmilks and overmikes tuneful songs by Ms. Parton (who wrote the movie’s popular title number, which is the opener here), is at least blessed with the presence of Allison Janney. This deliciously droll actress is known for playing exceedingly competent people (“The West Wing” on television, “Present Laughter” on Broadway) with much more than mere competence, and her game but dignified professionalism is the show’s biggest asset.
Ms. Janney, as might be predicted, plays the Tomlin role: Violet Newstead, a wry, undervalued office manager. Joining her in the show’s central triumvirate are Megan Hilty as the curvaceous hillbilly secretary Doralee Rhodes (the Parton part) and Stephanie J. Block as the confidence-challenged, newly divorced Judy Bernly (the Fonda character).
Ms. Hilty, who here resembles Loni Anderson more than Ms. Parton, still does Dolly credibly in her line readings and her singing, while Ms. Block is rather wooden in a thankless part. Marc Kudisch takes on the uncomfortable duties of cartoon dartboard as Franklin Hart Jr., the lascivious boss they all loathe.
But this show isn’t about its stars. It’s about turning its feminist revenge story into an occasion for lewd slapstick (which feels about as up-to-date as the 1940s burlesque revue “Hellzapoppin ”) and a mail-order catalog of big production numbers, filtered through that joyless aesthetic that pervaded the 1970s. The show lumbers through its two and a half hours in a blur of heavy moving scenery (by Scott Pask), animated projections (by Peter Nigrini and Peggy Eisenhauer), sour-candy-color lighting (by Jules Fisher and Kenneth Posner) and costumes (by William Ivey Long) that reminds us that the Carter years were the nadir of 20th-century fashion
The comic sensibility certainly feels vintage, rather in the smirky mode of sitcoms like “Three’s Company.” The governing philosophy seems to be that it’s O.K. to leer if you wink at your own prurience. The opening sequence, which depicts people waking up to the title song, has a man in boxers strutting across the stage with a visible erection.
And while we’re meant to tut-tut when Hart salivates over the buxom Doralee, we are also meant to enjoy his enjoyment. Worse, we are encouraged to laugh when Hart finds himself staring into the less-than-perky bosoms of his sycophantic assistant, Roz Keith (the talented Kathy Fitzgerald).
The dumpy Roz has a sequence in which she communes with her inner red hot mama while visions of a topless (female) dancer and a topless, pec-flexing Hart undulate behind her. This takes place in the women’s bathroom. Ms. Janney has a fantasy number in which she strides past a line of male employees at urinals. (And, yes, there’s the joke of her not shaking the hand of someone who has just zipped up.)
That’s part of a production centerpiece in which Violet imagines herself as a corporate star, with a backdrop of fawning male dancers and projected headlines, a nod to the “Roxie” showstopper from “Chicago.” But despite Ms. Janney’s authority (never mind that she can’t really sing), the sequence feels ersatz, an extended quotation with no voice of its own.
That’s true of much of the show. Its broad flirtation with tastelessness reminds you of how stylishly Mel Brooks played with brazen vulgarity in “The Producers.” And — oh, dear — there’s even a flying actor sequence à la “Billy Elliot” for the Act I curtain. The Walt Disney “Snow White”-style reverie by a stoned Violet, embroidered on from the movie, is mildly charming, but even it never finds an original groove.
Nor does Ms. Parton’s score, which includes some rockabilly raunch, rhythm-and-blues riffs, a likable song of self-explanation for Doralee (“Backwoods Barbie”) and a standard-issue anthem of empowerment called “Get Out and Stay Out,” which allows Ms. Block to do some “American Idol”-style belting.
The orchestrations infuse everything with instrumental layers that produce a 1970s dance-floor vibe and overwhelm the simpler charms of Ms. Parton’s melodies. Andy Blankenbuehler’s choreography embodies the same sensibility, with jutting, strutting disco moves applied to everything, sometimes wittily and sometimes to sinister, robotic effect, suggesting a hybrid of “Saturday Night Fever” and the grim office melodrama “Machinal.”
Come to think of it, it’s been quite a year for the 1970s on Broadway, what with the R. D. Laingian “Equus” (in the revival starring Daniel Radcliffe) and the imported Old Vic production of Alan Ayckbourn’s “Norman Conquests” trilogy. By the way, if you’re really interested in how the self-conscious sexual openness of that time transformed everyday lives, then “Conquests” is the ticket to buy.
Seen in conjunction with “9 to 5,” Mr. Ayckbourn’s comedies also offer an interesting lesson in the relativity of time in the theater. Though it takes seven hours to perform the three “Conquests” plays, it all seems to pass in a twinkling. At the intermission of “9 to 5,” I looked at my watch (at 9:30) and was surprised we hadn’t hit midnight.
9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL
Music and lyrics by Dolly Parton; book by Patricia Resnick, based on the 20th Century Fox film; directed by Joe Mantello; choreography by Andy Blankenbuehler; music direction and vocal arrangements by Stephen Oremus; sets by Scott Pask; costumes by William Ivey Long; lighting by Jules Fisher and Kenneth Posner; sound by John H. Shivers; imaging by Peter Nigrini and Peggy Eisenhauer; hair design by Paul Huntley and Edward J. Wilson; makeup by Angelina Avallone; technical supervisor, Neil A. Mazzella; production supervisor, William Joseph Barnes; associate director, Dave Solomon; associate choreographer, Rachel Bress; general management by Nina Lannan Associates; music coordinator, Michael Keller; orchestrator, Bruce Coughlin; additional orchestrations/incidental music arrangements by Mr. Oremus and Alex Lacamoire; dance music arrangements by Mr. Lacamoire; additional music arrangements by Kevin Stites and Charles duChateau; produced by Robert Greenblatt. Presented by Green State Productions, Richard Levi, John McColgan/Moya Doherty/Edgar Dobie, James L. Nederlander/Terry Allen Kramer, Independent Presenters Network, Jam Theatricals, Bud Martin, Michael Watt, the Weinstein Company/Sonia Friedman/Dede Harris, Norton Herrick/Matthew C. Blank/Joan Stein, Center Theater Group, Toni Dowgiallo and GFour Productions. At the Marquis Theater, 1535 Broadway, at 45th Street, (212) 307-4100. Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes.
WITH: Allison Janney (Violet Newstead), Stephanie J. Block (Judy Bernly), Megan Hilty (Doralee Rhodes), Kathy Fitzgerald (Roz Keith), Andy Karl (Joe) and Marc Kudisch (Franklin Hart Jr.).