Review: APPLAUSE at Eli & Edythe Broad Stage

Musical Theatre Guild, the Los Angeles-based company that produces staged readings of long-forgotten, rarely seen musicals, has done it again with a stellar and highly entertaining production of the 1970 musical Applause. Based on the 1950 motion picture, All About Eve, the story depicts a battle between veteran stage diva Margo Channing and an effusively obsequious fan named Eve Harrington, whose perky exterior masks ruthless ambition to take anything and everything away from Channing, including her good-guy director and fiancé Bill Sampson. Applause played a one-night performance at the Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica on Sunday, February 15.

Making a musical out of All About Eve wasn't a difficult stretch, but it took a while to get done, due to an inadequate book by original librettist Sidney Michaels. In 1966, the team of Charles Strouse and Lee Adams (Bye, Bye Birdie) were signed to write the score, but it took three years for Betty Comden and Adolph Green to replace Michaels in writing the adaptation. As it turned out, it was worth the wait. Applause starred Lauren Bacall who was perfect in the role of the middle-aged Channing, who had better days behind her than before her and was looking over her shoulder with suspicion at her adoring fan.

Staged readings focus on the story and the score, with sets and costumes underplayed and actors required to hold scripts, but the excellence of the performance made you forget all of that quickly. The opening scene shows Channing presenting a Tony Award to Eve, who effusively thanks her for her mentorship and inspiration. From there we flash back a year-and-a-half as a fawning Eve makes her way backstage on the opening night of Channing's latest play to introduce herself. Although Channing is initially taken with her gushy admirer, her suspicions are quickly aroused as to Eve's motives, which play out in increasingly diabolical fashion during the play.

As Margo Channing, Barbara Carlton Heart is larger-than-life in a superb performance, knocking the ball out of the park in the first inning with her "I am" song, "But Alive," which showcases Lee Adams' brilliance as a lyricist. "But Alive" is meant to show Margo's ego and self-doubt at the same time, singing "I feel rotten yet covered with roses, younger than springtime and older than Moses." Heart even resembles Bacall's lanky, lean presence and her withering expressions as she beholds Eve with haughty askance is priceless.

[caption id="attachment_20468" align="alignleft" width="300"] Ashley Moniz as Eve[/caption]

Ashley Moniz plays the two-faced Eve brilliantly. At first, we doubt Margo's suspicion and paranoia, but when Eve takes a phone call and says the line, "Oh yes, I'll be there," said with barely disguised wicked enthusiasm, we instantly see her with her mask off. Moniz has a timorous tremor in her singing voice that is deceptively endearing, despite knowing that she has treachery on her mind.

Brian Kim McCormick is excellent as Bill Sampson, the only truly likable character among the other duplicitous creatures. Bill is loyal to Margo to a fault and truly loves her, and is the only one not to succumb to Eve's phony charms. Joshua Finkel plays the show-within-the-show's egocentric playwright Buzz, who falls easily for Eve's siren call, but then wonders aloud with glee what she sees in him, one of the show's funniest moments.

The only character who is not fooled by Eve is Duane, Margo's gay hairdresser, played by Taubert Nadalini who stays one step ahead of Eve, seeing right through her schemes, every throwaway line hitting home. In a cast full of outstanding performances, it is Nadalini who steals every scene.

[caption id="attachment_20474" align="alignright" width="300"] Melissa Lyons Caldretti (Bonnie) and Taubert Nadalini (Duane)[/caption]

Strouse and Adams' score has been unfairly under regarded. Although the title song was the only one to emerge and stand on its own outside of the show, there are others whose brilliance deserve more credit, especially "Welcome to the Theatre," the cynical flip side of "Applause." Whereas "Applause" is effusively starry-eyed in its depiction of why actors sacrifice everything just to hear audiences cheer, "Welcome to the Theatre," sung by Margo, drips with cynicism and vitriol. It's the corrosive opposite of "There's No Business Like Show Business" and Heart nails it.

Other songs worth mentioning include the solid opening number, "Backstage Babble," Eve's triumphant (for the moment) solo,"One Hallowe'en," and Margo's 11:00 number, the fabulous "Something Greater." Not to be forgotten is the song inspired by the film's most famous line, uttered by Bette Davis: "Fasten Your Seat Belts," sung by a slightly tipsy Margo in a sign of her insecurity after realizing Eve's true motives.

Applause featured an outstanding 17-piece on-stage orchestra, led by Brad Ellis. To MTG's credit, they announced a disclaimer from the stage defending the retention of the word "gypsies" in the libretto,  an affectionate term used in the theater to refer to nomadic singers and dancers who are the backbone of musical theater ensembles. The quintessential gypsy dancer, Bonnie, is well played by Melissa Lyons Caldretti, who does a terrific job on the show's title song.

Photos by Gabriel Navarro