Cabaret Review by Myra Chanin . . . .
Ricky Ritzel is an exceptionally inventive, highly motivated, knowledgeable theatrical anthropologist, ready to rummage through mounds of musical comedy detritus for some erroneously overlooked tunes and inadvertently neglected lyrics that deserved fairer fates than making their debuts and exits on the same stage on the very same weekend.
From 2015 to 2023, Ricky was ringmaster, organizer, accompanist, and performer of a unique, monthly, delicious confection called Ricky Ritzel’s Broadway, where Ricky unearthed faded Broadway posters for one musical hit, one flop, and one with mixed (good and rotten) reviews. He summarized outrageous plots, shared smarmy gossip, selected the songs, accompanied the singers, and, for five consecutive years, won the MAC Award for best continuing series, finally withdrawing from competition to give others a shot. In 2023 Ricky reduced the frequency of this series from ten per annum to three and expanded their range to include one-person Broadway concerts. At his most recent event, on the last Friday in April, Ricky invited the equally knowledgeable Michael Dale to be his co-host. Michael survived 20 years of performing in dinner theater, summer stock, and open-bar, audience-participation murder mysteries, before grabbing Broadway.com’s offer to be their Chief Theater Critic.
Ricky and Michael were perfectly matched know-it-all peas-in-a-pod. Their banter was witty and informative. They were equally adroit at topping each other’s juicy gossip and curious production minutiae. I was pleased with the seven musicals on their list. The worse they were the funnier Ricky and Michael’s repartee. I laughed too long and hard to make my scribblings readable, but I remembered every word they exchanged when Ricky reported that a new book was being written for an upcoming revival of Pal Joey. Michael replied Pal Joey already had more books than the Old Testament.
Threepenny Opera starts this show with Polly Peachum, the most recent Mrs. The Knife (Tara Martinez) singing “The Barbara Song,” which is confusing and might be the result of a mistranslation because there ain’t no Barbaras in this cast. The song is about choices between respectable and bad guys. Polly chooses the bad guy, and the translator of the libretto, ignored the English meaning of the German word barbarisch: brutal and violent; and, God only knows why, possibly hoping Ms. Streisand might audition, chose an English name—Barbara—that sounded very similar to the German adjective instead.
The Teddy in Teddy and Alice was the first President Roosevelt. Alice was his stubborn and independent daughter, the only issue of his first wife, also named Alice (Tara Martinez), who died two days after their baby was born. Teddy keeps busy controlling both the US, his daughter, and her rivalry with his second wife Edith (Mardie Millit), to the John Philip Sousa marches with lyrics by Hal Hackady, who also wrote the lyrics to “Let’s Go, Mets,” Michael Dale’s favorite song, commissioned by advertising executive Jerry Della Femina, author of a 1971 bestseller about advertising that’s still in print: From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor.
Jubilee was the excuse by Moss Hart and Cole Porter for taking a long luxury cruise with families, friends, and assistants, to write about a royal family using the threat of revolution as an excuse to abandon the throne and just have fun. “Just One of the Those Things” and “Begin the Beguine” made their first appearance on the high seas, but Ricky and Micheal picked “The Kling-Kling Bird on the Divi-Divi Tree,” a Noel Coward parody about a Jamaican botanical garden, with racy lines for Aaron Morishita to belt out as if he’d found cocaine and was riding its kick.
The Life, Cy Coleman’s musical about Times Square pimps and sex workers, had great syncopation, with Jon Satrom, urging his hookers to “Use What You Got” to get what you want; Anna Anderson complaining she was getting too old for the world’s “Oldest Profession”; and, Sidney Myer explaining how to get “Easy Money” – just reach out and take it. Lyrics were by Ira Gassman, the advertising copywriter whose previous claim to fame was penning the catchphrase for Bounty paper towels being the “quicker picker upper.”
Tovarich is about a banker who hires two exiled, impoverished Russian nobles as servants until a Commissar comes to dinner and outs them and also tries to get money given to them by the Czar for safekeeping to fund a counter-revolution, to no avail. Michael Dale showed us what his dinner theater persona could do as he and Mardie Millit sang “Stuck with Each Other,” boldly enough to make peace and call each other Tovarich
Suzanne Somers’ Blonde in the Thunderbird (Ken and Mitzie Welch), lasted for eight performances after receiving the worst reviews I ever read, except for one rave from (gulp!) Michael Dale, who called her a satirical genius many times . . . in what had to be a satirical review. Somers swiped one of the best songs ever written, “Fifty Percent,” from Ballroom (Billy Goldenberg and Alan and Marilyn Bergman), about a widow who falls in love with a married man and would rather have 50% of him than all of anyone else at all. At the request of Madame Ritzel, Sidney Myer sang the song as coming from a gay man for an only partially available straight or down-low gay man with tremendous tenderness and passion. As the last words of love left his lips, the audience exploded.
Then it was Ricky’s turn to close the show with a song from Mayor (about Ed Koch), “You Can Be a New Yorker, Too,” but fortunately we all already were.
The first of Ricky Ritzel’s next two Ricky Ritzel’s New Broadways will be performed at Don’t Tell Mama at 7 PM on Friday, October 25, 2024 (subject/theme to be announced); and on Friday, November 29, 2024, same time same place, this one about famous concerts on Broadway.
Each show is different and special and the room is usually sold out. It might be a good idea to book a seat in advance—like today—if you’d like to see it.
Ricky Ritzel’s Broadway took place April 26, 2024, at Don’t Tell Mama (343 West 46th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues). For upcoming performances, go to www.donttellmama.com
Photos: Maryann Lopinto (except the cover photo, which is courtesy of Don’t Tell Mama)
