A Chorus Line

On Sunday to see A Chorus Line at the Capitol Theatre. Thoroughly enjoyable, despite a nasty throat tickle that drove me out into the gilded foyer during “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three”. (Fortunately, my least favourite number in the whole show.) 

I’d never seen this musical staged before, although I’d seen the film as a teenager in the mid-1980s. Afterwards, I dragged my mother off to the specialist record shop near Michael’s Music Room (its name is escaping me just now) where the sales assistant advised us that the Broadway version was superior to the motion picture soundtrack. Nowadays, owning both, I can confirm he was right; the numbers added or updated for the film didn’t really improve on the impeccably honed score of the original. In particular, “Let Me Dance for You” – Cassie’s big number in the film – isn’t a patch on “The Music and the Mirror”.

Which is a long way of saying that I was glad to be finally seeing the show in its original form.

And now I hear of the death of its composer, Marvin Hamlisch, on Monday. He has gone to the great chorus line in the sky. Sobering – especially since he was only 68.

Apart from A Chorus Line, I became aware of Hamlisch through the family record collection: his soundtrack for The Sting, which also introduced me to the music of Scott Joplin, and the soundtrack for They’re Playing Our Song. 

In A Chorus Line I thought I’d recognised a sly nod to They’re Playing Our Song when Cassie sings, “Give me the chance to look forward to sayin’: Hey listen, they’re playing my song.” On checking the chronology on the weekend, though, I realised the nod would have to have been in the other direction if at all.

Seeing it at the Capitol Theatre seemed appropriate. In the old days, before the theatre was restored, that block was also home to the ballet studio of Joan and Monica Halliday. The Hallidays. I didn’t study there, but I did attend the intensive summer and winter schools. And it seemed lyricist Edward Kleban had been there himself when I heard his chorus for “At the Ballet”:

Up the steep and very narrow stairway
To the voice like a metronome
Up the steep and very narrow stairway
It wasn’t paradise, it wasn’t paradise,
It wasn’t paradise,
but it was home.

Not glamorous at all, but very, very serious. Does that song resonate with me? Well, I guess I’d probably take Bebe’s verse. 

A Chorus Line is in some ways a disturbing musical. Especially in productions where the director-choreographer Zack remains disembodied, Svengali-like and more than a little creepy – which is how I remember the film. There’s an underlying metaphor that can cut too close to the bone. But when I first saw it, it was just a strong, coherent musical with really well-written songs, a simple, compelling narrative and some fabulous choreography. “One. Singular sensation…!” Later, on learning how these stories had all come from workshops with real Broadway chorus dancers, it seemed more touching. And you don’t have to be a hoofer to feel keenly the experiences of Cassie (“Let me wake up in the morning to find I have somewhere exciting to go”) or Paul (whose collapsed knee and likely ended career prompts “What I Did For Love”).

Some obituaries…

New York Times
Chicago Tribune
LA Times