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ON THE RECORD: Goldrich & Heisler's Dear Edwina, and Douglas J. Cohen's The Gig
By Steven Suskin
18 Jan 2009
THE GIG [Jay CDJAY 1402]
Some musicals seem to get lost. Douglas J. Cohen raised eyebrows in 1987 with his unconventional and arresting Off-Broadway serial murder-musical, No Way to Treat a Lady. He returned in the mid '90s with The Gig, based on the 1987 film by Frank Gilroy. The show was developed at Manhattan Theatre Club and performed at Goodspeed's Norma Terris, after which it seemingly disappeared while occasionally surfacing in regional productions. The York Theatre produced a one-night concert version back in May 2006, and Jay Records — which has a long-term relationship with the York — has now released a CD based on that production while restoring Michael Gibson's full jazz orchestration.
The Gig passed me by when it was first produced, and did not seem especially enticing when the CD arrived recently. Upon pressing the play button, though, Cohen launched into his bravura opening sequence ("Farewell Mere Existence, Hello Jazz!") and I was instantly engrossed. Cohen takes six solitary characters, adrift in separate lives, and linked only by their Wednesday night jam session, and in 11 minutes builds the basis for a musical. From there on, I found myself listening intently to just about every moment of The Gig — a lost musical that, without this new CD, I don't suppose many would ever have a chance to discover.
Cohen, as in No Way to Treat a Lady, is a keen and clever composer/lyricist, with an offbeat sense and a penchant for sly surprises. One supposes there is a story behind the strange non-history of The Gig; certainly, the score deserves better than what seems to be one official New York performance over 14 years. The show is something of a Full Monty, albeit with clothes; Full Monty mixed with Sideman, perhaps. Building your musical around six equal-sized middle-aged male characters is not a recipe for instant success, perhaps, in the theatre of today and yesterday. Nevertheless, a listener stumbling upon this CD of The Gig might well be surprised by how very interesting it is.
The CD features William Parry, James Judy, Steve Routman, Herndon Lackey, Charles Pistone, Michael McCormick, and Michael James Leslie. Michele Pawk plays a cameo as Ricki Valentine, a has-been TV star just out of rehab whose act is — well, precisely what one might expect (highlighted by her born-again song, "Me and Mr. G."). Playing the small-town waitresses who hook up with the boys for two songs are Karen Ziemba and Jill Paice, no less. Stephen Berger makes a comedy contribution as the proprietor of the Catskill dive where the boys arrange "The Gig."
(Steven Suskin is author of the forthcoming "The Sound of Broadway Music: A Book of Orchestrators and Orchestrations" (Oxford) as well as "Second Act Trouble," "Show Tunes," and the "Opening Night on Broadway" books. He can be reached at Ssuskin@aol.com)
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