I am not a theater critic. Among the many hats that I wear, book reviewer, movie reviewer, bookseller, guy on the internet who talks about his dog too much, theater critic is not one of them. And there's a reason for that, I don't really see shows all that often. I think I can count the shows I've seen on one hand unless you count the Spider-Man, Scooby-Doo, and Barney the Dinosaur live shows at Radio City Music Hall. The reasoning is mainly the price, despite living in New York City, going to a Broadway show is reserved for a special occasion and usually I only get to go if the tickets were won in a contest or as a gift. I bring this up because for my birthday this year, my parents got tickets for my brother and me to go see Mr. Saturday Night at the Nederlander Theatre.
Let's get this out of the way first, Billy Crystal's still got it! It makes me wonder why the Academy Awards hasn't had him back in over a decade to host when he's still got both the timing and physical ability required to host the show, and considering he's only hosted nine times, having him back one final time to make an even ten hosting gigs seems like a no-brainer to me. Besides, how else am I going to hear funny songs about the Best Picture nominees set to old lounge singer standards?
Watch this and tell me you aren't charmed, I dare you!
But back to the show, I admit, despite being a huge fan of Billy Crystal since I was a kid, I haven't seen all of his movies, which means that before seeing the show, all I knew about Mr. Saturday Night was what I remembered from listening to the audiobook for “Still Foolin' 'Em”. It's not for lack of trying, it's just never been on any streaming service I own and I sort of wait for movies I wanna watch to come included. So I was going into this knowing that it was about an aging comedian and that was basically it, which I think might have been a good thing.
I won't spoil too much, but the premise of Mr. Saturday Night: The Musical is that Buddy Young Jr. (Billy Crystal), an aging comedian deals with the trials and tribulations of his waning comedy career, when he gets a unique opportunity to return to the limelight, but has to grapple with self-sabotage, lack of support from uncaring showbiz bigwigs and his fractured relationship with his daughter Susan (Shoshana Bean). The musical features a lot of names that I had heard of, or who had appeared in things I'd seen, Buddy's wife Elaine is played by Randy Graff who originated the Broadway role of Fantine in Les Miserables in 1987, Buddy's brother Stan is played by David Paymer, who played the same role in the 1992 film, which is an inspired piece of casting, and two of the actors in it, in addition to other credits, both appeared in recurring roles on the CBS Sherlock Holmes adaptation Elementary, Chasten Harmon who plays Annie Wells, Buddy's new agent (a role originally played by Helen Hunt in the film) and Jordan Gelber, who plays several roles across the show. Gelber also originated the role of Brian in Avenue Q which I always forget about because I saw him on Elementary before I ever saw Avenue Q.
Going into the show I knew that it was going like it, because I've never disliked any Billy Crystal project, and I absolutely adored it. The story was fantastic, touching and heartfelt in all the right places, I particularly love that it's very family-oriented, particularly the relationship between Buddy and Stan, and the music was phenomenal. So much so that I've been listening to the soundtrack nonstop since I saw the show back in July. And with the show only running until September 4th, (which has passed since I started writing this review) it might be the only way for most to experience it, which I highly recommend, because the music is great, I particularly like “A Little Joy”, “Timing”, “Unbelievable”, and “Stick Around”, but every song is a gem.
The entire soundtrack for your listening pleasure
Since seeing the show, I have now watched the original film and you know what? It makes me appreciate the musical even more. The original film performed poorly at the box office despite it being a great film, in my humble opinion, and I think the musical learned a few lessons from that experience. The musical and the movie end the same way, mostly, with Buddy reconciling with Susan, but because the musical puts more work into Susan's character, it resonates a lot more. And Buddy's acerbic tendencies play a lot better on stage than they do in the movie for some reason that I can't put my finger on. I still enjoyed the film, but I think I'm glad I saw the musical first, because I would've just been comparing it the whole time, whereas I had the reverse happen, but I'm able to appreciate the changes more.
If I had one critique, it's that they don't really pay off anything for Stan, Buddy's brother, in regards to the fact that they establish that Stan had originally asked out Elaine, Buddy's future wife, hours before she met Buddy, and she fell in love with Buddy instead. They mention it once in passing where Elaine off-handedly jokes to Stan that it was almost them together, but apart from that, it seems a strange plot element to include that sort of goes nowhere. In the original film, Stan is shown to have a crush on her from afar, but when Buddy sends Stan to bring Elaine backstage so that Buddy can meet her, she's obviously already interested in Buddy and Buddy alone, so any unresolved feelings are entirely on Stan's side, while Elaine in the musical had the experience of meeting Stan before seeing Buddy perform which was a strange addition to me.
The in-theater experience was also very interesting, like I said, I haven't been to many shows but this one felt very different, which I imagine is because it was Billy Crystal, who is a stand-up comedian before anything. Everyone clapped in between songs, which I thought was not the proper way to act at a show, but evidently it was different for this show, but the actors seemed okay with it, so I guess it was what they wanted. After all, a huge part of the show is that Buddy interacts with the audience during “Buddy's First Act” to do what he calls “Yiddish scat-singing” which would fall flat if the audience wasn't providing the “Oys” and “Veys”.
What's the difference between jazz scat singing and Yiddish scat singing? Flem!
My brother and I were also among the youngest people in the audience, the entire theater had a faint smell of ointment. (I kid, I kid) Which isn't surprising, because of course, Billy Crystal is an older comedian, but I think there's something for everyone in this show, particularly if you enjoy Billy Crystal's unique brand of comedy. Of course, you can't go see the show anymore because it's no longer playing, but I definitely recommend checking out the soundtrack and hopefully we'll see some sort of full release of the show in full so that everyone can experience this wonderful show. I don't think I'm the type of person to do ratings, but I'd give it five out of five stars and two thumbs up.